IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mul/jdp901/doi10.12831-80528y2015i1p13-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Business Students and Financial Literacy: When Will the Gender Gap Fade away?

Author

Listed:
  • Paola Bongini
  • Paolo Trivellato
  • Mariangela Zenga

Abstract

Gender gap is a general outcome of financial literacy surveys, which also highlight that differences among men and women in the domain of financial capability are irrespective of country differences. However, when considering the young and, particularly, college students, empirical results are rather mixed. Further research is therefore needed on the factors explaining the young's financial literacy; our study contributes to the literature investigating a homogeneous sample of freshmen of the same age and cohort enrolled in a large Italian Business School, where ex ante gender differences should not be expected. We deliberately concentrate on a sample of business students, i.e., a homogeneous sample of the youth population expected to exhibit a similar personal interest in economic and financial matters. No gender gap was found either considering an overall measure of financial literacy (Rasch measure) or considering the overall difficulty of the instrument (Differential Item Functioning). We argue that personal interests in financial matters overcome potential gender issues in financial literacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Paola Bongini & Paolo Trivellato & Mariangela Zenga, 2015. "Business Students and Financial Literacy: When Will the Gender Gap Fade away?," Journal of Financial Management, Markets and Institutions, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 13-30, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:mul:jdp901:doi:10.12831/80528:y:2015:i:1:p:13-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.12831/80528
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.12831/80528
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Garrett, Daniel M. & Maki, Dean M., 2001. "Education and saving:: The long-term effects of high school financial curriculum mandates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 435-465, June.
    2. Diana J. Beal & Sarath B. Delpachitra, 2003. "Financial Literacy Among Australian University Students," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 22(1), pages 65-78, March.
    3. Adele Atkinson & Flore-Anne Messy, 2012. "Measuring Financial Literacy: Results of the OECD / International Network on Financial Education (INFE) Pilot Study," OECD Working Papers on Finance, Insurance and Private Pensions 15, OECD Publishing.
    4. Klapper, Leora & Lusardi, Annamaria & Panos, Georgios A., 2012. "Financial literacy and the financial crisis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5980, The World Bank.
    5. Rajindar K. Koshal & Ashok K. Gupta & Anita Goyal & Vimal Navin Choudhary, 2008. "Assessing Economic Literacy of Indian MBA Students," American Journal of Business, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 23(2), pages 43-51.
    6. Melissa A. Z. Knoll & Carrie R. Houts, 2012. "The Financial Knowledge Scale: An Application of Item Response Theory to the Assessment of Financial Literacy," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 381-410, September.
    7. Raquel Fonseca & Kathleen J. Mullen & Gema Zamarro & Julie Zissimopoulos, 2012. "What Explains the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy? The Role of Household Decision Making," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, pages 90-106.
    8. Chen, Haiyang & Volpe, Ronald P., 1998. "An Analysis of Personal Financial Literacy Among College Students," Financial Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 107-128.
    9. Oanea Dumitru-Cristian & Dornean Adina, 2012. "Defining and Measuring Financial Literacy. New Evidence from Romanian’ Students of the Master in Finance," Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 59(2), pages 113-129, December.
    10. Lynne Borden & Sun-A Lee & Joyce Serido & Dawn Collins, 2008. "Changing College Students’ Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior through Seminar Participation," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 23-40, March.
    11. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Garrett, Daniel M., 2003. "The effects of financial education in the workplace: evidence from a survey of households," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1487-1519, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    2. Kiliyanni, Abdul Latheef & Sivaraman, Sunitha, 2016. "The perception-reality gap in financial literacy: Evidence from the most literate state in India," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 47-64.
    3. Paul Gerrans & Richard Heaney, 2019. "The impact of undergraduate personal finance education on individual financial literacy, attitudes and intentions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 59(1), pages 177-217, March.
    4. Francisco J. Oliver-Márquez & Almudena Guarnido-Rueda & Ignacio Amate-Fortes, 2021. "Measuring financial knowledge: a macroeconomic perspective," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 177-222, February.
    5. Xu, Lisa & Zia, Bilal, 2012. "Financial literacy around the world : an overview of the evidence with practical suggestions for the way forward," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6107, The World Bank.
    6. Mathieu R. Despard & Terri Friedline & Stacia Martin-West, 2020. "Why Do Households Lack Emergency Savings? The Role of Financial Capability," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 542-557, September.
    7. Ester Muñoz-Céspedes & Raquel Ibar-Alonso & Sara de Lorenzo Ros, 2021. "Financial Literacy and Sustainable Consumer Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Boglárka Zsótér, 2018. "The Aspects Of Financial Culture Among Young Adults," Ekonomske ideje i praksa, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, issue 30, pages 51-71, September.
    9. Azra Zaimovic & Anes Torlakovic & Almira Arnaut-Berilo & Tarik Zaimovic & Lejla Dedovic & Minela Nuhic Meskovic, 2023. "Mapping Financial Literacy: A Systematic Literature Review of Determinants and Recent Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-30, June.
    10. Kadoya, Yoshihiko & Khan, Mostafa Saidur Rahim, 2020. "What determines financial literacy in Japan?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 353-371, July.
    11. Mário Antão, 2022. "Financial Literacy as a Strategic issue: A survey from Portuguese Higher Education Students ," GATR Journals jber227, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.
    12. Omer Alkan & Erkan Oktay & Seyda Unver & Esmer Gerni, 2020. "Determination of Factors Affecting the Financial Literacy of University Students in Eastern Anatolia using Ordered Regression Models," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 10(5), pages 536-546, May.
    13. Davoli, Maddalena & Hou, Jia, 2018. "Financial literacy and socialist education: Lessons from the German reunification," SAFE Working Paper Series 217, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    14. Süleyman Uyar & Işıl Atalay, 2021. "Financial Literacy and The Effect of Courses on University on Financial Literacy," Muhasebe Enstitusu Dergisi - Journal of Accounting Institute, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 64(64), pages 1-17, January.
    15. Amjad Khan Suri & Sonal Purohit, 2017. "An Analysis of Personal Financial Literacy among Expatriates in the United Arab Emirates," Contemporary Review of the Middle East, , vol. 4(3), pages 278-296, September.
    16. Mousumi Singha Mahapatra & Swati Alok & Jayasree Raveendran, 2017. "Financial Literacy of Indian Youth: A Study on the Twin Cities of Hyderabad–Secunderabad," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 6(2), pages 132-147, July.
    17. Feng, Xiangnan & Lu, Bin & Song, Xinyuan & Ma, Shuang, 2019. "Financial literacy and household finances: A Bayesian two-part latent variable modeling approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 119-137.
    18. Kelly D. Edmiston & Mary Gillett Fisher, 2006. "Financial education at the workplace: evidence from a survey of Federal Reserve Bank employees," Community Affairs Research Working Paper 2006-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    19. Horia Ioan Tulai & Codruța Maria Făt & Daniela Georgeta, 2021. "The current framework of financial education in Romania in the context of the informational economy," Journal of Financial Studies, Institute of Financial Studies, vol. 10(6), pages 33-47, May.
    20. Beata Swiecka & Eser Yeşildağ & Ercan Özen & Simon Grima, 2020. "Financial Literacy: The Case of Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mul:jdp901:doi:10.12831/80528:y:2015:i:1:p:13-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rivisteweb.it/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.