7.2 Financial Circumstances Described

In Question 24, participants were asked to describe their financial circumstances at the present time; the options offered ranged between 'comfortable' through to 'extremely difficult/barely coping at all'. The largest group, almost one in three described themselves as 'Just about managing' (see Figure 7).  Twenty eight per cent described themselves as 'Managing quite well', while twenty four per cent were 'Comfortable'.  Twelve per cent were 'Finding it difficult to make ends meet' and four per cent indicated that financial circumstances were extremely difficult and that they were barely coping at all.

In a departure from the standard type of survey designed to investigate levels of poverty, Questions 25 and 26 followed up on Question 24 by asking participants to imagine how others might describe their financial circumstances - firstly, from the perspective of a person who knew them well and then from that of a person who did not know them well.  As a psychological exercise, these questions were designed to tap into the aspect of hidden poverty, where many women, especially in rural areas, attempt a 'brave face' in order to 'keep up appearances'. 

As can be seen in Figures 8 and 9, that is indeed the result that emerged.  The proportion of women who rated their financial circumstances as 'Comfortable' from the imagined perspective of other people, increased significantly in response to each successive question - from 24% to 37% for a person who knew them well and on to 52.75% for a person who didn't.  Similarly, 'Managing quite well' increased from 28% to 33%, and then to 34.07%, all of these increases at the expense of the lower end of the scale; those who were 'Just about managing' going down from 32% to 20% and then to scarcely below 11%.