Financial Literacy Among Women Working in Education Sector in Urban Punjab With Reference to Investment Pattern

Women have usually been more cautious and hesitant while planning for investment of surplus money. They used to save for future emergencies in the times of managing households only. Women did not have any awareness about the financial concepts and products .But in the present world, women is more educated and employed in many sectors, now. Therefore, it's necessary for them to be Their domain of knowledge increased manifold. They want to earn more but sometimes unable to decide about investment options. Therefore Women engaged in any occupation must be financially literate to take better and informed decisions for capital appreciation and a better future well being. Keeping in mind the contribution of working women towards national development researchers and policy makers are focusing on preferences for several investment options and the pattern of investment adopted by women. Few researchers have found various facts related to above questions. They , conducted studies on financial literacy among women, young students and males . These were conducted in states other than Punjab. Financial literacy among working women and investment pattern in Punjab is touched least. An effort has been done by the researcher to find financial literacy and pattern of investment among women working in the education sector. All the government, semi-government and private educational institutes are considered for data collection. Structured questionnaire was used for collection of data from 100 women working in education field in jallandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar and Bathinda district (Punjab) . Results of this study exhibited that fixed deposits , life insurance , gold /silver(bullion) are the preferred investment avenue among women. The investment pattern is influenced by their financial literacy skills . Women opt to invest for various reasons. Factors such as education of children, future financial needs, health purposes and fulfillment of needs of dependents are the main motivating and influencing factors for investment decisions. The use of Safe , fixed return bearing securities are found to be more preferred as compared to high risk securities. Family members, friends, newspaper, internet and email messages are the sources of information used by them to seek financial knowledge.