Bangles Before Bank Accounts: Gold as Women’s Hidden Social Security

                                                                                                                            -Suhani Sharma

Gold: The Glint of History  

Gold isn’t just metal in India—it’s memory, meaning, and sometimes, the only fallback when the world crumbles. For centuries, Indian women have worn their wealth—not in wallets, but on wrists. Bangles, nose rings, anklets, and mangalsutras weren’t just decorative; they were decentralized deposits of economic autonomy. In rural and urban homes alike, the tradition of gifting gold during marriage is less about ostentation and more about invisible insurance. Gold is portable, liquid, and emotionally potent. It doesn’t lose value easily, and in times of trouble—be it illness, unemployment, or a failing harvest—those earrings might just save the day. Women’s gold holdings—estimated unofficially at over 25,000 tonnes (World Gold Council, 2022)—could represent one of the largest untapped informal safety nets in the country. And yet, public policy doesn’t treat this as an asset class worth protecting, optimizing, or formalizing.

Gold as a Psychological Safety Net 

Ask any Indian woman—urban techie or rural homemaker—what makes her feel “secure,” and you’re likely to hear “mera sona” before “fixed deposit.” Gold has psychological weight: it shines with maternal intention, self-worth, and a hedge against abandonment. It’s also tactile—unlike the impersonal digits of online banking, gold is held, hidden, sometimes kissed before locking it away. It has symbolic resilience: gold doesn’t betray. Husbands or their sons may, banks might glitch. But gold, it always stays. 

The Gold Loan Rush: Women Are the Quiet Borrowers 

India’s gold loan market is booming, projected to cross ₹5 lakh crore by 2025 (CRISIL, 2023). And women are at the heart of it. According to Muthoot Finance’s 2022 annual report, over 60% of gold loan borrowers in semi-urban and rural regions are women. Often, they pledge small amounts—10 to 20 grams of jewelry—to secure critical funds for family needs, medical emergencies, or informal business ventures. This phenomenon is not just about liquidity—it’s a reflection of how gold functions as grassroots social security, especially in areas where formal banking feels distant, confusing, or hostile. 

The Punjab Lens: Policy and Practice 

Punjab, historically known for its agricultural prosperity and gold-dense households, offers a compelling regional window into this issue.

 In 2022, the Punjab State Rural Livelihoods Mission (PSRLM) launched initiatives to link Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to formal financial institutions, focusing on women entrepreneurs in districts like Sangrur, Hoshiarpur, and Ludhiana. Many of these women used gold as collateral for initial micro-loans before qualifying for larger credit access through SHG linkages. 

Parallelly, Punjab Gramin Bank, in collaboration with Punjab National Bank, reported a 20% year-on-year increase in gold-backed loans by women borrowers between 2020–2023 (PNB Rural Finance Reports, 2023).

Despite Punjab’s above-average banking penetration, informal borrowing through gold loans still dominates women’s financial behavior. This is especially true in agrarian families, where crop failure or health expenses push women to quietly pledge ornaments that often formed part of their dowry. 

Yet, gold isn’t just emergency capital here. In Barnala and Bathinda, women-led SHGs have used gold loans to open tailoring units, buy dairy cattle, and set up kirana shops. The state’s Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), a central scheme implemented locally, actively encourages this. 

When Gold Becomes Patriarchal Collateral 

However, this shiny safety net isn’t always under a woman’s control. Chris Gregory and Jonathan Parry in “Money and the Morality of Exchange” (1989) explore how non-cash assets like gold operate as moral and relational tools in South Asian societies. 

Gregory posits that in India, gold is embedded in systems of kinship, dowry, and ritual—not just markets. This explains why it functions both as emotional capital and social security—but also why women are often pressured to liquidate it for family obligations, not personal needs. 

In many Punjabi households, gold is a woman’s asset in name only. It’s common for jewelry to be pledged to support a male sibling’s migration to Canada, invest in a cousin’s tractor, or bail out a brother’s business loan default. 

Gold becomes the first casualty of male aspiration, even though it was gifted to the woman as part of her “security.” In intergenerational households, decisions about what to sell—and when—are often taken without her consent. 

Bringing Gold into the Digital Fold 

But change is glittering at the edges. India’s new fintech ecosystem is enabling women to invest in digital gold, Gold ETFs, and even Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGBs) with minimal denominations. 

Platforms like SafeGold, Groww, and Paytm Gold allow rural women to purchase and store gold digitally—even in micro-amounts worth ₹10—shielding it from physical confiscation within the household. 

In Punjab, digital banking literacy programs under the Digital India Initiative are being rolled out with SHGs to teach women how to manage and track digital gold investments. NGOs like Nari Jagriti Manch are training women to use apps that allow gold to act like a personal pension fund—accessible, safe, and unclaimable by relatives. 

Policy Pathways Ahead 

To secure women’s gold as a form of real social security, several steps can be taken: 

● Digitize Ownership: Promote platforms that allow women to invest in and track their gold holdings independently. 

● Protective Regulation: Frame policies that make it illegal to pledge a woman’s gold without her written and biometric consent. 

● Gold-to-Credit Transitions: Formalize schemes where women’s gold is the stepping stone to bigger entrepreneurial credit lines. 

● Financial Counseling: Include modules on gold valuation, pawning risks, and digital alternatives in women’s rural financial literacy programs. 

In India, gold has always sparkled with more than status—it glows with survival. For many women, it is their first bank, first fallback, and only inheritance. But for it to become true social security, it must be seen not just as tradition—but as strategy. 

Let the bangles remain, but let the bank accounts rise alongside. 

Citations 

1. CRISIL Research. (2023). Gold Loan Market Outlook 2025.

2. Muthoot Finance Ltd. (2022). Annual Report. 

3. PNB Rural Banking Division. (2023). Punjab Regional Lending Patterns Report. 

4. Government of Punjab – PSRLM Reports (2022–23). 

5. Ministry of Rural Development – Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana, Punjab State Implementation Brief (2023). 

6. Srivastava, Mehak (2024, March 19). Beyond the Bling: 3 Best Investment Assets for Women in Gold – SGBs, Gold ETFs, Digital Gold, Gold SIP, Physical Gold. LiveMint. 

7. Indiaspend. (2023). Women and Gold Loans: Invisible Borrowers in Rural India.