“She Just Said Something That Is Key to Basically Every Woman That Exists on Planet Earth”: Understanding the Financial Reality, Needs, and Gendered Experiences of Refugee Women

Background and Purpose: Economic integration and financial well-being are central goals of refugee resettlement in the United States, yet refugee women experience distinct and compounded barriers shaped by gender, migration, culture, and access to financial systems. Refugee women often arrive with limited familiarity with U.S. financial institutions while simultaneously navigating gendered household roles, constrained labor market opportunities, and linguistic and cultural barriers. Financial education is commonly used to support economic integration; however, most curricula are designed for English-proficient, U.S.-born populations and rarely account for women’s cultural knowledge, prior financial practices, or gendered power dynamics. Despite growing recognition of these gaps, research examining refugee women’s financial realities and preferences for financial education remains limited. The purpose of this study was to explore refugee women’s lived financial experiences and cultural understandings of money to inform the adaptation of a financial education curriculum delivered by a refugee-serving organization. The study was guided by the research question: How do refugee women’s financial experiences and cultural understandings of money shape their perceptions of, and preferences for, financial education content?

Methods: A qualitative descriptive design was employed to produce practice-relevant findings accessible to social work practitioners and educators. Three in-person, language-specific focus groups (N = 14) were conducted with women from refugee backgrounds originating from Afghanistan (n = 6) and Ethiopia (n = 8). All participants were current or former clients of a refugee-serving organization in a large southern metropolitan area. Two focus groups were conducted in Dari and one in Amharic, with certified interpreters present. Discussions lasted 60–90 minutes, were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke’s framework, supported by a two-coder process. Institutional Review Board approval and informed consent procedures were completed.

Results: Four overarching themes emerged: (1) Navigating a New Financial Landscape, highlighting challenges with automated banking systems, building credit, and digital transactions; (2) Gendered Access to Finances: Navigating Cultural Shifts, with notable differences between Ethiopian and Afghan women; (3) Self-efficacy Gap: Symbolic Devaluation, centered on challenges translating existing financial skills from cash-based economies to U.S. systems; and (4) Community is Key, focused on community-based financial practices, including communal saving systems and collective, intergenerational, and transnational definitions of financial success. Across groups, women expressed a desire for financial education that incorporates, but also moves beyond, basic budgeting to address confidence-building, system navigation, and culturally grounded financial practices.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings underscore that refugee women are not financially inexperienced but are navigating systems that often obscure or devalue their existing knowledge. Financial education must be culturally responsive, gender-aware, and translational rather than simply focused on fact-checking financial knowledge. Implications for social work practice include integrating financial education into resettlement services, leveraging communal financial values, and addressing gendered access to finances. Future research should examine long-term outcomes of tailored financial education interventions and explore intersections of gender, culture, and financial capability in diverse refugee populations.