Maori women on money matters
A report into Maori women’s money management makes grim reading, but behind the words lies a more uplifting story.
Spending Habits of Maori Women by Dr Pushpa Wood from the Westpac Massey Fin-Ed Centre reveals the spending habits of 51 women, mainly from South Auckland.
It found 60 per cent had never saved money.
Just over half said ‘‘major purchases’’ weren’t planned, but were made ‘‘spontaneously’’, and only half could survive a month if they lost their job.
Many were stuck in a ‘‘crisis mode’’ of living, Wood found, often having to borrow for necessities like food and power, often from finance companies. Nine in 10 of them feared for the future.
But many of the women who took part in the research, which involved keeping spending diaries and undergoing a financial health check, said their lives had improved from the skills they’d learnt.
One, speaking in a hui at the Te Whanau Rangimarie centre in Mangere, said she’d cut up a Q Card on which the limit had been lifted without her permission.
Many continued to keep spending diaries, and were now putting aside money each week, often as a result of having cut some ‘‘wants’’ from their weekly shops.
In Maori households women faced challenges not shared by their peers in Pakeha households when trying to apply newly learnt money skills.
Duties and obligations to whanau could trump household needs when it came to money, Wood reported.
One of the research participants said she still lent money to relatives when asked, but after taking part in the research, she began setting a repayment date, after which the sum to be repaid was higher.
Another of the women reported being able to better guide relatives, such as being able to show them how to work out the full cost of buying things using credit.