There’s No Financial Literacy Gender Gap Amongst 10-14-Year-Old’s!
At first, we didn’t even respond to the #GirlMath meme!
We took it as a sign of respect – all the inquiries about the difference between boys and girls in our thinking-before-buying workshops. It started last summer with the #GirlMath meme. We had yet to join Instagram. We’d never thought about girls versus boys because we just want our content in front of as many young people as possible. But the requests wouldn’t go away – so we replied: “Kids who use the DIMS – DOES IT MAKE SENSE?® SCORE Calculator don’t need to humorously justify their purchases; they already know what they’re buying makes sense for them and their family”. To underscore the obvious, we added that there is no actual #GirlMath, nor #BoyMath, but #JustMath.
Then, we wondered what the experts say.
We’re so focused on getting middle schoolers everywhere to recognize that they both can and should want to ask questions about money that we stay in our lane, working towards that goal. But in Q4’23, we decided to learn exactly what the money gender gap experts have to say. We read studies and white papers. According to the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Centre, as much as one-third of the gender gap in financial literacy is due to confidence, while the other two-thirds is due to knowledge. At which point it hit us: if we don’t experience any financial literacy (or confidence) gender gap amongst 10-14-year-olds, can’t we seriously narrow the adult money gender gap – just by keeping what we experience going?
This got us thinking…
Indeed, raising the FIRST generation of young adults, where young women continue to ask questions about money before making personal financial decisions with the same frequency as young men, can’t help but narrow the money gender gap. How so? If you grow up getting and using (at first basic) financial information to make your life better, why…would you ever stop? And when young women ask detailed questions about salary pay bands, employer-sponsored savings programs, and family leave with the same frequency as young men and then choose their first and future employers according to the answers to those questions – it stands to reason that employers will NOT want to lose talent to gender equitable competitors. When in need, employers want the best human for the job possible, full stop.
For school-aged children, thinking before buying only involves asking and answering simple questions about typical childhood purchases before spending any money. The DIMS—DOES IT MAKE SENSE?® SCORE Calculator is an equitable and specific tool that presents those questions in a way that lets all children, regardless of gender, work on a problem that matters to them in real-time: “Should I buy this item or experience?”
So, in addition to helping children avoid disappointment, reduce waste, improve family harmony, and protect the planet, thinking before buying can narrow the money gender gap decades earlier than currently predicted by preventing one from ever taking hold amongst today’s youth in the first place. The money habits and beliefs we develop in childhood are incredibly stable. So helping kids develop productive ones in the first place doesn’t only help them in real-time; it also has tremendous future value. There’s a huge ripple effect!
In addition to helping children avoid disappointment, reduce waste, improve family harmony and protect the planet, thinking before buying can narrow the money gender gap decades earlier than currently predicted – by preventing one from ever taking hold amongst today’s youth – in the first place!
The money habits and beliefs we develop in childhood are incredibly stable – so helping kids develop productive ones in the first place, doesn’t only help them in real-time, it has tremendous future value. There’s a huge ripple effect!
Both individual and system changes are needed.
We understand systemic change is required to eliminate the money gender gap (which is broader than just the gender pay gap). We also appreciate backlash against any solution to the money gender gap that resembles “fixing women”. Our vision is a world where all children grow up practicing, getting, and using (at first basic) financial information to make their lives better. A world where all young adults feel comfortable asking questions about money before making personal financial decisions.
But solving prospective problems in real-time does help prevent future larger ones.
Getting kids to embrace thinking before buying on the regular may seem “so-what-ish”. But as anyone who’s given their child early financial education knows, what really happens when a young person acquires comfort with basic personal finance terms and ideas is that they’re also developing the confidence required to seek out the more sophisticated financial information they’ll need later in life when it is relevant and can be helpful.
Skeptical? Toothbrushing permanently improved the well-being of citizens in 40 years!
In 40 short years, regular toothbrushing (soldiers brought the habit home to their families after the Second World War) moved oral cavities from an early-onset childhood disease to a late-onset adult disease. Many of our grandparents had a full set of dentures. Most of our contemporaries hardly have any cavities!
Thinking before buying is as easy to teach, powerful, and therefore sticky as regular toothbrushing. Anyway, you count it: 40 years is 129 years less than the 169 years it’s reportedly going to take to close the money gender gap at present. So, let’s put the pedal to the floor on this issue. We can begin by recognizing that when we’re still just kids, we all have way more in common than not.
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