My mother used to tell me, “Get an education. Have a career so that you never have to financially depend on a man.” Having grown up in poverty, she was the first in her family to earn a college degree, becoming a nurse in Cuba before immigrating to America. She believed that education wasn’t just a path to a career – it was a path to freedom.
For families like mine, success wasn’t measured only by income. It was measured by giving the next generation choices their parents never had. The women who raised my generation weren’t rejecting marriage or family. They simply wanted more for their daughters.
We followed their advice. We earned our degrees, built careers and achieved the financial independence our mothers prayed for.
Over the past two decades,
Latinas have made remarkable gains in education, careers and income. Their median hourly earnings have increased by 22% since 2003, and more Latinas than ever are earning college degrees. For many young Latinas, economic independence is no longer the goal – it is the starting point.
Today, many aren’t looking for someone to financially support them. They’re looking for someone to build a life with.
This is where the Latina experience becomes more complicated. Many of us were raised to believe that career and family were never competing dreams. Today, the challenge is figuring out how to honor both. That creates a tension.
Latinas feel pressure to create a family – and financial freedom
According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of Latinas say they feel pressure to succeed at work, while 53% say they feel pressure to support their families. Among U.S.-born Latinas, 66% say Hispanic women face pressure to get married and have children.
There is another reality many young women quietly acknowledge but rarely discuss. Careers operate on one timeline; relationships and family formation often operate on another. The median age of first marriage is now 28 for women, compared with about 20 in 1960.
A majority of women now say dating has become more difficult. Trusted community networks have largely been replaced by algorithms that offer endless options but little accountability. More options don’t necessarily make finding love easier. Sometimes it makes commitment harder.
When you don't need someone to pay your bills, you're free to choose someone for entirely different reasons. Financial freedom has done something else, too. It has given women permission to define success for themselves. For some, success means building a business. For others, it means stepping away from a career for a season to raise children. For many, it will mean moving between those roles over the course of a lifetime.
Whatever that path looks like, few decisions will shape it more than the person you choose to share it with. But there is a difference between refusing to settle and refusing to choose.
Economic independence protects women's freedom
Modern dating encourages endless comparison instead of commitment. But marriage isn’t a consumer purchase. It’s a life built with another imperfect human being.
And while love is essential, love alone has never been enough to sustain a marriage. Lasting marriages are built on shared values, mutual respect, trust, commitment and a shared vision for the future.
Ask better questions. Can we solve problems together? Do we want the same kind of family? Do we admire each other’s character? Those questions matter far more than whether someone checks every box.
Women should pursue relationships with the same intentionality we bring to our education and careers. Join communities. Attend church. Volunteer. The strongest relationships are often built through shared values and shared purpose, not endless swiping.
Economic independence protects freedom. Healthy marriages are built not on dependence, but on interdependence.
The lesson was never that women should need no one. It was that women should never be trapped.
That's the promise of the American dream for many Latina women: the freedom to build lives that reflect our own values, made possible by the sacrifices of the women who raised us.
Being an independent woman is not the destination.
It’s the foundation.
Judy Pino is an adviser on Hispanic issues and a Spanish-language spokesperson for Independent Women and The LIBRE Initiative.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The key to a strong marriage? Make, and keep, your own money. | Opinion
