Women really are more responsible than men when it comes to matters of money. It seems that women get into debt less and also strive harder for financial independence. The global Reuters Synovate survey polled about four-thousand-five-hundred women in twelve countries about money matters and an equal number of men were also asked the same several questions about finances. The survey showed that just over half of the respondents of both genders said that women are more responsible with money than men.

The survey found that the highest level of agreement was found in Mexico, where seventy-two percent of the people surveyed said that women are better at handling finances than men. And although more than forty percent of women use part of their monthly income to pay off credit cards, some seventy percent of the female respondents also said that having more than one credit card could lead to financial debt, revealing that women also have a higher awareness than men about financial responsibility.

“It’s obviously not the card itself that causes anyone to use it. So the statement is really about control and temptation,” says Clair Braverman, the vice president of financial services in the United States for international market firm Synovate.

She also added that “the ability to spend more, that you don’t have in the first place, can certainly lead to debt. It means that people have to control themselves and their spouses.” Sixty-one percent of women who took the survey say that they believed in their financial ability, while only forty percent of men agreed that they have faith in their financial ability.

Ironically though, nearly half of the women surveyed also conceded that they were bigger spenders than their male counterparts, with about sixty percent of men who took the survey agreeing.

The survey was conducted in December in Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Britain, and the United States. Synovate, the research firm that conducted the survey, says that the findings could help financial companies understand women’s needs, as they tend to live longer than men and mostly have less money than men after retiring.

Women who pool their finances with a spouse or a partner are also more likely to suffer a greater loss if the relationship ends. Some women have checks in place to guard against this happening, but others don’t. It would seem that some women are very financially savvy in these situations, while others simply aren’t that interested.

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