This week Iona Bain, founder of the Young Money blog, joins the podcast to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on women's and young people's finances. With women facing disproportionate challenges and caring responsibilities in a world in lock-down, we look at whether government and the financial sector are doing enough to support them. Iona argues that we should be particularly concerned about the long-term impact on the "coronial generation", the young people entering the work force at this time of crisis. She makes the case for the importance of this generation to our long-term prosperity and sets out why we should consider a debt jubilee. Find out more about Iona and money tips for young people at youngmoneyblog.co.uk
01:17 About Iona's pioneering Young Money blog
02:12 The impact of COVID-19 on young people - the millennials and the "coronials"
04:11 The economic impacts of the crisis in the UK
06:53 How women are drawing the short straw
11:35 The long-term impacts on the coronial generation and rethinking university education
14:01 The case for a debt jubilee
21:11 Who is benefitting from banks' measures to address the crisis
24:23 The need to know your financial rights - how can we get the message out?
25:50 Why women's financial independence should no longer be up for debate
29:47 Financial education doesn't belong in maths classes
31:32 A feminist financial system - Iona's take
34:11 Wrapping up and a reflection on two themes coming up repeatedly in the Feminist Finance podcast:
Alice Merry (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast that takes a feminist look at the world of money. My name is Alice Merry, and this is the Feminist Finance Podcast.
Alice Merry (00:16):
Today I spoke with Iona Bain, and we took on the topic of the financial implications of COVID, particularly on women and particularly on young people. Iona is particularly well-placed to talk about this topic. She's a writer, author, speaker, broadcaster, and she's the founder of the pioneering Young Money Blog, which is the first and only British blog dedicated to young people's finances. Iona is a regular presence on TV and radio, and she's a lead feature writer for the Financial Times and regular contributor to BBC programs like Women's Hour, News Night, Money Box, and many more. She published her first book, Spare Change, in 2016 and is currently working on a followup.
Alice Merry (01:05):
Thank you, Iona. Big pleasure to have you here on the Feminist Finance Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.
Iona Bain (01:10):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Alice Merry (01:12):
Thank you. Maybe you can start by telling us a little bit about Young Money.
Iona Bain (01:17):
I set up the Young Money Blog in 2011, after the last financial crash. I was a graduate who was struggling to find work and I had to move back home and live with my parents in Edinburgh in Scotland because I just couldn't achieve financial independence. And that meant I felt very uncertain and worried about my future. And I realized that I knew next to nothing about personal finance and that there was very little coverage out there for my generation when it came to money that was down to earth and accessible and empathetic. So I thought, "Well, why don't I start a blog?" That's what I did. And nine years on, here I am. I've managed to make a living out of talking about young people and their finances. And right now it seems that conversation has never been more relevant.
Alice Merry (02:12):
I was going to say, this does have some echoes to some extent of the financial situation that especially young people might be finding themselves in to the one which in fact, you and I both graduated, probably I think around the same time, so you know, very sympathetic to that situation. Are you seeing young people face the same kind of difficulties now?
Iona Bain (02:33):
Well, it's tricky because young is a very broad category. So there is the millennial generation. I'm not a huge fan of that label, but it can be a useful shorthand for our peer group who were leaving school, graduating and starting the world of work around about the time of the last financial crash. And our generation was just starting to find our feet and establish ourselves as this new crisis came along. So we've suffered this real double whammy. But I think it's the younger people, those who are leaving school and starting in the world of work now, they're the ones I feel particularly sorry for, because this financial crash will far eclipse the one we had to endure in 2008. The prospects of the Coronial Generation, if you like, are going to be far more uncertain.
Iona Bain (03:33):
And in a sense with Young Money Blog, I had hoped that maybe by this point, I'd have better news to bring young people that I'd be able to report in a more optimistic, upbeat way about the future for young people in their finances. So it's very dispiriting to be almost back at square one, if not taking further steps back. But at the same time, I'm very glad that the blog can really come into its own again and be part of the conversation about how we help young people get through this new crisis and hopefully not just survive it, but thrive in the long term as well.
Alice Merry (04:11):
This crisis is hitting everywhere in the world, but for people who are not based in the UK, could you tell us a little bit about the specific economic impacts that have been found in the UK so far from this crisis?
Iona Bain (04:26):
Sure. Well, the economic impact so far has been devastating as it has been for all Western countries where the virus has really taken hold. We are in a technical recession, that was confirmed by the Bank of England very recently. And the consensus is that GDP, gross domestic product in this country will fall this year by around 15%. And that would be the worst recession in the UK for 300 years. So far worse than 2008. By far the worst in modern times. And now the debate is turning to whether or not we're going to enter a depression with GDP unable to recover for potentially years. So I think the outlook is getting worse all the time here in this country, and there are lots of doubts about whether we're going to have that V-shaped recovery, that the experts talk about a lot, because we don't know when we're coming out of lockdown. We are starting to understand it's going to be a very gradual process with only certain businesses being allowed to go back to some kind of normality within the next few months. And with that comes so much uncertainty, zero chance of planning anything for the long term.
Iona Bain (05:43):
In this country we have a chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, coming up with lots of schemes to try and keep the economy going. And some of them have actually been a lot more advanced and progressive than in other countries, but they can't continue forever. And I think there are big questions about how sustainable something like the job retention scheme is, where the government essentially pays the salaries of workers up to £2,500 a month, 80% of their normal salary for three months, at least, but potentially longer. That situation is not sustainable because we've only just heard this week that in fact, the government is now effectively paying most of the population... most of the population is on the government payroll now, if you combine the furloughed workers, those who've been put on this job retention scheme, with pensioners, those who work in the public sector and so on. So it's an extraordinary situation that we're in. And at the moment, the government is throwing the kitchen sink at trying to keep the economy going, but who knows how long that support can last.
Alice Merry (06:53):
And it would be interesting to know how these economic implications that you're talking about and maybe some that may come as some of the support starts to taper off, how do you see that affecting women perhaps differently to men?
Iona Bain (07:07):
Well, so far I think the lockdown has affected women more than men because of several factors. Firstly, women are more likely to work in sectors hit by the lockdown, particularly young women. I think it's about 36% of young women compared to 25% of young men who are working in sectors that have been shut down like restaurants, hospitality, travel, tourism, so on. And those women, if they've been furloughed, arguably they may be better off than a lot of other women, but they still are only receiving 80% of their pay. So they've seen a 20% pay cut and that would be a shock to most people I think.
Iona Bain (07:52):
Then there are the women who are self-employed and part-time workers. And actually it's astonishing to see just how much women make up the self-employed and part-time workforce in the UK. And for them at the moment, their only fallback is the benefit system, which has been beefed up admittedly, the minimum amount that you can get in the UK through our main welfare payment, which is Universal Credit is £94.25 a week. And it's better than it used to be, it used to be about £70 or so, but it's not a lot to live on. It's not particularly sustainable for the longterm. I think a lot of women would struggle to really survive on that amount in the longterm. And that would certainly make them worse off than somebody who can just carry on earning their income throughout this crisis.
Iona Bain (08:44):
And then women are more likely to be in poverty. They are more likely to be heading up single parent households and those households are more likely to be in poverty. And even women who potentially still able to earn a decent income may have had to have given up work or scale back their hours in order to look after children because in the UK schools are shut and it's down to parents to homeschool their children. I haven't seen the research yet that confirm this, but I will be gobsmacked if we don't discover that it's women who are taking up the bulk of that unpaid work during this time and potentially in the longterm, really holding back their employment prospects, their earning prospects. Who knows, will we see a lower number of women taking up senior roles and climbing the career ladder than we would have seen otherwise? Who knows. That is a longterm consequence that we're yet to find.
Iona Bain (09:39):
And then also financial abuse is a big issue because at the moment. There are lots of concerns about women who are stuck at home and are stuck potentially with abusive partners. We now know that financial abuse is a big part of domestic and emotional abuse within relationships. And that partners use finances as a way to control, not always women, but for the most part, it is women who are the victims of that financial abuse. So there are just so many ways in which women are more likely to be worse off as a result of coronavirus, at least financially, economically. Overall, the research shows that if you're young, if you're low paid, if you're a woman, you really draw the short straw when it comes to this crisis.
Alice Merry (10:28):
It's interesting, isn't it, I feel like a lot of the structural inequalities that were all ready there, you mentioned financial abuse, care arrangements, so many of these things were all ready there but almost quite ignored, have really come into the light during this crisis and they've become unignorable in a way.
Iona Bain (10:48):
Absolutely. I think there will be a clamor for so many things to change after this crisis, but particularly, you're right, it has shone a light on these inequalities that we all know exist. But because this lockdown is such a new situation for everybody and it's forcing people into very unnatural situations as well, longer term, I think it's going to be pretty unforgivable if things were to just go back to how they were. There'll be so much more pressure for wide-scale reform after this.
Alice Merry (11:24):
There could be perhaps be some upside in that case. I think we have to hope that some things might change.
Iona Bain (11:33):
Yeah, definitely.
Alice Merry (11:35):
I'm really curious, you mentioned this, I think you said "coronial generation" and that's a really interesting term. I was thinking about the fact that really our generation that came into the workplace during the financial crash and that has had a huge impact, I think on all the career trajectories of everybody who came into the workforce at that time. And so I'm just really curious to think about in 10 years time, what will be the impact on this coronial generation that's hitting the workforce right now?
Iona Bain (12:06):
That's a fascinating question to ponder. And obviously it's really hard to say right now what that generation will look like in another 10 years time. I think some of the interesting issues to consider are how they might view their education in light of what's happened. If a lot of them would have been heading to university next year, will they now be questioning whether that is actually a good investment of their time, not to mention their money? Because in the UK you have tuition fees that have been steadily climbing ever since they were first introduced in the 2000s by the Labor government back then. It has become a huge bone of contention in this country, just how much young people pay for their education now, compared to their parents who got free university education, who were exceptionally fortunate in that regard.
Iona Bain (12:57):
With a lot of them potentially not being able to go to university next year, or at least having to maybe just have their university experience purely online, well, will they pay tuition fees? Will they have those same living costs that our generation, the millennial generation just accepted as part of the university experience, but that we're still paying back through our pay packets? Because the way that the tuition fee system works in the UK is that it's actually more like a graduate tax. That's how it's been described a lot. So you get a certain amount of money taken out of your pay packet when you reach a certain level of earnings. And that's the way, that's how we pay for our education system in this country. It's a very flawed system and it's been under a lot of scrutiny for a long time, and maybe this crisis could be the tipping point for reforming that system. Certainly, I think a lot of younger people will be thinking twice about whether they're going to go through education in the way our generation just accepted it and grinned and bared it.
Iona Bain (14:01):
I think as well, this generation, unless we find a way to tackle the huge level of debts that we are now going to be saddled with as a result of this crisis. I think for me, the arguments potentially for a debt jubilee has never been stronger. And that sounds like a very radical and possibly quite left wing idea. In my mind, it shouldn't necessarily be that politically controversial to argue for it because I think that otherwise, what we're going to see is lots of younger people needing payment holidays from their debts at the moment, but then those payment holidays are going to... That's not debt written off forever. So the banks in this country have been asked to grant these payment holidays for anyone who's got mortgage, a loan, a credit card, any kind of personal debt really, but the payments are just going to be deferred to a point in the future. And I'm worried that younger people will be essentially paying the debt of the coronavirus for years and years to come.
Iona Bain (15:07):
How is that going to dent their future prosperity? I think that it would be completely counter productive to saddle this generation with a huge level of debt that in a situation that wasn't their fault, that wasn't their creation. So we're going to have to think about that as well as having a broader debate about intergenerational fairness, which can become very controversial. It's very politically toxic in this country to talk about older people having had certain benefits, such as we have a system called the triple lock for pensions, which protects pensions incomes and ensures that they rise every year by the rate of inflation, earnings growth, or 2.5%, whichever is highest. And that last bit, 2.5% has ensured that the level of state pension in this country has grown a lot in recent times. A lot of questions have been asked about that because actually pensions have been enjoying higher incomes than workers and that's partly because a lot of them have got quite good private pensions as well. They have properties that are worth quite a lot of money that they've been able to sell and realize the value of and so on.
Iona Bain (16:22):
There are reasons perhaps why we need to reconsider this notion that elderly people are by default, more vulnerable than the rest of the population. That might not be the case. We need to think about new demographics that are vulnerable, like the young, women, and obviously those on low incomes.
Alice Merry (16:40):
I'm really intrigued by this idea that you mentioned of a debt jubilee. What might that look like? What kind of debts are we talking about canceling, how much? What would that look like?
Iona Bain (16:54):
I think that's a question that would have to be considered by the people who would have to administer the system. Thankfully, I wouldn't be in that position. So I think there will be a lot of complexities to work through. Yeah, I accept that it may be a bit of an idealistic. It may seem a bit pie in the sky, but I think the reason why I'm sensing that that might be the only way forward and certainly maybe not right across the board, but with certain products and services, I think that the longterm harm caused by people having to pay back debts is greater than the short-term cost of us writing off a fair amount of that debt, particularly for the younger generation.
Iona Bain (17:43):
I think we're going to enter a really interesting period now where in the UK. Austerity, which was the kind of government program of cutting public spending, is now seen as just not possible. It's off the table politically, and it's partly because the current government here was elected last year on the back of a poorer and a more disenfranchised citizens in the north of England who feel like they've really been locked out of a lot of economic growth and they actually voted for the Conservatives. So a lot of them, for the first time, hoping that there would be more investment, more rejuvenation of parts of the country that have been neglected for a long time. The consensus is that cutting public spending really is off the table, but that was obviously before this came along. And even now, that's not going to be popular, but we have a few policies that we could pursue.
Iona Bain (18:38):
We can continue to borrow internationally at low rates, which we are definitely going to do. And it clearly makes sense whilst interest rates on government borrowing remaine so low. But then in the long term, there's a question about whether we tax wealth rather than incomes, and whether we try and grow our way out of this crisis, whether we invest in infrastructure, whether we have potentially... I mean, the IFS, Institute for Fiscal Studies in this country has spoken about the need for post COVID projects and targeting the recruitment of labor for those projects in communities where people have been really badly hit by the crisis. So those who could end up unemployed, who could end up worse off, who could end up in debt, they need to be brought back into the economy. They need to be brought back into the mainstream of society in one way or another. Otherwise, we risk having millions of people out of work, in debt, going into poverty, some even going into homelessness and bankruptcy and a lost generation.
Iona Bain (19:42):
So we have to find a way to try and bring that lost generation back into the workforce, but also not ensuring that when they do come back into the workforce, all their take-home pay is going on debt repayments. That to me would be just mad and it would just be a complete folly in my opinion.
Alice Merry (19:56):
You're right. It might sound radical, but I think one thing that coronavirus crisis has shown us is that we will require radical measures to get us out the other side. This is not a normal situation or a normal policy environment.
Iona Bain (20:11):
No, absolutely. Ultimately, we all know and understand instinctively that it is younger people who are going to get the economy back on track. We all also understand that if younger people can keep more of their take-home pay and not have to pay unnecessary levels of taxes or indeed unnecessary levels of debt repayments. They're going to be out there in the economy, spending more, being more productive, climbing the ladder, buying homes, doing the things that propel the economy forward. So I don't really necessarily buy by the idea that it's a left wing argument per se to want a debt jubilee. I think we have to think holistically about how we help young people hold on some more of what they earn in the future, rather than seeing it all being spent on high housing costs, debts, taxes, student loans, and all sorts of other costs that their parents just didn't face when they were younger.
Alice Merry (21:11):
Absolutely. Absolutely. We've talked quite a lot about the government measures. You've pointed out the fact that government's throwing the kitchen sink at trying to solve this in the short term. And the financial sector is also playing a role. I think you've mentioned the fact that banks are implementing payment holidays. What are the measures the financial sector are taking? And I'd be particularly interested to know to what extent they're benefiting women and particularly young women.
Iona Bain (21:39):
Well, I can't say whether women are benefiting or being disadvantaged at the moment by the financial sector and not getting the help that they need. I haven't seen any evidence for that yet, but I am obviously keeping an eye on it and I'm sure we'll know more in the weeks and months to come. What I would say, is that there is quite a comprehensive package of measures to support households here in the UK at this time, which includes what I mentioned before, debt repayment holidays, but also just generally the option for people to talk to their banks and to ask for a fairer deal from them, whatever that might be. Just we are giving consumers more rights to ask their banks to help them at this time. Banks aren't obliged to help people, but they're under a lot of pressure to do so. And from what I can see at the moment, most of them are stepping up and providing the help that people need.
Iona Bain (22:44):
But I think there is a risk that men or women who are disenfranchised financially because of various factors, maybe they are currently in a financially abusive situation, they have mental health problems. They're not in touch with the media, the resources, the organizations that help people understand what's going on and what their rights are. There's a risk that they don't ask for the help that they need, that they bury their heads in the sand and they miss out on that support. They end up doing things that are really harmful, such as canceling their payments on their credit cards, harming their credit score, and then starting a potential spiral into bankruptcy or insolvency. That would be really catastrophic.
Iona Bain (23:28):
Also, the banks are just not necessarily doing a very good job of making people aware that these packages are available, that help is available for people. So I think that that points to a wider problem with financial education in this country. It is technically on the curriculum, but it's not really being taught that well in all places and it's not really in touch with the real financial world. It's just not doing a very good job of making people aware of what their rights are. And therefore, I think there is a risk that lots of people could end up missing out on this help and support. We could get a two-tier system where people are in the know, who generally are more affluent people anyway, that they take advantage of all the help that's available and the people who really, really need it, they don't.
Alice Merry (24:23):
Do you think there's ways that we could better get that information to the people who aren't getting it now?
Iona Bain (24:29):
Well, put it this way. I would absolutely love to see the government and the regulators in particular in this country spend as much time and effort on making people aware of the support measures that are available, not just for employers, but for households too. I'd love to see them spend as much time and effort and money on those messages as they do on the general message which we're all respecting to say at home, in order to protect the NHS and save lives. I think that ultimately households need to know that they are not going to end up being destitute as a result of what's happened.
Iona Bain (25:10):
And to you and I, who are relatively in touch with what's going on out there, we know that there are options there for us to phone up our bank and pause our credit card repayments. But does somebody on the bread line, does a single mum, know that that's possible? Does somebody who has been in and out of housing complexes, do they know that that's possible? There are just so many issues, I think, that come about as a result of the system that we have, which is you need to know your rights before you can get the deal that you deserve. And I think there's a lot that's problematic about that situation.
Alice Merry (25:50):
Definitely, completely agree. I wanted to ask you about a topic that I know is important to you, which is financial independence. I'm curious whether women's ability to be financial independent, maybe their perspective on financial independence, I wonder whether this will change during this crisis. You mentioned that when you graduated during the financial crash and you moved home with your parents, this kind of brought about a realization on your part around financial independence. I just wonder how this kind of might affect women's views on financial independence.
Iona Bain (26:33):
Well, I really hope that we have a sea change in how women view financial independence. I'm rather dismayed, I must admit, to still see that there is a debate even about whether women should be financially independent because, in my mind, it's a no brainer when we live in a society now where women can go out to work, where they can buy their own financial products, and where getting into a relationship is actually the biggest financial risk that they can take. If you put it in those terms, it seems very unromantic, but it's the reality. Unfortunately, women who may be conditioned when they are growing up to believe that getting married and being in a relationship with somebody who they share everything with, that that is the ideal and therefore your finances, your own finances should take a backseat in that aspiration.
Iona Bain (27:31):
Perhaps it's because of that conditioning, but lots of women still believe and still hold on to the idea that you can pool all your finances together with somebody else, and for that to completely work out 100% of the time in the long run. And I think that it is only those fortunate women whose marriages and relationships do survive and do last and who have got very open, loving, trusting relationships with their other half who can make that work. But if you have any doubt, or even if you didn't have any doubt, I think if you're just alive to the risks of living in the world today and relationships not always lasting and people changing and moving on and evolving and wanting to go their own way in life. I think if you aware of those risks and alive to those risks, you're never going to question the need for financial independence. It's just going to be something that you'll do and that it won't attract or take away from the relationships that you have with others. In fact, it will enhance trust. It will allow you to have a more honest and an open relationship in the longterm.
Iona Bain (28:40):
I think it's a very difficult conversation to have because it intersects with relationships and with love and with these very intimate, personal aspects of our lives, but we need to talk more openly about it because I've seen just how devastating it can be for women who've ended up seeing their relationships breakdown and pretty much all of their finances taken away from them. Their pensions are nonexistent as a result of having depended on their partners for so many years. They are embroiled in really ugly legal disputes, and they've just got so little to show for the time that they spent with somebody else financially. They bitterly regret not having made their own provisions when they could. I want to just communicate that to younger women that I see and come across and try and remove some of the stigma from talking about these issues.
Alice Merry (29:33):
I completely agree with you. I really think that what sometimes isn't stressed enough is that our financial independence is personal independence and our financial security is our personal security.
Iona Bain (29:46):
Exactly.
Alice Merry (29:47):
So important. Actually I had a really, really interesting conversation two episodes ago, with Nicola Sharp-Jeffs. She's the Founder and Chief Executive of the charity Surviving Economic Abuse. She made a point that really stuck with me. She said that the problem with financial education in schools is that it treats money as an abstract thing and it doesn't recognize the relationship between money and power and the relationship between money and freedom. I just thought that was really powerful.
Iona Bain (30:21):
Yeah, that is a fantastic insight. I completely agree. I think the problem that I see with financial education, which relates to that concern, is that it's all embedded within maths and it's moving more in that direction year by year. And that's really problematic because it compounds young woman's problems with money because they are also often conditioned to believe that they're not very good at maths. And I'm not particularly good at maths, and I've had to learn to separate really my squeamishness about maths and overcome some of that squeamishness with the fact that being good with money is an essential life skill for everyone. It's non-optional, it's non-negotiable, being good with money will benefit you in all sorts of ways, your mental health, not least, and your relationships. And by having that wider conversation about money at an earlier age and stage, we give young men and women a fighting chance of being able to achieve that financial independence, because I think that's what everyone needs to feel a sense of dignity and autonomy and pride in their lives.
Alice Merry (31:32):
That's such an important observation. I hadn't realized, but it's very true that it's so closely tied with maths and how kind of maths is such a small part of this. I wanted to finish by asking you a question that I ask every guest on this podcast, which is to help in defining this concept of feminist finance. So I'd love to know what would a feminist financial system look like to you?
Iona Bain (31:57):
I think a feminist finance system will respect women's rights and choice to go out and earn their own living. But I also think it won't penalize them if they make other life choices. So at the moment, our pension system is deeply wrapped up in the labor market and therefore inequalities in the pension system mirror inequalities in the labor market. Until we get to a point where we have completely removed all those inequalities within the labor market that I think we have got to act much sooner in the pension system. We have to remove that umbilical cord between private pensions in particular, and the time spent in the labor market. Because if women do take time out of work to look after children or parents, I think a big part of feminism is not stigmatizing women who want to make that choice, who don't just want to pursue high-flying careers.
Iona Bain (33:03):
True feminism is about having the choice to do what you want and not being penalized or stigmatized in any way for that. But unfortunately, the pension system does stigmatize and penalize women who take time out and I'd love to see alternative ways of building women's pension provision if they make those choices, rather than all the solutions and policies emphasizing the need to get women back into work, to pay lots of money for childcare. It's not always the panacea, I think, for this problem.
Iona Bain (33:35):
I think this time spent during lockdown, it will have a benefit possibly in reminding lots of men and women that being in a marriage or being in a partnership and having family is teamwork and it takes two to build a family in that way. And if it helps guys to imagine a kind of more fair and equal distribution of those caring responsibilities in the future, then maybe this will have been a good thing, but we need to try and support that with sensible policies, particularly when it comes to really important things like pensions.
Alice Merry (34:11):
Wow. What an interview! I had never heard the term coronials before, as in the coronial generation, that Iona used to refer to people that are coming of age, that are joining the workforce right now. And frankly, I'm really excited that this generation might get a memorable catchy name because nobody can ever remember the name of the generation that comes after millennials, and so they just keep bashing millennials, even though... Guys, we're not the young people anymore!
Alice Merry (34:40):
In all seriousness though, I'm really curious to think about this generation. As Iona and I discussed, we both come from the generation that kind of came of age and joined the workforce over a decade ago, around the time of the financial crash. And this has really shaped the careers and the lives and the choices of our generation. I'm really curious to see how coming of age, joining the workforce during this time of COVID is going to affect the finances, the choices, the world outlook and even the educational choices, as Iona mentioned, of this generation.
Alice Merry (35:21):
Apart from that, I wanted to just highlight two themes that came out in this interview. I think it's interesting because they are coming out repeatedly in the Feminist Finance Podcast. The first of those is care. And really we've seen through many of the interviews in the podcast, how care sits absolutely at the center of women's financial experiences of finance, of their economic situation, how caring for children, caring for elderly relatives, just the care expectations that society puts on women are so fundamental in their finances. It was interesting to discuss with Iona how this crisis has really put a spotlight on that issue, and there is perhaps just the small hope that that spotlight might stay after the end of this crisis.
Alice Merry (36:16):
The other issue is around financial education and financial independence. And it's been coming up in several interviews recently, how we need to take another look about how we are teaching young girls and young boys about money and about their relationship with money. I thought Iona put this so well. Learning about finance, learning about personal finance needs to be decoupled from maths. It's not just a matter of, "can you calculate compound interest?" I mean, that's useful, but what people need to be understanding and need to be thinking about and need to be learning about is what does money mean in their lives? What's the relationship between money and the choices they have, between freedom that they have in their life? What's the social context of money? What's the relationship between money and inequality, money and power, for example. And this is something I hope that we can keep exploring in the podcast.
Alice Merry (37:16):
For now, thank you so much for listening. Please do subscribe. Please do leave a rating and if possible a review. I love reading your reviews. It really lights up my day when someone writes to me and tells me that they're enjoying the podcast. So please pop a review. I read them all and I'd love to hear from you. Look forward to speaking next time. Bye for now.