EVER since Yang Yue got married six years ago, she has kept her husband, Liang Xiaoming, on a short financial leash, giving him about 2,500 yuan ($393) a month for his own personal use.
　　Yang feels that her husband“is not good with money.” Prior to her intervention, he had no savings, even though he had been working for years before they wed and he had no clue what he was spending his money on.
　　Yang, a 32-year-old native of Shanghai, is the polar opposite of Liang. She keeps a detailed
　　record of their spending, down to the last cent, and set up a household budget. “i always make sure to save nearly a third of our income a year,” Yang told ChinAfrica. “i also spend approximately 25 percent of the family income on investing in financial services, in addition to mortgage payments.”
　　Since Yang has managed the household finances, they have never exceeded the family budget. With the money left over, the couple have begun to use the extra cash to fund their children’s education, to travel and purchase large home appliances. Yang also makes sure that the family’s savings increase steadily each year.
　　Yang is not alone. She is among the majority of chinese women who have been making financial decisions for the family.
　　Female trendsetters
　　compared with their counterparts overseas, chinese women are taking the lead in financial planning for their families, according to the latest survey by HSBc Life insurance co. Ltd. Sixty-three percent of chinese women said that they make the major financial decisions for their families.
　　However, in other parts of the world, only 53 percent of women said that they were in charge of household financing, according to the survey, which involved more than 17,000 interviewees in 17 countries.
　　The survey indicates the greater equality in financial decisionmaking in chinese families, as chinese women are playing more important roles in this regard, according to Li Jing, a female sociologist at central china normal University.
　　A chinese proverb says, “men are the bread-winner and women are the housekeeper.” Li said that this statement suggests that men need to go out to work, leaving their wives to take responsibility for everything to do with the home, including the family’s finances.
　　For decades, males and females have contributed equally to the family income. Also, an increasing number of women today are financially independent than ever before.
　　Besides, chinese women show more of a willingness to, and are more capable of, managing the household budget than men, due to their enhanced education and career advancement, she added.
　　More sensitive, less impulsive
　　It seems that, inherently, women have a better ability to manage money than men. Women are more sensitive, and always pay close attention to detail, which puts women in a very strong position when it comes to personal finance, said Wang Jian, financial advisor from the Liaoning Branch of industrial and commercial Bank of china.
　　For this reason, financial institutions have created a lot of financial service products that center around the female-oriented gaps in the market. many financial advisers have now noticed that female clients have become their fastest growing customer demographic in the family financial products segment.
　　“The role of women in financing is such a huge potential market,” said Wang. “chinese women commonly play the role of home administrators, handing out money for utilities, rent, credit cards, school and medical fees and so on. They know what’s coming in, and what’s going out. Also, they contribute significantly to the banks’ profits.”
　　A financial manager from the Jinan Branch of china merchants Bank, who would only give her surname, Liu, said that most of her clients are women in their mid-30s, with 500,000 yuan ($78,247) or more in assets. male customers are often too busy with work and have very little interest in a few hundred dollars of profit per month.
　　The majority of chinese women take sole or primary responsibility for their families’ financial decisions, but the HSBc Life survey showed that about 96 percent of female respondents said that they have a basic to moderate level of experience in financial planning. only 4 percent claim expertise in this field.
　　Liu agreed. “Female customers usually go to a financial manager, who helps them configure tailor-made financial product packages, but they won’t further develop financial planning knowledge of their own.” She added that the trust for a certain financial manager might be the incentive a woman needs to invest in a particular product or organization.
　　However, women are more reluctant than men to follow higher risk investment strategies, such as buying stocks, hedge funds, and private equity. in terms of investment, nearly half of all chinese women prefer to adopt conservative strategies, stated the survey.
　　chen Xiaomi, 29, is an engineer living in Beijing. The earnings of chen and her husband, a middle-level manager at a foreign enterprise, totals 300,000 yuan ($47,319) a year. Despite their high-income level, chen believes that depositing her money into the family’s savings account is the most secure and efficient way to manage her finances. “This is the only method i resort to,” she told ChinAfrica.
　　Lao Jianrong, cEo of HSBc Life, said that while chinese families were eager to enhance their own monetary assets in keeping with the country’s economic development, it was necessary to consider the risks that these investments entail.
　　meanwhile, he also added that chinese families should explore new ways to grow and manage their finances and increase their levels of financial sophistication. The challenge for chinese families is to be able to manage a household income and build financial assets for the long term, while protecting against financial risks.
　　


　　Complementary roles
　　Another survey of the social status of women, conducted in Shandong Province among 3, 000 people in 2010, showed that men and women complement each other and have equal rights at home. A majority of respondents selected “mutual consultation” when it comes to family financial planning.
　　The survey indicates that men and women are taking equal roles in decision-making around large family expenditures, such as buying financial services and property investment. However, daily household finances still largely remain the responsibility of women, according to Bi Weijue, Associate Professor with the institute of Sociology of Shandong Academy of Social Sciences. “This is closely related to [local] level of economic development and cultural tradition,” said Bi.
　　in china, the role of women still varies by location and social status. Judging by the survey’s result, Wang Yiping, Researcher at the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences, said that most married couples in cities, which are both financially independent, have the equal say in how the family’s money is spent.in the rural areas of Shandong, men are still playing important roles in household financing.