Women ‘suffering too much credit card debt’

Women have tended to run up too much credit card debt in a bid to maintain unsustainable lifestyles, the head of a body designed to tackle their finance issues has said.

Georgina Earle, director of Women In Debt, said a major aim for ladies in recent years has been to gain "equality", with a key element of this being "financial independence" from husbands.

However, she noted, this has ultimately proved to have left many women in hock to their banks as the debts pile up, with generally lower debts than men being counterbalanced by the fact that they tend to use more expensive forms of credit like storecards and catalogues.

And, she added: "More females have been able to secure credit based on better jobs, higher salaries and if they got into difficulty there was always equity readily available in the home. However the past few years have seen a huge change and I believe that women will fare the worst."

Ladies who have overspent and are laden with arrears may wish to seek a debt management plan, which can spread out repayments.

While many women will look to have some independent spending, a lot of couples take out loans and other accounts together and this can leave both parties jointly and severally liable for the payment of a debt if they split up.

According to figures produced by Credit Action, the average household in the UK has £7,948 of unsecured debt in December 2011.

However, this was slightly lower than November's figure of £7,972.

By James Francis