Seventy years ago, South African women marched to the Union Buildings and changed the course of the country's history.
Mandisa Theko-Khitsane, marketing executive, Sanlam Retail Mass, says South African women are earning more, saving differently, and increasingly deciding how the country's money moves (Image supplied)
Since then, women have moved further into classrooms, workplaces, boardrooms, and businesses of their own, building real economic weight step by step. Today, in 2026, that same spirit of progress shows up clearly in how women earn, save, invest and build businesses across South Africa.
The scale of that shift is striking. Women now head 42.6% of South African households, according to Statistics South Africa's 2025 General Household Survey, with the share climbing closer to half in provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal.
Anchor the stokvel economy
Women also anchor South Africa's stokvel economy, home to around 11 million members across roughly 800,000 stokvels and moving an estimated R50 billion a year.
Recent Stats SA research found women are almost 10 times more likely than men to use a stokvel payout as start-up capital for a new business.
For the financial services industry, this is reshaping the market as women take greater responsibility for household spending, protecting their families against financial shocks, funding small businesses and saving for the future.
Their financial influence also often extends beyond the immediate household to children, parents, employees and wider communities.
Understanding women’s financial lives
Understanding women’s financial lives is becoming increasingly important to understanding the South African consumer, particularly as their economic participation and financial responsibilities continue to grow.
Significant gaps remain, however. Sanlam research shows that 55% of South African women have no life cover and only 16% have income protection.
Nationally, the shortfall is significant too; ASISA’s 2025 Insurance Gap Study found that South Africa's income earners collectively hold enough life and disability cover to meet only 39% of what their households would need.
Research from WTW also found that South African women retire with 71% of the wealth accumulated by men.
These gaps matter to households. They also represent one of the clearest growth opportunities open to an industry working to deepen financial inclusion and build longer, more complete relationships with customers.
How many women actually live
That opportunity starts with a simple recognition that the traditional financial journey was never quite built for how many women actually live.
A woman may move between formal employment and running her own business more than once during her working life.
She may step away from paid work to care for children or parents and later return, while continuing to manage household expenses, service credit, pay insurance premiums, contribute to savings and support extended family.
Her financial life is shaped by changing responsibilities, sources of income and priorities over time.
This is why the traditional idea of a single, linear financial journey is becoming less useful.
Women are building financial security in different ways and often across both formal and informal financial systems.
South Africa’s stokvel economy is one of the clearest examples. For generations, women have used stokvels to pool resources, manage risk, fund major expenses and create financial discipline. Increasingly, that same capital is also being used to start businesses, acquire assets and create new sources of income.
Understanding how people manage money
Financial inclusion increasingly depends on understanding how people already manage money across the different parts of their lives and designing formal financial services around those patterns.
A woman taking out funeral cover may also be building an emergency fund, protecting her income, planning for school fees and preparing for retirement.
These needs sit within the same financial life and create an opportunity for providers to build deeper, longer-term relationships by helping customers connect them more effectively.
How financial services are delivered
That also changes how financial services need to be delivered.
Human advice remains important where financial decisions are closely tied to trust, family responsibilities and personal circumstances, while digital tools are making it easier for customers to access information, manage policies and make decisions when it suits them.
Bringing those channels together gives customers the flexibility to move between advice and digital access as their needs and circumstances change.
This is part of the opportunity Sanlam Retail Mass is building on as we continue integrating Assupol, which Sanlam acquired in 2024.
Bringing together greater reach, established advice capabilities and a broader range of products gives us the ability to serve more South African households across protection, savings and financial planning, while building relationships that can support customers through more stages of their financial lives.
Women will play an increasingly important role in that growth as their economic participation, household responsibilities and financial decision-making continue to expand.
Seventy years of progress have brought South African women significantly closer to full economic agency, and the opportunity now is to translate more of that progress into lasting financial security through stronger savings, appropriate protection and greater long-term wealth creation.
For financial services providers, this means growing with a changing market and designing around the financial lives women are already leading.
