SA women forced to sacrifice basics to repay debt – survey
A new survey has found that South African women, especially single mothers, are facing a tough financial reality.
The report by Debt Rescue shows that many are the sole breadwinners, supporting both their children and extended families.
Another study by 1Life Insurance found that 63% of women’s income goes to essentials like food, rent and school fees, leaving little to nothing for savings.
Debt Rescue’s COO Annaline van der Poel says most of the women they spoke to have no emergency savings, not because they don’t want to, but because there’s simply nothing left at the end of the month.
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She says rising inflation, high food and fuel prices, as well as interest rates, are compounding the crisis.
" I think some of the most shocking we've seen is, for example, 43% of our female participants told us that they would go without food or electricity to repay their debt.
"Forty-four per cent are telling us that they're struggling to make the minimum debt repayments, and 54% told us that it's actually starting to affect their physical health because of the financial stress that they're going through."
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