International Women’s Day is a moment to celebrate women’s achievements, recognise their resilience, and challenge the structural inequalities that continue to shape their lives.

In the debt advice sector, it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the extraordinary role women play. Both within the money and debt advice sector, and within households experiencing financial hardship.

The money and debt advice sector is improved by women who help to make up the workforce. Across Scotland, women make up a significant proportion of advisers, managers and volunteers who work tirelessly to support people in financial crisis.

Every day, they hold space for some of the most difficult conversations a person can have. They guide clients through fear and uncertainty. They negotiate with creditors. They challenge unfair systems. They help rebuild the confidence of their clients alongside helping them with their finances.

It is work that requires technical expertise, but also empathy, patience and emotional intelligence. The sector is stronger because of the women who bring these qualities to it.

Today, we celebrate them.

We also recognise the women on the other side of the adviser’s desk.

Financial difficulty rarely exists in isolation. In many households, when money becomes tight, it is women who shoulder the burden. They stretch food budgets. They cut back on their own essentials. They absorb children’s anxieties. They manage bills, juggle payments and make impossible choices about what can, and cannot, be paid.

They carry the emotional labour of hardship: protecting children from the reality of debt, shielding partners from stress, and internalising the fear of not being able to make ends meet.

Too often, this work is invisible. Too often, it is expected.

On International Women’s Day, we want to say clearly: this is strength. This is resilience. And it deserves recognition, not stigma.

Women are more likely to experience low pay, insecure work, part-time employment and caring responsibilities. These structural inequalities mean women are at greater risk of poverty and financial exclusion.

When debt escalates, the consequences can be severe:

• Exclusion from affordable credit
• Barriers to housing
• Limited access to essential services
• Damage to mental health and wellbeing

Financial hardship can isolate women socially and economically. It can shrink opportunities and undermine confidence. It can silence ambition.

But these outcomes are not inevitable. They are shaped by policy, funding, access to advice and the systems that surround people.

It is also vital to acknowledge that women’s experiences are not uniform.

If you are a disabled woman, a Black or minority ethnic woman, a migrant woman, a lone parent, or someone facing multiple disadvantages, the risk of poverty, debt and financial exclusion increases significantly.

Intersectionality matters because inequality compounds. Structural racism, ableism, gender discrimination and economic disadvantage do not operate separately, they intersect.

To improve women’s financial wellbeing, we must understand these overlapping barriers and design services, policies and funding that reflect real lives, not abstract categories.

Financial abuse remains a hidden but deeply damaging form of domestic abuse, and it primarily impacts women.

Controlling access to money, building debt in someone else’s name, preventing employment, monitoring spending: these are tactics used to entrap and disempower.

The consequences can last for years. Women may leave abusive relationships only to face debt, damaged credit files and long-term financial instability. Without specialist advice and support, rebuilding independence can feel impossible.

Advice services play a critical role in supporting victim survivors to regain control, challenge unfair debts and rebuild their financial futures.

Another issue which faces women is the precarity of funding for advice services.

When advice services close or reduce capacity, it is women who are disproportionately affected. Women who are juggling caring responsibilities and part-time work. Women who are recovering from abuse. Women who are already navigating complex systems on behalf of their families.

Without accessible, well-funded advice services, financial exclusion deepens. Poverty becomes entrenched. Stigma grows.

Sustainable funding is not simply about organisational survival, it is about protecting women’s wellbeing and life chances.

Advice changes lives

We see it every day.

A woman who has been living with overwhelming debt finally sleeps through the night.
A single parent regains confidence after negotiating affordable repayments.
A survivor of abuse clears coerced debt and begins to rebuild independence.

Advice services do not just resolve financial problems, they restore dignity, agency and hope.

On this International Women’s Day, we celebrate the women who make the money and debt advice sector extraordinary.

We stand in awe of the women who carry the burden of debt and still show up for their families.

And we recommit to challenging the stigma that surrounds financial hardship. Debt is not a personal failing. Poverty is not an individual flaw. Financial exclusion is not inevitable.

If we want to change wellbeing outcomes for women, we must:

• Challenge harmful gender norms about who “should” manage money and absorb hardship
• Recognise and address intersectional inequalities
• Confront financial abuse
• Protect and invest in advice services

When we do, we do more than budget. We change lives.