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More than half of B.C. women feel ‘extreme emotional stress’ due to financial situation

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It is a harsh reality.

Women in B.C. face a bigger pay gap than those in the rest of the country and they’re also more concerned about their financial situation than men, according to a just-released report from Vancity.

It also finds the financial situation faced by women in our province leads to more than half (52 per cent) of them falling victim to “extreme emotional stress.”

“Comparing how women were feeling in regards to their finances versus men, we compared it across the country and we definitely can see from the findings that BC women are feeling a lot more stressed than other women across the country and men as well,” says Vancity wealth advisor Sophie Salcito.

Among B.C. women of all ages, 45 per cent lose sleep over their finances, compared to 37 per cent for men.

Those worries are more prominent in the younger generations, where more than half of female Millennials in B.C. say money makes them lose sleep at night.

“The Millennials were in the 56 to 60 per cent range, in terms of saying they were extremely stressed. And extreme emotional distress is actually making them physically unwell,” says Salcito.

Among women of all ages, 40 per cent of women compared to 30 per cent of men in this province say money worries make them physically unwell. Salcito says a big part of that is the gender wage gap.

“We feel that has something to do with it. What we’re stating here is that BC women earn 35 per cent less annually than B.C. men. So that’s a pretty big number and unfortunately it’s not improving — it’s actually getting worse over the last 20 years.”

The report also says women here are more challenged by housing prices and cost of living increases compared to the rest of Canada.

Meanwhile, a third of B.C. women surveyed say they are too busy to think about their finances beyond the day-to-day.

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