Women ‘more likely to seek help for debt problems’

New research has suggested women are much more likely than men to seek help when it comes to debt.

Debt counselling charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP) has noted this fact through an analysis of phone calls it has received from people looking for assistance with their financial problems.

This revealed 63 per cent of callers were female and the ratio among single people is higher still, with over two-thirds being women.

Reflecting on this, CAP chief executive Matt Barlow said: “When someone rings our freephone number, it is much more likely to be a woman than a man, even if we then hear their partner making helpful comments in the background.”

He added that the reasons for this are not entirely clear, commenting: “We don’t know whether women are more pragmatic, or that men have that determination to sort things out on their own.”

Either way, debt is “awful” and those who are in it should certainly be seeking help for it, Mr Barlow stated.

The fact that the majority of calls come from women even among couples may indeed suggest females are taking a more pragmatic role in a relationship in trying to tackle the issue, while it could be single men are the most committed to trying to solve their problems alone.

However, the gender imbalance may also reflect the fact that women have increasingly been the ones taking on debt in recent years as the economy and society have changed.

Evidence for this was provided by the latest Insolvency Service figures, which showed 40 per cent of individual bankruptcies in 2009 involved women, compared to 29 per cent in 2000.

By Amy White