Abstract
This article reports the results of a controlled field experiment designed to estimate the short-term effects of a 45-minute financial education program on the financial literacy and savings behavior of children in Dutch primary schools. Among fifth and sixth graders, the program led to a pre- to posttest improvement in financial literacy on almost one of eight questions, with about one-third of the increase in correctness attributable to the program. It also raised the probability of willingness to save by 4 percentage points. Nonetheless, whereas the program appears effective in respect to questions that explicitly address program content, its significant effects on financial literacy seem primarily driven by the results for girls, although we cannot reject homogeneous treatment effects with respect to gender.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 699-730 |
| Number of pages | 32 |
| Journal | Journal of Consumer Affairs |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2019 |
Funding
The study data, collected by the National Institute for Family Finance Information (Nibud), include information on the financial literacy and background characteristics of 2,516 primary school children. We excluded 195 children who took only the posttest for whom we have none of the background characteristics elicited during the pretest. Our final sample thus encompasses 72 schools, 31 of which participated in both the pre- and posttest (see Figure). As Table shows, these schools produced a total of 3,773 completed questionnaires generated by the pre- and posttests of 2,321 children. Of the 1,452 children who completed the questionnaire for both the pre- and posttest, 446 are in the control group and 1,006 in the treatment group. The top half of Table lists the percentages for the number of correct answers to all eight questions, with a mode of five (19.9%). On the pretest, the control group gave more correct answers on average than the treatment group, probably because the former contained relatively more sixth graders (bottom panel). However, children in both the control and treatment groups performed better on the posttest than on the pretest. On Q1, the children were more likely on the posttest than on the pretest to give the (arguably more desirable) answer of being willing to save for something they would like to buy but do not yet have the money for (middle panel). As the table also shows, control group children were more likely than treatment group members to be girls and were on average older and more likely to receive pocket money. The youngest age category (age ??10) includes 0.8% of children aged 9 (and no younger), while the oldest category (age ? 12) includes 1% of children aged 13 (and no older). Not reported in the table is that the treatment?control group differences in age composition and reception of pocket money are significant (at the 5% level) while those for other characteristics (including gender) are insignificant. Table summarizes the results for pre- and posttest questions Q2?Q9, each of which reveals improvements for both the control and treatment groups. On average, the children performed best in the pretest on the question that is arguably most closely related to their daily lives?namely, Q4 on advertisements in free online games?for which relatively small pre- to posttest improvements are observable for either group. They performed worst on Q6, keeping a budget diary, a concept likely to be unfamiliar to young children, although interestingly, the most pre- to posttest improvement in this case held equally for both groups.
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