The Best Investment You Can Make Is in Your Own Financial Independence. This Women’s Day, Invest in Yourself With IGrow.
Too often, we learn how to handle money by accident, through trial and error, and little things we heard our parents and peers say or life events we witnessed as we grew up. A core memory of worried parents at tax time. An Instagram reel by a random stranger about how to make more money with a side hustle, but your friend burned their fingers when they tried it. This leaves us with a tangled mess of beliefs and no clear plan on how to build financial stability, let alone financial freedom.
For women, this is often made even worse by the fact that many of our mothers were either only partially employed or stay-at-home moms for at least some of our upbringing, or they were raised to let their husbands or male partners take the lead in finances.
Women and Financial Independence in South Africa: Passing Down Money Memories.
We forget that until the 1990s, South African tax law referred to ‘married person’ and ‘married woman’ as two separate entities. Tax law literally penalised married women for working outside the home.
My mother was first a stay-at-home mom when we were little, and then the family breadwinner when our father became chronically ill. She told me that we’d be better off financially if she and my dad divorced and then carried on living together! Since the Income Tax Act of 1914, a wife’s income was added to her husband’s and taxed as his. This pushed the household into higher brackets.
Even once South Africa started taxing married women’s income separately, it was taxed more harshly. In the 1994/95 tax year, for example, a married woman hit her top marginal rate at R50,000 of income, while a “married person” (the husband) only hit it at R80,000.
So right to the mid-1990s, a family would genuinely experience the wife’s earnings being treated less favourably. That started changing after the Margo Commission’s 1986 report, in stages. Salary income was taxed separately from 1988, trading income from 1990, investment income from 1991. However, women were still taxed at worse rates than men throughout.
The gender distinction was only fully scrapped in March 1995, following the Katz Commission. Then South Africa finally moved to one tax scale for everyone regardless of sex or marital status. That’s a whole year after our first democratic election.
What About Women’s Financial Independence in Private Banking and Investing?
Banking, property ownership and estate planning were also not favourable for most women until 1993. For Black women in traditional or customary marriages, it was only from 2000. (And even then only for new marriages. Women married before 2000 had to wait until 2008 to get equal rights to property ownership, financial decision-making and estate planning in South African law!).
There wasn’t a standalone banking statute for this; it flowed from a common-law doctrine called marital power. Under it, a wife was legally treated as being under her husband’s guardianship. She couldn’t make a will, sign a contract, or sue or be sued in her own name without his permission, and he alone administered the couple’s joint estate.
In practice, since opening a bank account, taking a loan for a property, or signing an offer to purchase paperwork are all contracts, a wife needed her husband’s consent for the most important financial decisions. He, on the other hand, could act on any jointly held bank accounts or contracts alone. This was the default position for anyone married in community of property. This is still the default marriage regime unless a couple specifically signs an antenuptial contract. In 2026, both husband and wife married in community of property may not make those decisions without each other.
What this means for a lot of South African women today is that many of our mothers and grandmothers were, in living memory, treated unfavourably for earning or investing. It has made it that much harder for them to learn about and to pass on property, generational wealth, financial strategies and advice to their daughters and granddaughters.
Why Financial Independence Matters for Women in South Africa Right Now
For many South African women today, a struggle for financial independence continues behind the scenes, in bank accounts, bonds and retirement funds, not in the headlines. Here are some thought-provoking facts from Consumer surveys and Statistics South Africa that give a snapshot of the current reality:
- South African women earn around 78 cents for every rand earned by men. This gap that has widened from 89 cents per Rand in 2008. (source)
- Women retire with about 21% less in retirement savings than men (source). Only 8% of female fund members feel confident they’ll have enough to retire on (source)
- Almost half of South African children (45.5%) live with their mother only. Fewer than a third (31.4%) live with both parents, and only a tiny percentage live with only their fathers. (source)
Many South African women continue to fulfil traditional roles in families. They carry much of the burden of domestic work, child care and caring for elderly relatives. As they reach their middle age, they often do both types of care at the same time. This leaves them with less time and energy to focus on careers as men do. Career gaps can also mean a shorter time horizon for investing, when time in the market is so important to financial outcomes.
What Financial Independence Actually Looks Like
Financial independence to a lot of people looks like “having a lot of money,” and women are no different. But that is a vague wish, not a tangible goal to aim for. It helps to speak to a financial planner who can listen deeply to your current circumstances and goals. They can then help you work out a clear picture of how much money would give you real freedom of choice, security, and control, and build a plan to get there.
Financial independence for women in South Africa should include a safety net if a relationship, job or your health changes. It should mean the freedom to decide where to live, when to retire, and what to leave behind for your loved ones when you’re no longer around to care for them.
You may share these decisions with a partner, or your boss. But you should not need to ask permission, or feel trapped.
What many women don’t realise is that in South Africa, consulting with a registered Financial Planner is completely free, so there is no need to put it off until you feel you can afford their fees.
Property: A Practical Path to Financial Independence for Women in South Africa
The IGrow Group has made it its mission to support ordinary South Africans to gain financial independence through property investment, which gives them the triple benefit of:
- Being able to leverage finance to own an asset worth more than the money they have available to invest.
- Owning an asset that grows in value so they can access the equity in it for further investment.
- Generating a passive rental income that will continue to grow.
With the right properties, held in the correct structures, this gives you both financial independence in your lifetime and a financial legacy to pass on to your loved ones, tax-free!
IGrow is here to support women in South Africa at any stage of their journey towards financial independence and to help them navigate the complex landscape of property selection and tax knowledge so that our country’s laws and opportunities work in their favour.
With us, you’ll find clarity and build the confidence and skills you need to take decisive action.
Start Your Financial Independence Journey This Women’s Day
Make this the year the investment is in yourself. Because a strong woman helps others to rise as she does.
Take the first step toward your own financial independence. Book your free consultation with an IGrow strategist and find out what’s possible and how to get there with your personalised Property Investment Plan.
The Women Leading the Way at IGrow
You can’t separate a company’s belief in women’s financial independence from how it treats the women inside it. IGrow has grown from strength to strength over 20 years with strong leadership of women in leadership roles from the Group COO, Debbie Sherman, through to the numerous female CEOs, Division Heads and Managers in the IGrow Group of Companies.
Want to meet them? Read more about these inspiring women of IGrow in this post.
“Do not live above your people, but live with them, and if you can rise, bring someone with you.”
— Charlotte Maxeke, South African women’s rights pioneer
