Are women really less financially educated?

The “don't know” effect

Abstract

Purpose: There are several surveys, which present women as less financially educated than men. However, this paper breaks new grounds by explaining whether gender differences are influenced by the structure of the instruments used to assess financial education. In other words, the framing effect of response categories. 

Methodology: a quasi-experiment was carried out with 489 university students, who will answer two questionnaires, one followed by the other, differing in the questions of financial knowledge, with or without the option to answer “I don't know” in each question. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis techniques were used. 

Results: as a result, we successfully proved the study's hypothesis, in that part of the gender differences in financial education is because women mark the “I don't know” option more, especially on issues that represent more advanced levels of financial knowledge. More specifically, it was found that the use of “I don't know” increases, on average, the gender difference by 67%, proving the existence of the framing effect. 

Contributions: as the main contribution of this work, the importance of researchers is highlighted to analyze in which situations the use of the alternative “I don't know” is really important and which treatment should be incorporated into their analyzes to assess its impact, especially in gender studies. In addition, the need for more specific methodologies is evident in order to promote financial education courses, not only focused on teaching financial concepts, but with actions that develop the self-confidence of individuals, especially women.