Blog 4. Gender Roles and Financial Decision Making

In this blog I will discuss how gender roles influence financial decision-making in terms of my family. Throughout time, societal ideals have heavily influenced the roles men and women play when it comes to financial literacy.  Men are socialized to be the head of the household, and in American society specifically, are expected to pay during dates. Whereas, women are typically socialized to be the homemaker/caregiver, which takes precedence over anything in relation to maintaining the home and family. Societal expectations would also suggest that women tend to be more inclined to save their money and save extra for household essentials where men tend be more focused on investing for the future and to spend any extra income on personal wants and hobbies.

Gender roles definitely played an apparent role in my family growing up. The main examples of this were whenever we went out to eat at restaurants or to any type of family outing, my dad would be the one to always front the bill. He was more of breadwinner despite my mom also working a well-paying full-time job.  I think that can mainly be attributed to the type of work and of course the wage gap. My mom would take care of the groceries, household items, and anything for us kids, whether it was clothes, school supplies, and gifts for holiday celebration like Easter or Christmas. While My mother has always been one to save her money, and was careful when spending it, she was drawn to spending on things to make up the home, while I think that fits the gender role, my mom has a big interest in interior design. My father splurges on things related to his interests, like electronics, concert tickets, and car memorabilia.

 I find that gender roles have a smaller impact on how my partner, and I handle finances. While my partner does focus more on earning more money and investing, he is still cautious about saving and not splurging even on things he wants. I have moments of splurging especially on things related to my hobbies and interests, there is research that suggests women will tend to overspend the money which can be contributed due to things like stress. There are times that idea applies to me, but I will say that I am just as cautious with saving and knowing my limits. My mom did give me basic financial tips as I got older as she didn’t want what happened with her and my dad when they divorced and had several financial burdens. Since my parents had a shared bank account and both contributed to the house I grew up in and were unable to compromise during the separation which led them to filing foreclosure and wrecking both of their credit, which I know my mom has worked hard on budgeting and even to this day has budgeted and saved to recover her credit.  This impacted how I keep my finances separate from my partner, where we split the bills for rent, groceries, and utilities and when it comes to spending, we both take turns treating each other. While this may be out of the societal norm, we find that it makes us feel secure in our dynamic. We also never argue about finances, which sometimes