A year after women started to close the financial literacy gap, USA Today says a new report shows that their knowledge and confidence are waning again.

Research from education firm Financial Finesse, which was released Thursday, reveals that women are especially falling behind in managing money and investing, USA Today reported.

These are areas of weakness that were also revealed by the firm's research in 2011. But women appear to be sliding backward and further into the trouble zone.

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From 2011 to 2012, women became disproportionately less likely than men to pay their credit card balances in full each month, have an emergency savings fund, and have a general understanding of stocks, bonds and mutual funds, USA Today reported that the survey found.

Some improvement can be seen in the statistics but it is minimal. For example, last year the Buffalo Business Journal reported that study found only 25 percent of women were confident about their investment allocations versus 42 percent of men.

This year, USA Today reports that those figures rose to 29 percent for women versus 45 percent for men.

Still, this isn't what one can consider adequate progress and the consequences can be pronounced.

Financial Finesse CEO Liz Davidson describes the survey results as particularly worrisome given women's longer life expectancy combined with the fact they have less income on average from being out of the work force longer to care for children and subsequently less Social Security to fall back on, USA Today reports.

Davidson made similar assessments after the release of last year's research results. Furthermore, at that time, the Buffalo Business Journal also quoted her explanation of how the adverse effects of this situation can extend to employers.

“If women don't accelerate the rate at which they are saving and as a result don't get where they need to be when they're at retirement age, they'll end up needing to delay retirement and stay in the work force, " she said. Studies show the cost for one employee who delays retirement is anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 a year, she said.

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