The influence of the social environment on financial education
effectiveness and financial literacy
By
W.J.P. Nielsen
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
The influence of the social environment on financial education
effectiveness and financial literacy
Table of content
Preface 4
Introduction 6
Literature review 9
Financial literacy 9
Influence of the social environment on behaviour 11
Personal finances and social norms 14
Conceptual framework 19
Methods 20
Participants 20
Research design & procedure 21
Materials 22
Analysis plan 24
Results 25
Social environment – financial literacy 25
Financial education – financial literacy 27
Influence of financial education on environment-literacy relationship 29
Discussion 34
Current knowledge 34
Implications 36
Limitations and future research 38
References 40
4
Preface
On the back of one of the greatest financial shocks in recent times, it has become increasingly evident that large segments of the (Dutch) population struggle to manage their personal finances effectively. A lack of financial knowledge and money handling skills prevent these individuals from making the right financial choices, which is painfully costly for both the individual and society as a whole. Adolescents are no exception to this trend. As they enter a new phase in life and are growing increasingly independent from parental influence, these youngsters are a particularly vulnerable group. Their newfound autonomy often does not come with the sufficient level of financial knowledge and irresponsible spending behaviour is then the gateway to problematic debt accumulation.
In order to counter this worrying trend, the city government of Groningen has developed a new financial education program for MBO-students in collaboration with several other personal finance-related organizations named ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’. The reasoning behind this program was that financial education would lead to increased financial knowledge among students, which in turn would help to make better financial choices in the (immediate) future to prevent financial problems from occurring. Now to find out if this program is actually effective in reaching its goal of improved knowledge, the city government has asked the University of Groningen for help. This paper describes one of the four studies that were conducted among MBO-students in Groningen.
5 determine the program’s effectiveness. Based on this analysis we can conclude that ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’ does not have a significant positive effect on the financial knowledge of MBO-students in Groningen. Both the attitude towards personal finance matters and the financial insight of ‘educated’ students did not show a significant difference compared to the financial attitudes and insights of ‘uneducated’ students. The effectiveness of the program can thus be strongly doubted and continuing the program in its current form would be wasteful.
Parallel to this effectiveness study, the second part of this paper examines the effect of a student’s social environment on his or her financial behaviour. From the current scientific knowledge available we know that one’s social surroundings can have a profound effect on his or her behaviour, both in general and personal finance-related. To see how the people around them influence our participant’s financial behaviour and establish if the existence of a financial education program possible moderates this environment-behaviour relationship, additional analyses were conducted for the results of the same 120 MBO-students from the first part. These test showed that although the social environment does not seem to influence financial attitudes, the level of financial knowledge does seem to improve when students report a greater influence of the people around them on their financial behaviour. Finally, this environment-financial behaviour relationship was not proven to be impacted by the
6
Introduction
In the aftermath of one of the greatest global recessions in recent times, the financial environment that consumers face these days has changed dramatically over the last years (Boshara et. al, 2010). Personal bankruptcies have skyrocketed during this period and calls for a comprehensive response from governments are growing louder and louder across all
political persuasions (Fernandes, Lynch Jr & Netemeyer, 2013). Interested groups, such as the aforementioned policymakers, fear that the deficiencies of financial knowledge among
various vulnerable groups like the lower-educated make these people extremely vulnerable for future economic crises (Braunstein &Welch, 2002). Such knowledge deficiencies among consumers can affect an individual’s or family’s day-to-day money management and could severely hamper people’s ability to save for longer-term goals like home ownership and retirement planning; milestones that strongly impact one’s day-to-day life.
A popular instrument among policy makers to counter these financial problems and improve consumers´ financial is extensive education to improve financial literacy (Hilgert et. al, 2003). Not only are these educational programs a firm favourite among policy makers, many
7 However, our current scientific knowledge on financial education and financial literacy
clearly shows us that merely offering financial education programs as a cure for the financial literacy deficiency problem is not as simple and straightforward as it seems. Multiple studies have found that the positive direct influence of financial education on the levels of financial literacy and subsequent financial behaviour among students is either extremely limited (Fernandes, Lynch. Jr & Netemeyer, 2014) or entirely non-existent (Willis, 2008). Both understanding the effectiveness of financial education and, in turn, exploring how specific programs can help in improving financial literacy among young people, like students, is thus of critical importance for governments in several areas; it can aid both practitioners who develop and teach effective financial education programs targeted at young people as well as policymakers writing legislation to protect younger consumers from (future) financial
sorrows. (Lusardi, Mitchell & Curto, 2010) The challenge for practitioners and research alike is thus to find which factors influence the effectiveness of educational programs on student’s financial literacy and subsequently to design the most effective program to do so; this is also the main purpose of this research.
There are several factors that can (positively) influence this education-behaviour relationship: Willis (2008) for example mentions people’s different learning styles as a possible influencer of financial education effectiveness. Mandell and Schmid Klein (2007) on the other hand found in their study that a participant’s motivation to gain new insights and learn about adequate handling of personal finance matters has a significantly positive impact on the effectiveness of financial education programs. Motivated students were more open to new information and in turn showed higher levels of knowledge and skill when faced with different personal finance questions.
8 programs can in turn be designed in such a way that triggers this motivation and ultimately improves the effectiveness of the program as a whole. For example, several studies have shown that social interactions are important in one’s openness to gain new insights and in the subsequent decision making progress, both in general and financial-specific issues (Cude et. al 2006; Burke & Mihaly, 2012) and often arise in the form of peer pressure (Duflo & Saez, 2003). This pressure to adhere to the norms and behaviours that are prevalent in one’s social group, or a group that an individual aspires to be a part of, strongly shapes one’s own
behaviour; not in the least among our target group of young adults (Evans, Oates & Schwab, 1992).
9 adolescent age group a prime target for comprehensive financial education to possibly
enhance financial literacy and thus the focal point of this research.
This study will initially adopt a rather broad perspective, before zooming in. Firstly, the concept of financial literacy will be defined and further explored, after which the topic of the social environment and its impact on people’s (financial) decision making processes will follow.
Literature review
Financial literacy
The concept of financial literacy has been extensively studied from both financial angles as well as behavioural points of view. Several theoretical definitions have been formed as a result. Remund (2010, p. 284) for example defines financial literacy as ‘a measure of the degree to which one understands key financial concepts and possesses the ability and
10 As mentioned in the introduction, an urgent problem that has heightened policy makers´ concerns is the fact that large segments of the general population have low levels of financial literacy (Braunstein & Welch, 2002). The Netherlands are no exception to this trend, as a 2012 research estimated that 38% of the Dutch population suffered from a self-reported lack of financial knowledge (Simonse, 2012) and an increasing number of Dutch people are struggling to cope financially (Nibud, 2014). The less financially literate may be more likely to unknowingly commit financial mistakes, less likely to engage in recommended financial practices, and less likely to be able to cope with sudden economic shocks. Lusardi and Mitchell (2007) state that making these decisions are far from simple, requiring consumers to gather and process data on compound interest, risk diversification, inflation, and the asset universe. In other words, individuals need very significant knowledge and a considerable financial skillset simply to avoid making mistakes (Hung, Parker & Yoong, 2009).
The need for higher levels of financial literacy is especially strong among vulnerable groups that often struggle with debt. There is a strong relationship between financial literacy and debt behaviour: The more financially knowledgeable are more likely to be in control of their finances. People who use high-cost borrowing methods come from vulnerable demographic groups and—even after controlling for these factors—are less financially literate. Low levels of debt literacy are the norm, and understanding of the basic mechanics of debt is especially limited among the elderly, women, certain minorities, and people with lower incomes and education (Lusardi & Tufano, 2009).
With this apparent struggle to comprehend personal finance matters in mind, a logical follow-up question to raise is why is this personal financial management so hard? Consumer
11 2004), the rise of a culture of instant gratification stoked by aggressive consumer marketing and a readily available credit for consumption (Leicht and Fitzgerald, 2007) and, importantly, a lack of financial education in secondary schools (Kozup and Hogarth, 2008). With the earlier discussed sense of urgency among policymakers and a growing call among students for comprehensive financial education in high schools in mind, the main focus of this research will be the topic of financial education and its effectiveness in increasing financial literacy among young students. The lack of proper financial education in secondary schools seems the most straightforward one out of the three issues to tackle, as this is the issue for which (local) policymakers could have the necessary tools to make a meaningful impact. Meanwhile adolescents, with their growing (financial) autonomy during this phase in life, are the ideal target audience for such programs. If policymakers are able to make a meaningful
contribution to adolescents’ financial knowledge, these youngsters will hopefully bear the fruits of these efforts for the rest of their lives.
After addressing the theoretical concept of financial literacy and the apparent urgency to improve literacy levels among several interest groups it is time to look into a factor that could ultimately impact the effectiveness of financial education programs in improving financial literacy among our target group of young adults: social interaction. People’s motivation to behave the way that they behave and their willingness to gain new insights are partly the product of the norms and behaviour of the people around him or her as we saw earlier in the introduction. Therefore the following part focuses on people’s social environment and its impact on people’s learning motivation, and ultimately zooming in on its influence on the financial decisions young adults make.
Influence of the social environment on behaviour
12 2012). By gauging other people’s reaction to their behavior, people seek approval for their actions and, by achieving that, form or maintain a positive self-image (Morrison & Bies, 1991). According to Haidt (2011), these personal held self-standards are strongly formed by one’s environment through social influences and normative behavior of others. When societies deem certain actions to be desirable, people adopt these behaviors as a standard for their own behavior, giving a prime example of the feedback process that alters personal behavior for self-presentational purposes (Haidt, 2001) and to adjust one’s attitudes towards certain behaviors to the norms of the greater public (Rozin & Singh, 1999). These examples show that motivations for behavior are often interrelated and that although the need to live up to one’s personal-held self-standard is ultimately internally driven, the forming of these personal norms are often strongly influenced by one´s environment; this environment is thus of significant importance for both one’s self-image as well as his or her behavior.
Interestingly, individuals experience social influence through societal norms and the expectation of this society that its (aspirational) members conform to these norms.
Accordingly, people’s attitudes and behaviors are often driven by motivation to adhere to the norms and beliefs that are accepted and encouraged by the (perceived) majority in order to gain social approval and enhance one’s self-esteem (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). People are usually easily influenced by societal pressure: they observe others’ moral actions and rely on those actions themselves as people usually tend to do what is socially approved as well as what is popular. This holds truth for both society in general and people´s micro-society in the form of their close social circle, in which group norms are especially important tools for people to fit in.
Rozin and Singh (1999) use cigarette smoking as a prime example of the adjustment of people’s attitudes to morals of society. The development of a smoking habit is strongly
13 prevalent among the lower educated (Crone et. al, 2003). They experience more social norms encouraging them to start and view smoking as an easy way to meet and connect with new people. Research among lower-educated Dutch students showed that an important component of effective prevention programs for this group is the scope of the intervention. Instead of focusing on students individually, policy makers should implement school-based or even community-wide programs. By using peer group leaders as trendsetters and reinforcing norms about smoking within social groups, this particular intervention proved to have a substantial and significant short-term effect in smoking prevention among these lower-educated Dutch students. (Crone et. al, 2003).
This prior example clearly shows the (positive) influence the social environment can have in changing an individual´s behavior and prevent a potentially damaging habit from developing. The importance of social norms such as these can be translated to other potentially harmful behaviours like the mismanagement of personal finances. As Duflo and Saez in their 2003 study noted, individuals often want to match the consumption level that is common in their particular social group. Especially students, who are often vulnerable due to experiencing a growing independence and a lack of sound money management, could fall prey to the lure of the good life and the pressure to keep up with their spending (Norvilitis & Santa Maria, 2002). Both smoking habits and overspending are thus behaviours that are often susceptible to outside influences like social norms.
14 tools to curb smoking habits among these students. The relationship between social norms and personal finances in particular will be touched upon in more detail later on in this research.
The type of behaviour induced by peer group behaviour can be found across a wide array of
(negative) behaviours, ranging from the aforementioned smoking habits to problematic
drinking and examination malpractice (Okorodudu, 2013). Much like criminals learn deviant
behaviour through interaction with other criminal individuals or groups, students´
susceptibility to peer pressure and their inherent desire to fit in led were the most important
factors that led to examination malpractice (Okorodudu, 2013). Seeing as that environmental
factors like social norms influence such a major part of our everyday behaviour in society, it
is interesting to take a closer look at the topic of personal finances and specifically zoom in on
the effects of one’s social circle on your financial behaviour.
Personal finances and social norms
15 Interestingly, these adolescents seem to be at a crossroads as far as social influence goes. As they leave their parental home to live on their own for the first time in their life, their
environment changes. During this time, parental influence starts to decline and peer pressure starts to increase. When further looking into the phenomenon of social influence in the form of peer pressure, it has been shown that the level of peer influence among children increases with age and is particularly strong during their adolescence. During this stage, resistance to peer influence often declines as the child gains independence from the family or caretakers, yet has not fully formed an autonomous identity (Juvonen & Wentzel, 1996). Social identity theory (Turner & Tajfel, 1979) may help to explain why college-age students in particular are
influenced by peer pressure. This theory suggests that a significant portion of an individual’s self-concept is formed through their peer groups, with the in-groups being viewed more
positively than the out-groups. This group classification enables an individual to locate or
define him-or herself in the social environment and gives an individual a sense of belonging
(Ashforth & Mael, 1989); the in-group is the group an individual aspires to be part of
regardless of the popularity of a group or its members. In a brand new and relatively unknown
environment, like a college environment, it is often essential for students to be associated with
the in-group in order to be socially accepted. Therefore vulnerable college students, who are
often in a completely new situation, will give in to peer pressure hoping to be socially
accepted and have a successful transition to college.
16 Additionally, similar outcomes were found when the influence of one´s peers was considered. In several studies of saving and financial decision-making, peers were the main contributors of information and financial advice (Hong, Kubik, and Stein 2004; Brown et al. 2008). For example, when asked how they generally make financial decisions, a substantial fraction of respondents reported consulting friends and colleagues (Lusardi and Mitchell 2006). Duflo and Saez (2003) found that peers were also important in people´s decision making regarding pension participation and annual contributions. Finally, Lusardi, Mitchell and Curto (2010) found that participants with a high percentage of peers who planned to attend college scored significantly better on a wide array of financial literacy questions. Thus, peer characteristics also play a significant role in an adolescent´s financial knowledge and subsequent behaviour.
All these findings are in line with the aforementioned social learning theory that explains the environmental influences college students have had over the years forming their financial attitudes and values and shaping them into who they are today. As students learn over the years through social interaction (Bandura, 1986), they begin to understand and form their values, knowledge, and attitudes about finances. People´s receptiveness to financial education in general and their motivation to improve their financial literacy seem to be strongly
triggered by cues from their social environment. However, these triggers seem to influence motivation in two distinctly different ways.
On the one hand, there is the tendency of mimicking the behaviour of one’s social group members as covered earlier in this chapter. Social interactions strongly influence people’s behaviours and serve as a behavioural anchor (Duflo & Saez, 2003). By observing others, individuals can learn about the proper behaviour of their social group or their aspirational social group (Bernheim, 1994). Individuals may for example want to maintain the same consumption level as what is common in their social group (Glaeser, Sacerdote &
17 studying financial literacy and social interactions, Lusardi and Mitchell (2011) found that the same environmental cues can sometimes have different motivational triggers for people.
In their study, Lusardi and Mitchell reported that people with an older sibling in worse financial condition than themselves and parents with relatively little understanding of financial matters were actually more likely to display higher levels of financial literacy themselves. They argued that in these cases people’s social environment and the examples that were set by siblings or parents actually served as a reminder for students of what not to become. Thus in order to avoid following in the same negative footsteps, these people were more eager to improve their financial knowledge. This finding is in line with a financial literacy study of Cude et. al (2006) among college students in the United States, in which interviewees specifically stated the desire to make different financial choices than their siblings as a motivator for their own financial behaviour, be it positively or negatively.
Prior research has established that one’s susceptibility to social influences, whether to follow peer group behaviour or not, can be influenced by several different factors. Steinberg and Monahan (2007) for example argued that the age of an individual is one of most important predictors for peer pressure susceptibility. As mentioned earlier, perceived peer pressure steadily rises throughout one’s childhood before it peaks during early/middle adolescence. The search for a personal identity and growing need to fit in to the popular crowd make that individuals in their early and middle adolescence (14-17 year olds) are particularly prone to copy the behaviour of the people around them. Since a significant number of the target group of ‘Jouw schuld= jouw schuld’ are expected to fall within this age range, one would expect that these students are in fact more motivated to mimic others’ behaviour in order to fit in
18 encouragement to follow peer group behaviour was found to be a stronger determinant of peer pressure susceptibility than mere example-setting by peer group members. If individuals are actively encouraged to display certain behaviour, or conversely to avoid certain undesired behaviour, by a member of their social group these individuals are more willing to act in the desired way than people who merely observe the behaviour of others. The nature of outside influence is thus of significant importance for the likelihood of an individual following the behaviour of others.
The contrasting findings on motivations for financial behaviour are the focal point of this research. By conducting this research hopefully we will be able to determine how the social influence a student perceives shapes his or her financial attitudes and behaviours. Will our participants be influenced by the (implicit) pressure to adhere to existing norms of their social environments and how significant is this social influence? It will for example be interesting to find out how the outcomes of the current study will compare to the 2006 study of Cude et. al. Since the participants of the current study are of a relatively lower educational level than those in the study of Cude, one would expect that the level of financial literacy among
subjects will be lower in the current study (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2011), therefore making them more susceptible for outside influences during their (financial) decision making process. In our case, this would mean that the more (financially) literate an individual is, the less susceptible he or she is to social influences to conform to group norms. This trade-off between knowledge/literacy and proneness to outside influence was also found in the earlier mentioned study of Crone et. al (2003) on smoking habits among lower-educated adolescents and in a 1988 study of Hansen et. al. They showed that students who received targeted
19 relationship between financial knowledge (literacy) and susceptibility to social influences could thus be expected in this experiment.
With this trade-off in mind, the existence of a financial education program could play a moderating role in this relationship. Besides a possible direct effect of such an educational program on the financial literacy levels of a student, this education could also impact the relationship between social influence and (financial) knowledge. Students who receive financial education would be more financially literate and better able to make (informed) financial decisions than those who did not receive education. This in turn would make the ‘educated’ group less susceptible to outside influences (both positive and negative) regarding financial matters than those who do not receive this educational program; that would thus show a moderating impact of financial education on the social influence-financial literacy relationship.
With the existing body of knowledge regarding financial literacy and social influencing as summarized in the previous parts of this paper in mind, two main questions are thus to be answered. On the one hand we aim to find out if the financial education program as presented by the governmental policymakers is effective in improving the levels of financial literacy among young adults. The other question that we seek to answer is how one’s social environment influences the level of financial literacy among students and whether an
educational program influences this relationship? Will these youngsters follow the norms and behaviours that are prevalent in their social group or do these norms and behaviours serve as an example of what not to do in regards to personal finance issues? These are the issues that will be tackled in the following parts of this research.
20 Based on the existing literature about our central themes of financial education, financial literacy and the impact of the social environment on one’s attitudes and behaviours regarding personal finances, the following visual representation of these theoretical concepts can be made. The interrelationships between these central concepts will be tested by means of a questionnaire about personal finance matters among relatively lower-educated Dutch adolescents/young adults in the city of Groningen.
Fig. 1 Conceptual model
Methods
To test the hypothesized relationships, as visualized in the conceptual framework, an
extensive survey was conducted among adolescent students of an MBO (lower-level schools) in Groningen which, among several other schools in the city, participated in the financial education program ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’ from the local government that is aimed at improving financial literacy among (relatively) lower-educated students.
Participants
The ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’- survey, which was conducted among six different first-year classes of the Alfa-college in Groningen, consisted of 125 Dutch students; 122 of these
21 students completed the entire questionnaire. Of these 122 students, 62 were women (50,82%) and 60 were men (49,18%). The average age of our total sample was 18 years (M = 18,39; SD = 2,27) The financial education program was attended by 34 students, while 88 students did not receive any specific financial education.
MBO-education is the Netherlands is usually divided into four levels, with Level 1 being the lowest level and Level 4 the highest. This system allows students to use the different levels as a stepping stone, for example a student that has completed Level 2 education has the
opportunity to enter the higher third level. The students that participated in this survey covered a wide array of studies, ranging from finance-related fields like accountancy, retail management and financial administration to more general areas like management secretary and ICT. For this questionnaire, the composition of the different levels among students was as shown below:
Education level
Level 2: 26/122 (21,3%) Level 3: 68/122 (55,7%) Level 4: 28/122 (23,0%)
Research design & procedure
To manipulate the ‘financial education’ variable and test the direct effect of the financial education program on the level of financial literacy among students, a between-participants design is used. One group of students attended a one-day financial education program, while the other group did not receive any financial education. During this day, different
22 questionnaire about personal finances, while the ‘no education’-group had already completed the questionnaire beforehand. Before answering our survey, researchers briefly introduced the topic of personal financed and the nature of the questions that were about to be asked.
Students filled in the questionnaire, which on average took about 15 minutes, in their own classrooms as separated from each other as possible. After highlighting the importance of the individual nature of the survey to the students and making sure that participant anonymity was ensured, both groups answered the first part of the questionnaire covering the aforementioned topic of financial literacy.
As mentioned, the survey consisted of three sections, of which only the second and parts of the first section are relevant for this research (See Appendix I). The first section of the questionnaire consisted of ten general questions about money management to measure the concept of financial literacy, ranging from attitudes towards debt to their stance towards saving for large expenditures. By measuring these facets of financial literacy, we aim to determine if receiving additional financial education can make a significant difference in financial literacy levels among two otherwise fairly homo-genic groups.
After measuring the attitudes towards personal finance matters of our participants to gauge the impact of education on financial literacy, the second part of the survey aims to investigate the influence of the social environment on students’ personal finance management. In order to do so, we use Likert-scaled questions about participants’ social circles and the normative
influence these students perceive from the people around them. A total of eleven questions covered topics like the influence of one’s social environment on his or her spending behaviour and the example one’s social environment sets in terms of debt behaviour among our
participants.
23
Independent variables
In order to measure the influence of one’s social environment on your financial literacy, eleven questions were asked. These questions/statements, which were measured on a 7-point Likert scale, ranged from I find it important what the people around me think of my financial
decisions, I ask financial advice from the people around me to Financial problems in my
social environment make me more prudent with money and I base my buying behaviour on
that of the people around me. Together these statements have a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,75,
showing sufficient reliability to combine these eleven items into one overarching variable named Social environment (M=3,73; SD=0.94). Within the social environment-related questions, we will also zoom in on two questions in particular. When I know that the people
around me are in debt I am more willing to borrow money myself and When I know that the
people around me are debt-free I am extra motivated to be debt-free myself are two questions
that specifically cover the mimicking of behaviour witnessed in the social circle by an individual. These outcomes of these two questions will thus be analysed individually against the behaviour-related components of the financial literacy variable to see if there is significant mimicking behaviour among our participants.
The variable ‘Financial education’, both as a direct influence on financial literacy levels and as a possible moderator for the social environment-literacy relationship, is a simple
dichotomous variable which either reads 0 (no education) or 1 (education). This education consisted of a day-long financial literacy course with lectures from several personal finance-related organizations.
Dependent variable
24 The ten attitude-based part of this variable can be divided into two subcategories. Eight 7-point Likert scaled statements, ranging from I plan large expenditures ahead and Even with a
low income one should save money on a regular basis to If you have borrowed money you
repay it as soon as possible and I do not like borrowing money. Together these statements
have a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,61, showing sufficient reliability to combine these eight items into a new subcategory Attitude to debt (M=5,57; SD=0,78). The remaining two attitude-based statements, I am often tempted to buying things and I often buy things on impulse, together have a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,68. Since the reliability is sufficient, together these two items form a new subcategory Attitude to buying behaviour (M=4,78; SD=1,39). Thus, the attitude-based component of financial literacy in the analyses will be tested by means of Attitude to debt and Attitude to buying behaviour.
The second pillar of our financial literacy variable covers the insight into one’s personal finances our participants have. Six statements, which included I know my monthly income, I
try to save money for the future and I regularly have no money on my bank account, together
have a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,66, which is sufficient. Together these six items form the subcategory Financial insight (M=2,47; SD=0,98). All in all, the variable Financial Literacy will be covered by three subcategories Attitude to debt, Attitude to buying behaviour and Financial insight.
Finally, we will add two control variables in the form of Age and Education level as moderators to analysis, to see if one’s susceptibility to the social environment influencing one’s financial decisions is depends on one’s age (Juvonen & Wentzel, 1996) or educational level (Crone et. al, 2003; Hansen et. al, 1988).
25 To see if the educational program has any significant influence of students’ financial literacy levels, the means of the three ‘financial literacy’-subcategories will be compared for both of our samples by means of an independent samples T-test analysis. This leads to three different analyses each covering one aspect of the variable financial literacy. Based on these analyses we can then draw preliminary conclusions about the effectiveness of this particular
educational program.
Additionally, the relationship between social influences and financial literacy levels will also be tested through a linear regression analysis to see if this relationship is significant among our students, both for the variable Social Environment as a whole and the two ‘mimicking behaviour’-related questions individually. Finally, several linear regression analyses will be conducted to see if the strength of a (possible) environment-literacy relationship is influenced by attending an educational program, one’s age and/or one’s educational level. To be able to conduct this analysis, the variables Social Environment and Education, Social
Environment and Age and Social Environment and Educational level will be multiplied to
create new interaction terms. This environment-literacy link is expected to be weaker for students who attended the program due to their expanded knowledge to make their own, informed decisions and also weaker for students from a higher educational level.
Results
Financial education-financial literacy
26
Attitude to debt
Again we start with our subcategory Attitude to debt. As mentioned, an independent samples t-test with education and attitude to debt was performed to see if the attitudes towards debt among students who received financial education differ significantly from the attitudes towards debt among students who did not attend the educational program. This t-test proved to be insignificant, t(122)= 0,02, p= 0.984. Based on these outcomes, we can conclude that the average attitude towards debt among students with financial education (M=5.66; SD=0.68) does not differ from the average attitude towards debt among students who did not attend the financial education program (M=5,66; SD=0.71).
Attitude to buying behaviour
The same steps were followed for our second literacy subcategory, with the only exception of course being an independent samples t-test with education and attitude towards buying behaviour. This t-test was shown to be insignificant, t(122)=-1.08, p=0.282. Based on this outcome, we can conclude that the average attitude towards buying behaviour among students that did attend the educational day (M=5,00; SD=1,15) does not differ significantly from the average attitude towards buying behaviour among students that did not attend the educational day (M=4,70; SD=1,48).
Financial insight
The final step in our assessment of the effectiveness of the financial education program is to compare means for the knowledge-related subcategory Financial insight. Again, an
27 significantly from the financial insight among students who did not receive financial
education (M=2,50; SD=1,04).
Based on all of these outcomes one can conclude that the financial education program ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’ does not have an impact on students’ levels of financial literacy. Whether these literacy levels are measured in terms of financial attitudes or financial insights, every analysis shows that the program does not seem to reach its intended target of improving financial literacy levels among lower-educated students in Groningen.
Social environment-financial literacy
Secondly, we try to establish if there is a significant relationship between one’s social environment and one’s levels of financial literacy, as measured by the aforementioned subcategories.
Attitude to debt
We begin by examining a possible influence of the social environment on students’ attitude towards debt. In order to do so, a regression analysis with Social environment regressed on Attitude to debt was performed. This analysis proved to be insignificant, R square=0.01, F (1,121) = 0.91, p= 0.341. Based on these analysis results (B=-0.07; t=22.38), one could thus conclude that a students’ social environment does not influence his or her attitude towards debt.
Attitude to buying behaviour
28 t=7.39) one could argue that a student’s social environment has at least somewhat of an impact on his or her attitude towards buying behaviour.
Financial insight
Finally, a separate regression analysis was performed to see if a student’s social environment significantly influences the insight a student has into his or her personal finances. The
regression analysis was found to be significant, R square= 0.06, F (1,121) =7.97, p=0.006. This time, even at a strict 0.05 cut-off level, we can confidently conclude (B=0.27; t=4.11) that one’s social surroundings do in fact influence his or her insight into personal finance matters. However, the direction of this relationship is interesting (Appendix 2). From this scatterplot it would seem that financial insight mostly rises with a growing social influence, i.e. students who reported a bigger influence from the people around them often display a higher level of financial insight. All in all, based on these analyses we can see that the impact of social environments on financial literacy levels differs per aspect of financial literacy. Whereas the more attitude-based components of literacy are not (or only ever so slightly) influenced by a student’s social surroundings, these same surroundings are in fact
significantly related to our behaviour-related component of financial literacy.
When looking into the possible existence of mimicking behaviour among our students, the only regression analysis that proved to be marginally significant was the influence of When I
know that the people around me are in debt I am more willing to borrow money myself on a
29 their social circle’s example of accumulating debt showed higher/better buying behaviour in general.
Influence of financial education on environment-literacy relationship
The final step of our analysis is trying to find out which factors influence the environment-literacy relationship, or in other words find out if there are certain factors that make someone more or less susceptible to social influences while making personal finance-related decisions. The factors we are particularly interested in are our (possible) moderator financial education and the control variables Education level and Age. In order to do these analyses, the
interaction terms environment*education, education level*education and age*education were created. Below are the tables with the outcomes of the analyses for the three subcategories of financial literacy for each of these interaction terms.
Educational program
Based on these results, we can conclude that a financial education program does not moderate the environment-literacy relationship. Although the regression model for Financial insight was significant, the interaction effect between education program and social environment proved to be insignificant. The only noteworthy outcome was the significant direct influence of one’s social environment on his or her financial insight, a relationship that was already established earlier on. These numbers show that students who did attend the educational program were not more or less susceptible to social influences on their personal finance matters than those who did not attend the same program.
Beta t F p R square
Moderator effects model
0.36 0.780 0.01
30 Educational program 0.00 -0.04 0.965 Social environment * educational program 0.03 0.43 0.667
Fig. 2 Moderation model Education-Attitude to debt
Beta t F p R square Moderator effects model 1.95 0.126 0.05 Social environment 0.25 1.80 0.074 Educational program 0.15 1.21 0.230 Social environment * educational program 0.12 1.01 0.314
Fig. 3 Moderation model Education-Attitude to buying behaviour
Beta t F p R square Moderator effects model 2.73 0.047* 0.07 Social environment 0.26 2.73 0.007** Educational program -0.04 -0.43 0.666 Social environment * educational program 0.03 0.37 0.710
*= Significant at the 0.05 level **=Significant at the 0.05 level
Fig. 4 Moderation model Education-Financial insight
Education level
Based on these results, we can again conclude that the moderator, in this case the education level of our participants, does not significantly influence the environment-literacy
31 level are not more or less susceptible to social influences on their personal finance matters than students of a relatively lower level of education. However, one thing that does catch the eye is the significant direct relationship between educational level and level of financial insight among students. When looking at the Beta of this relationship, we see that this value is actually negative, thus implying a negative relationship. Students with a higher level of education score lower on the financial insight-variable than students with a relatively lower level of education. Drawing particular conclusions based on these results however is rather difficult and should be done with caution, seeing that other educational variables such as the type of study one follows (financial vs. non- financial for example) could also significantly impact the financial insight of our students.
Beta t F p R square Moderator effects model 0.47 0.701 0.01 Social environment -0.05 -0.66 0.512 Educational level 0.04 0.66 0.512 Social environment * educational level -0.02 -0.33 0.745
Fig. 5 Moderation model Educational level-Attitude to debt
Beta t F p R square Moderator effects model 1.20 0.314 0.03 Social environment 0.27 1.87 0.064 Educational level 0.04 0.30 0.766 Social environment * educational level -0.05 -0.35 0.724
Fig. 6 Moderation model Educational level-Attitude to buying behaviour
32 Moderator effects model 8.83 0.000* 0.18 Social environment 0.15 1.54 0.126 Educational level -0.36 -4.18 0.000** Social environment * educational level 0.01 0.09 0.927
*=Significant at the 0.05 level **=Significant at the 0.05 level
Fig.7 Moderation model Educational level-Financial insight Age
When looking at Age as a moderating variable, two significant outcomes come to the fore. On the one hand, a significant direct relationship between one’s social environment and his or her financial insight was again established (p=0.006). On the other hand however, further
investigation also showed that age moderates the relationship between one’s social environment and his or her attitude towards debt (p=0.025, Fig. 8).
Beta T F P R square Moderator effects model 2.04 0.112 0.05 Social environment -0.06 -0.94 0.350 Age 0.00 0.08 0.940 Social environment * age -0.16 -2.27 0.025*
*=Significant at the 0.05 level
Fig. 8 Moderation model Age-Attitude to debt
Beta T F P R square
Moderator effects model
2.41 0.070 0.06
33
Age -0.18 -1.39 0.166
Social environment * age
-0.19 -1.36 0.175
Fig. 9 Moderation model Age-Attitude to buying behaviour
Beta T F P R square Moderator effects model 2.62 0.054 0.06 Social environment 0.27 2.78 0.006* Age -0.01 -0.07 0.944 Social environment * age -0.01 -0.14 0.886
*=Significant at the 0.05 level
Fig. 10 Moderation model Age-Financial insight Too see how age influences the environment-attitude to debt relationship in more detail and in what direction, we break this analysis down into different age brackets and look into the social environment-attitude to debt relationship for each age group individually. More specifically, we investigated this relationship for the ages 16,17, 18 and 19, as more than 75 percent of our respondents fit into these categories and these age groups fall directly into our target audience of earlier to late adolescents. These individual analyses were transformed into four scatterplots (Appendix III), which in turn formed the basis for the four regression
functions as seen in Figure 11. Note that X represents the Social Environment-variable and Y represents a student’s attitude towards debt.
Age Regression function
16 (X) + 2
34
18 (0.75X) + 3.25
19 (0.5X) + 3
Fig. 11 Environment-debt attitude relationship per age group The most interesting thing to note is the difference in social influencing between 16-year-olds and 19-year-olds. 19-year-olds who perceive a relatively low level of social influence score a higher attitude to debt than 16-year-olds who report a similarly low level of social influence. However, when this self-reported social influence increases, the attitude to debt score of 16 year olds rises much faster than for 19-year-olds. 16-year-olds who reported high levels of social influence scored significantly higher on the ‘Attitude to debt’variable than 19year -olds with similar perceived social influences. It seems that for 16-year--olds the social
environment is a stronger (positive) influencing factor in financial behaviour than for 19-year-olds. This dynamic seems to be in line with earlier studies, which found that peer pressure steadily increases during child hood, peaks during the adolescent phase and slowly declines when an individual enters adulthood (Turner & Tajfel, 1979; Juvonen & Wentzel, 1996). Any intervention that seeks to improve an individual’s financial conduct by using the social circle as (positive) reinforcement is thus most likely to have an impact during the individual’s early adolescent phase.
Discussion
Current knowledge
Signalling a trend of a growing number of young adults struggling with their personal
35 financial literacy and the merits and drawbacks of finance-specific education as a means to tackle financial problems among vulnerable groups. Time and time again the outcomes of these researches proved to be virtually unanimous: the positive impact of financial education on financial literacy is, at most, either extremely marginal (Fernandes, Lynch Jr. &
Netemeyer, 2014) or entirely non-existent (Mandell & Schmid Klein, 2007; Willis, 2008). With this overwhelming evidence against education as a solution for lacking financial know-how in mind, the chances that ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’ would be successful in achieving this goal were already slim beforehand.
Apart from merely testing the effectiveness of a financial education program, our main focus in this study was to find out how one’s social environment (family members, friends etc.) influence a student’s financial competency. We know from existing research that our social environment can influence our attitudes and behaviours in several different kinds of ways. On the one hand, people have a tendency to copy the behaviours they observe from the people around them in order to fit in (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Duflo & Saez, 2007). On the other hand however, some studies specifically centered around personal finances revealed that some people actively seek to avoid mimicking the behaviours of the people around them. They use their peers as a vivid example of what not to become and make their financial decisions to purposely avoid getting into the same financial situation as the people around them (Cude, 2006; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2011). With these seemingly contrasting findings in mind, our goal in regards to the subject of the social environment was two-fold: on the one trying to establish if there is a significant relationship between a student’s social surroundings and his or
36 someone more independent? With these questions in mind, an experimental study among over a hundred Dutch MBO-students was conducted.
Implications
The outcomes of the part of this study that sought to establish a potential (positive) effect of financial education on an individual’s level of financial literacy are in line with existing knowledge on this subject. Basic financial education has no significant effect on financial literacy levels among students. Personal finance professionals and lawmakers should thus ideally refrain from viewing financial education program as an easy and convenient ‘go-to’ solution to solve a complicated issue. If those responsible do decide to adopt comprehensive financial education as an instrument to help students with financial matters and develop a program, there is however a way to do so. Multiple studies have shown consistently that interventions that are interactive and actively involve participants have a positive effect on financial literacy levels. Mandell (2006) for example found out that high school students who play a high school stock game were significantly more financially literate than those who did not play the stock game. Furthermore, Mandell and Klein (2007) indicated that students who received fun and interactive financial classes showed increased motivation to understand the importance of personal finance management for the future. ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’ in this current form is far from fun and interactive, being just a set of one-way lectures without active involvement of its student audience. Thus, policy makers who turn to financial
education should definitely take the nature of the course and the level of student involvement into account.
37 matters, his or her financial knowledge does seem to be impacted by the influence of their social circles. Those who experience a higher self-reported level of social influence showed a higher level of financial insight than those who reported a relatively lower level of social influence. Positive examples set in one’s direct environment serve as an example for our students to follow themselves. This finding could potentially be interesting in a practical sense, as it shows that an important factor in personal finance matters are not individuals themselves but the people close around them. This helps to better understand why interventions targeted at specific individuals can fail and why it is important that governmental programs, for example through social workers, should adopt a broad perspective that involves a client’s social circle as well. Additionally, when looking
specifically at the examples set in the social environment and an individual’s willingness to mimic that particular behaviour, the only meaningful relationship found was between one’s buying behaviour and his or her willingness to borrow money. As expected, students who scored higher on the buying behaviour-variable were less willing to follow their
environment’s example of borrowing money. For this particular variable, higher levels of financial literacy thus led to a weaker tendency for social compliance.
Lastly, our results showed that this financial education program did not influence the environment-literacy relationship. Contrary to what was expected beforehand, students who received financial education were not more or less prone to social influence when making financial decisions; their susceptibility to outside influences was statistically the same. Further examination showed that a student’s educational level does not influence this relationship either, but that an individual’s age does in fact moderate the environment-education
38 peer pressure after early/medium adolescence. Practitioners interested in group-based
interventions among young adults should thus keep the age bracket of the individuals in mind.
Limitations and future research
Although the most important takeaways from this study are that this particular financial education program does not improve students’ understanding of financial matters and that the influence of one’s social environment on his or her personal finance management is
(extremely) limited at best, there are always opportunities for future improvement. In our definition of financial literacy, we identified three main components that together comprise the overall concept of financial literacy based on the workings of Remund (2010) and Atkinson and Messy (2011). These components are knowledge-based, attitude-based and skill-based. For the empirical part of this study, it was decided to focus on our participants’ financial attitudes and financial knowledge. Future research therefore could build on our findings by developing a skill-based sub-variable of financial literacy, for example by adding multiple-choice questions about debt payments and compound interest rates in order to assess the skilfulness of its participants.
Meanwhile, a different approach to the intervention itself could be worthwhile. The ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’-program in its current form is at best ineffective. Its one-way, purely information transmitting nature has been proven by prior students to be pointless and a waste of resources over and over again. Part of its downfall may be attributed to the level of
39 to the one Crone et. al (2003) adopted to prevent smoking among adolescents could be an interesting start. Crone et. al showed that identifying a peer group leader and changing his or her behaviour goes a long way in changing the behaviours of the entire peer group. By setting a better standard, these group leaders ignited a class-level competition in which students were motivated to live up to changed group norm in order to fit in. In our case, a future financial intervention could thus identify the peer group leaders of the individuals whose behaviour it intends to change, focus its attention to change their behaviours in an entertaining and
interactive way and subsequently promote intra-class competition to spread the improvement among other group members. This could ultimately be a cost effective and relatively simple approach to lessen a particularly complicated problem.
Finally, an important issue could be the uncertainty about the longevity of our results. For our participants that did attend the educational lectures, there was a timeframe of about a month between receiving the education and filling in the questionnaire. However, as Fernandes, Lynch Jr. and Netemeyer (2014) found out, the effects of financial interventions decay over time and brief interventions (such as this one) only have an effect with no delay between intervention and behaviour the intervention intended to change. In order to assess the
40 the program and make it a fun and exciting experience for them is thus of critical importance to slowly tackle the financial literacy problems that exist in society today.
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43
Appendix I. Questionnaire ‘Jouw schuld = jouw schuld’
Student en Geld
Fijn dat je deze vragenlijsten van de Gemeente Groningen en de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen wilt invullen!
De twee vragenlijsten gaan over geld en de manier waarop je met geld omgaat. Je antwoorden worden alleen door de onderzoekers bekeken, niet door andere mensen. Je hoeft je naam nergens op te schrijven.
Dit boekje bestaat uit drie onderdelen. Lees bij ieder onderdeel de vragen rustig door voordat je je antwoord geeft. In totaal kost het invullen van alle vragen 10 tot 15 minuten.
Hartelijk bedankt voor je deelname!
Martijn Keizer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
44 Algemene vragen 1. Wat is je leeftijd? ……… Jaar oud 2. Wat is je geslacht?
o
Mano
Vrouw3. Welke opleiding volg je?
……… 4. Op welk niveau volg je deze opleiding?
o
Niveau 1o
Niveau 2o
Niveau 3o
Niveau 45. In welk jaar van deze opleiding zit je?
o
Jaar 1o
Jaar 2o
Jaar 345
Onderdeel 1. Hoe denk jij over geld?
Hieronder volgen 11 stellingen over geld en de manier waarop je met geld omgaat. Geef voor iedere stelling aan of je het met deze stelling eens bent door een getal tussen
1 (helemaal niet mee eens) en 7 (helemaal mee eens) te omcirkelen.
1. Geld lenen is goed, omdat je daardoor meer van het leven kunt genieten.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
2. Grotere aankopen plan ik vooruit.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
3. Het is nooit goed om een schuld te hebben.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
4. Zelfs bij een laag inkomen zou je regelmatig een beetje moeten sparen.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
5. Als je geld geleend hebt, betaal je dit zo snel mogelijk terug.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
6. Ik kom vaak in de verleiding om dingen te kopen.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
7. Ik houd er niet van om geld te lenen.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
8. Het is belangrijk om te leven van datgene wat je hebt.
46 9. Soms is het goed om geld te lenen.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
10. Ik koop vaak dingen spontaan.
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
Financiële problemen
De volgende stellingen gaan over hulp bij financiële problemen. Met financiële
problemen bedoelen we schulden die je niet zonder hulp van anderen kunt oplossen. Geef voor iedere stelling aan of je het met deze stelling eens bent door een getal tussen
1 (helemaal niet mee eens) en 7 (helemaal mee eens) te omcirkelen.
1. Als ik financiële problemen krijg weet ik waar ik hulp kan zoeken .
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
2. Als ik financiële problemen zou krijgen zou ik dat vertellen aan mijn directe sociale omgeving (ouders, broers/zussen en/of goede vrienden).
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
3. Als ik financiële problemen zou krijgen zou ik hulp zoeken bij een officiële instantie (bijvoorbeeld de gemeente).
Helemaal mee oneens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helemaal mee eens
4. Ik denk dat er mensen zijn die mij kunnen helpen als ik financiële problemen krijg.
