More single women suffer from debts, counselling firm

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DEBTED SINGLE WOMAN: The firm says these categories include personal loans, payday loans and credit card debt. PICTURE BY cardiDirect.com

Single refers to a woman who is not married.


A debt counselling and consolidation firm has found that single women in South Africa seem to be struggling with their debt more than their single male counterparts.

Unsecured debt refers to a loan or credit agreement that does not have an asset – like a house or car serving as collateral for payment of the debt.

In a statement, DebtBusters says that the debt these women have is not usually retail related – instead they are in unsecured debt that has been used to obtain cash to try to make ends meet.

DebtBusters statistics show that single women under debt counselling have more unsecured debt than single men under debt counselling.

A single application under debt counselling refers to a person who is either not married or married out of community of property.

According to DebtBusters, out of all the debt that single females under debt counselling have, over 70% is unsecured while 55% of debt belonging to single male clients is unsecured.

The majority of the unsecured debt belonging to single women is attributed to categories such as personal loans, payday loans and credit card debts.

This could imply that single women are taking out these types of loans because they are not financially making it to month-end and are opting to take out unsecured loans as a way to make ends meet, the firm says.

(with FIN24)

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