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Wagestream 
Wagestream
The financial wellbeing app founded with charities, designed for frontline workers, built around pay 📲 💜
Published Nov 3, 2023
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Why are women disadvantaged when it comes to accessing credit?
Financial inclusion, in particular how financial inclusion intersects with diversity, equity and inclusion policies at work is becoming increasingly recognised by researchers and employers alike.
For example, research from PwC and TotallyMoney shows that on average, women have a credit score that's 10 points lower than men and this persists through their lifetime.
This means that women are not only less able to access credit, but any credit they do access costs them more for them than for men.
There is no easy answer to why this is the case, but standout factors include: the gender pay gap (women are earning less), unaffordable childcare (they are sacrificing working hours), and statistically lower levels of financial confidence (they are hesitant to access certain products).
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Evidently, this is unfair, but what makes it a DE&I issue for employers?
One of the drivers of financial exclusion is low and variable pay.
Guess what? Women do most of the low paid work both in the UK and globally. In the UK women represent just under half of the workforce (around 48%) but do close to 60% of the low paid work.
They also do more part time work and more unpaid care. This means that when you're thinking about policies that impact the lowest paid members of your workforce, chances are these policies are disproportionately going to impact women. Small, positive changes such as setting consistent and sufficient hours can be meaningful for closing this credit score gap.
Want to learn more about how you can tackle financial exclusion within your organisation? In our latest research, Essential and Excluded, we analysed how financial exclusion impacts the shift and frontline workforce - in a study of 11,000 workers, and what employers can do to help.
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