Financial knowledge among young people: Girls are slowly catching up

On average, young women still feel less informed than their male peers when it comes to finances and money. But the gap is shrinking: in 2023, more than half of the girls surveyed and almost a third of the boys said they didn’t know their way around, or didn’t know it at all. For male respondents the number remained roughly the same, but for young women it shrank to 44 percent. For Gerda Holzinger-Burgstallerhead of the Erste Bank Austriaa positive development. “There is no reason for a gender gap,” she comments on the study results.

Every second girl feels stressed about money

Even though girls today feel more informed, financial questions are still becoming more common for them Stress factor. As in 2023, this year more than half of young women said they felt stressed about money. But boys are also increasingly concerned about financial issues. 34 percent feel stressed, up from 29 percent in 2023.

In addition to gender, the parents’ financial situation is also a factor in financial education: this is how young people evaluate it low-income families their knowledge in this area is significantly worse than their peers from financially stable households.

According to the survey, many young people feel well informed when it comes to… Contractual relationships is about, for example, cell phone or rental contracts. Also at SteerMost people have a good overview of their own monthly budget and fixed costs. As in 2023, this year one in five people said they had no overview of their own expenses.

Fear of debt is increasing – especially online

The fear has increased Debt. 20 percent of those surveyed had already been worried that they would not be able to pay back money they had borrowed (2023: 17 percent). Above all Online payment services How Klarna or Riverty According to the study, young people face a high risk of indebtedness.

Young people have a broad awareness of Online fraud. Their knowledge is based primarily on personal experiences, stories from the environment and social media content. According to the survey, they have great trust in their own intuition. However, this can also harbor the risk that potential dangers are underestimated.

Many young people see a need to catch up when it comes to understanding economic relationships. Also some financial ones Funding exist and how they can be applied for is often still new territory. Many young people would like more financial education in school, especially in the form of understandable practical examples.

Financial education hardly seems to be a topic in high schools at the moment: almost three quarters of them AHS students say they don’t learn anything about money and finances in school. In vocational schools (BHS) it is only 17 percent. Holzinger-Burgstaller speaks of a structural problem: “If financial education depends on which school you attend or what environment you come from, it is ultimately about equal opportunities.”