Gender Differences in Personal Financial Literacy Among College Students

By Haiyang Chen, Ronald P. Volpe. Financial Services Review, 2002

610 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Surveying financial literacy among college students, we find that women generally have less knowledge about personal finance topics. Gender differences remain statistically significant after controlling for other factors such as participants' majors, class rank, work experience, and age. We do find, however, that education and experience can have a significant impact on the financial literacy of both men and women. We observe that women generally have less enthusiasm for, lower confidence in, and less willingness to learn about personal finance topics than men do. College women (men) rate English and humanity (Mathematics and science) courses more important. We argue that the study paves the way for future research and has important policy implications given the women tend to outlive men.

Subfields: Accounting, Demography, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e61889201313bf6909b688e52095a97ebf67b5c5

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Citations in the corpus

Childhood Financial Socialization and Young Adults' Financial Management (2013, background): “However, female college students were less knowledgeable about personal finances (Chen & Volpe, 2002), often borrow at higher costs, and are less likely to participate in the financial market (Lusardi, 2008).”
Competence, Confidence, and Gender: The Role of Objective and Subjective Financial Knowledge in Household Finance (2020, background): “Gender differences have also been demonstrated for objective financial knowledge and numeric ability, where males typically perform better than females (Chen and Volpe 2002; Fonseca et al.”
On a Need-to-Know Basis: How the Distribution of Responsibility Between Couples Shapes Financial Literacy and Financial Outcomes (2019, background): “…financial literacy, despite opportunities to do so, is often attributed to individual difference factors such as lack of interest in personal finance (Mandell and Klein 2007), unfamiliarity with financial matters (Chen and Volpe 2002), or inability to understand this domain (Lusardi et al. 2010).”
Predicting financial literacy in Australia (2006, background): “Similarly, Chen and Volpe (1998) concluded that the less (financially) knowledgeable group was also more likely to be younger and female, whereas the Jumpstart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy (2005) established that Native, African, Hispanic, and Asian Americans scored lower than other (wh”
Financial Management Practices and Money Attitudes as Determinants of Financial Problems and Dissatisfaction in Young Male Australian Workers (2013, background): “…behavior or attitudes toward seeking help for financial issues has received little empirical attention, there is some evidence to suggest that most young people seek financial information from non-professionals in preference to financial professionals and organizations (Chen & Volpe, 2002).”
Financial well‐being of Malaysian college students (2012, background): “Danes (1994) defines consumer socialization as “the process of acquiring and developing values, attitudes, standards, norms, knowledge, and behaviors that contribute to the financial viability and wellbeing of the individual” (p.”
Financial Knowledge and Best Practice Behavior. (2011, background): “Women were more likely to report the use of sound financial practices (Hayhoe, Leach, Turner, Bruin, & Lawrence, 2000), but they also tended to score lower on measures of financial knowledge (Chen & Volpe, 2002; Goldsmith, Goldsmith, & Heaney, 1997).”
How Financially Literate Are Women? An Overview and New Insights (2017, background): “Similarly, large differences in financial literacy have been found between male and female high school and college students (see Goldsmith and Goldsmith 1997; Chen and Volpe 2002; Ford and Kent 2010).”