To be certain, bankruptcy can happen to anyone. They can be any age, any gender and from any economic background. After all, bankruptcy normally comes from medical debt in the United States, and anyone can experience an unexpected injury that puts them in the hospital.
However, it is important to consider who files for bankruptcy more often. This may shed some light on why it happens and what options these individuals have.
The statistics show that women use bankruptcy more than men, but it’s very close. Abbott 48% of filers are men and 52% are women.
Why is this? It may be that women are more likely to use this legal tool to absolve their debt. There has long been a bit of an unwarranted negative stigma around bankruptcy — as if admitting that you have financial problems is a personal failure. This is not true, but societal pressure on men to be breadwinners may influence them not to use bankruptcy when it would help, whereas women may feel a bit more open to simply doing what is best for them and their family, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
It could be even simpler than that, though. Women make up about 51.1% of the American population. Since they have a greater portion than men, they’re just statistically more likely to file, and we can see that the percentage of bankruptcy filers is very close to the percentage of the population.
Regardless of your background or why you’re filing, the key is just to make sure you know exactly what legal tools you have at your disposal.