By Marni Baker Stein
When women become financially literate, it translates to much broader gains for gender equality. According to the International Labour Organization, financial literacy skills help women “achieve better business results, better equality, and more empowerment.” Yet, there are several challenges to getting there. UN research shows women experience greater barriers to benefiting from the digitalization of finance. They are held back by a lack of digital skills, low financial knowledge and are vulnerable to digital fraud. As financial products and services increasingly get delivered digitally, a survey by The World Economic Forum finds both digital and financial literacy will be essential for financial inclusion.
Building financial and digital skills can help many more women succeed in India’s thriving digital economy. With new ways of learning, this is now possible at scale. We are seeing women learners in India building skills online to take charge of their personal finances, launch businesses and enter high-demand fields. Enrollments among women learners in India for finance courses have grown a whopping 350% in the last five years, indicating the rising demand for such skills and signaling new opportunity areas.
Riding the entrepreneurship wave
As India doubles down on women-led development, opportunities are going to increase for women entrepreneurs. According to Niti Aayog, India could create more than 30 million women-owned enterprises — adding 150 to 170 million jobs — by accelerating women’s entrepreneurship. It identifies training and skilling in technical and business skills as a key need for an enabling ecosystem. On the ground, women learners are proactively filling skill gaps for entrepreneurial skills online. Fundamentals of Business Finance, with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, is among the top course choices for women learners here. Other popular courses include Fundamentals of Financial Planning, with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, From Idea to Startup by Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Entrepreneurship I: Laying the Foundation, by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Learning online gives women learners the flexibility to learn from anywhere, and pace their learning to balance home and family obligations. Another benefit women love is being able to stack and build a mix of skills — a learner might do a course on Business Analytics, that will help her make data-driven business decisions, and then follow that up with the fundamentals of e-commerce. In 2023, the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate was the top industry microcredential for women learners in India.
Financial literacy for every Indian woman
Whether it is creating a monthly budget at home, or knowing where to invest, women take a backseat when it comes to personal finance. TATA AIA’s survey on Financial Awareness, which polled women across 18 Indian cities, found 59% of working women don’t take decisions on their finances independently, and 65% in smaller cities don’t call the shots on financial planning. Learning online could help women flexibly build the skills to make their own financial decisions — from saving for retirement, to managing debt or even trading in the stock market.
Online learning particularly offers an opportunity to address challenges for India’s diverse female population, looking beyond urban India. With Artificial Intelligence, it is now possible to translate the same course into multiple languages quickly and cost efficiently. This would allow women to learn basic financial concepts in their native language like Hindi.
Digital and financial inclusion would need to go hand in hand, for the benefits to reach the most disadvantaged learners. Mobile-friendly online learning experiences and the option to learn offline could effectively reduce the digital divide, especially in regions where internet connectivity is unreliable, or when women cannot afford data costs.
Online learning can also help scale basic digital finance literacy for women, like digital payments on mobile. It can prepare micro-entrepreneurs to leverage platforms like the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), to grow their business. The TechEquity platform developed under India’s G20 presidency is a progressive step in this direction. By inclusively scaling learning for digital and financial literacy skills, it aims to benefit and empower women across G20 countries, with learning in over 120 languages.
Essential skills for new jobs and getting ahead
A growing number of Indian women are building financial literacy for business, layering on skills to move forward in their careers. Financial Markets from Yale University, Trading Basics from Indian School of Business, Introduction to Corporate Finance from the University of Pennsylvania and Private Equity and Venture Capital from Università Bocconi are among the most popular Finance courses for women learners in India.
Python and Statistics for Financial Analysis from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is another top course for women learners, reflecting the growing importance of digital skills in Finance.
Women are also enrolling for industry micro-credentials created by leading employers, to prepare for entry-level Finance roles. Courses like the Tally Bookkeeper Professional Certificate and PwC GST Taxation Executive Professional Certificate are equipping women, even with no prior experience, with skills for jobs in Finance and Commerce fields. PwC India created the Goods and Services Tax (GST) course after identifying a massive demand for professionals with a knowledge of GST, to fill tax-related roles. Supporting women from diverse backgrounds to build such entry-level skills online would equip thousands more to contribute to the digital economy.
Online learning can effectively address key barriers women and girls face in becoming financially literate. It can also offer new approaches for the government and enterprises to build financial literacy skills inclusively. This would be critical for financial inclusion, necessary to further gender equality, social and economic empowerment for women.
The author is chief content officer at Coursera. Views are personal.