For 23-year-old MBA student Rida Yumn Ahmed, financial freedom does not begin with a particular number in her bank account. “It is about having the freedom to make decisions without constantly worrying about its financial consequences,” she says.
Money as freedom rather than wealth — is emerging as a defining way in which young women in Delhi talk about their finances. Saumya Rastogi, 27, a freelance writer, sees financial security as a safety net. “It is about having enough savings and investments to know that one unexpected expense or career transition won’t completely destabilise my life,” she says. Public relations professional Riya Jain sees it in more everyday terms. Her idea of financial freedom ranges from pursuing an MBA or starting something of her own to travelling, buying the PlayStation she wanted as a child or simply eating pizza when she feels like it. “It is about knowing that if I want to do something, I have the freedom to make that choice without constantly depending on someone else.”
The shift is taking place against a broader expansion of women's access to formal finance. According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, the share of Indian women aged 15 and above with an account at a formal financial institution rose from 26% in 2011 to 78% in 2021.
But having a bank account does not automatically mean having financial independence or financial literacy. Increasingly, the question is not simply “How much do I earn?” but “What does my money allow me to do?”
As a child, Jain remembers watching her mother approach her father for money. “She would approach him for money, sometimes even for basic things,” she recalls. Ahmed recalls a different version of the same lesson: watching women around her hesitate or think twice about certain choices because money restricted their choices. “I realised that I don’t want money to ever be the reason I stay somewhere, tolerate something, or give up an opportunity.”
Salary to safety net
Jain began investing while she was still in college, putting a small portion of her first internship salary into an SIP. Rastogi maintains a fixed deposit as an emergency cushion and invests regularly in mutual funds. Twenty-five year old business analyst Himika Prabhat has already started thinking about retirement despite being only 25.
“It’s just always better to have money saved. In case of an emergency, or God forbid, I get laid off, I need money for the expense that has to be taken care of,” says Prabhat.
Today, financial awareness also comes from learning through the internet. SEBI's Investor Survey 2025 found that Gen Z had higher awareness of securities-market products than older generations: 66% compared with 62% among millennials and 56% among Gen X and older groups. But the gender gap remained — 66% of men reported awareness of securities-market products compared with 58% of women.
Ahmed says books like The Psychology of Money and conversations with financially experienced people have shaped her approach. “I’m trying to understand not just where my money is going, but how I can allocate it more intelligently and make it work for me over time,” she says.
A seat at the table
Money also changes the way a woman participates in her household — not because earning should be a prerequisite for having a voice, but because economic contribution can make that voice harder to ignore.
Prabhat has noticed this change in her own family. “When you make money, your opinion is definitely valued more, respected more, considered more within your family,” she says. When she was studying, she says, her parents did not involve her much in financial decisions. Now, when the family discusses major expenditures, including where to invest money, they consider her opinion.
For Bhoomi Khanna, 21, who runs a clothing brand, having her own money brings confidence. “It makes me feel more comfortable presenting my opinions and myself,” she says. “It comes from knowing that you can stand on your own financially.”
The pressure to have it all
But seeking financial freedom comes with another set of anxiety. Rastogi describes the feeling as an expectation that she should be “earning more, saving more and doing better financially by a certain age”. Prabhat, who once imagined that by 30 she would have a house and a car, says, “I don't see all of that happening anytime soon.”
But the pressure is not necessarily created by what peers are doing; it can also come from the life one has imagined for oneself. “I have a certain vision of where I want to be at different stages of my life, and sometimes that creates its own pressure,” Khanna says.
Social media too has made other people's financial milestones difficult to ignore—from six-figure salaries, fancy cars, international holidays and designer wardrobes—turning financial progress into a race. “SM can make it seem as though everyone has already figured their life out,” she says.
Prabhat puts it more bluntly: “It is okay to not make ₹1 crore as a 25-year-old in one year.”
A different definition of wealth
Perhaps the most significant change is not what these women are buying or investing in, but what they believe money is for. Prabhat describes having once internalised the idea that wanting money was somehow morally suspect.
Ahmed remembers meeting a woman through a professional experience who made her understand that dependence can be invisible. “She was accomplished, articulate and confident, and from the outside, she seemed like someone who had complete control over her life,” Ahmed recalls. The woman told her that financial considerations had kept her from making certain career and personal decisions.
“She wasn’t incapable of making those decisions; she simply didn’t have enough financial independence to absorb the consequences of them,” Ahmed says.
Maybe that is the more useful definition of financial freedom for this generation: not having enough money to buy everything, but having enough money to say no, enough savings to wait, enough investments to plan ahead, and enough freedom to decide what happens next.