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’re taking 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 in terms of girls versus boys, because we just want to get our content in front of as many kids as possible. But the requests wouldn’t go away – so we responded: “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, before, any money is spent.” To underscore the obvious we added that there is no actual #GirlMath, nor #BoyMath, there is #JustMath.
Then, we wondered what the experts say?
We’re so focussed 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 what the experts have to say. We read studies and white papers . And 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-old’s, can’t we seriously narrow the adult money gender gap – just by keeping what we experience going?
Which got us to 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? When young women ask detailed questions about starting 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.
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!
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!
We understand systemic change is required to eliminate the money gender gap. We also appreciate the backlash against any solution to the money gender gap that resembles “fixing women”. But if you grow up getting and using (at first basic) financial information to make your life better – do you feel like you’re “being repaired”? Or do you just feel like you’re learning how to manage your personal finances in a way that supports your well-being? We think it’s the latter!
What’s the simplest way to grow up getting and using financial information to make your life better? You know our answer: practice thinking before buying! To use Dr. Peter Attia’s phrase, getting kids to embrace thinking before buying on the regular may seem “so-what-ish”. But as anyone who’s had a child attend a Gifting Sense workshop 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. 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!
Solving smaller problems in real-time helps prevent future larger ones!
For school-aged children, thinking before buying only amounts to asking and answering simple questions, about typical childhood purchases, before, any money is spent. The DIMS – DOES IT MAKE SENSE?® SCORE Calculator lets them work on a problem that matters to them in real time: “Should I buy this item or experience?” Of course they want to avoid disappointment, reduce waste, improve family harmony, and help protect the planet. Environmental concerns in particular, really matter to today’s kids. But introducing them to a simple habit that takes minutes to practice, does even more than all that, it can narrow money gender gap decades earlier than currently predicted – by preventing one from ever taking hold amongst today’s youth – in the first place!
A historical example of another “SPSH”: Super Powerful Simple Habit
In 40 short years, the adoption of regular toothbrushing (after the second world war because soldiers brought the habit home to their families) 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 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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