The Influence of Gender and Ethnicity on Young Adults’ Participation in Financial Education Programme

Mohamad Fazli Sabri,Rusitha Wijekoon

doi:10.5539/jms.v9n1p159

Abstract

A major problem encountered by educationalists, community leaders and policy makers is to transfer financial literacy and consumer education successfully to their community. Delivering of ﬁnancial education for youth of a country is one possible intervention to improve the ﬁnancial capabilities of a population. Therefore, for an effective training we have to identify their financial needs. Further they need guidance and access for financial knowledge and money management tools. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to identify the training needs of youth by gender and ethnicity about money management and to determine their interest towards it. The sample was comprised of 220 secondary school students from five schools in Greater Klang Valley/Kuala Lumpur with 112 females and 108 males and the data collection was done using self-administered questionnaire. The results shown that about one third of female youths have preferred to participate on financial literacy programs than male youths (21.5%). In addition, most of the Malay respondents said that they need more information to take efficient decisions on saving, borrowing and insurance, followed by Indians (64%) and Chinese (61.5%). The findings of this study would be used to the development of financial empowerment program of youth in Malaysia in order to enhance their financial literacy.

Highlights

Nowadays people take their own financial decisions at early stages of their life and in order to be successful as adults they require good financial skills and knowledge, but according to the existing statistics the financial literacy of young people is poor (Sherraden, Johnson, Guo, & Elliott, 2011)
The results shown that about one third of female youths have preferred to participate on financial literacy programs than male youths (21.5%)
Financial knowledge could be considered as a key component of money management, but prevailing literature about how money related information meddle with different qualities to shape the monetary administration is still unclear

Summary

Introduction

Nowadays people take their own financial decisions at early stages of their life and in order to be successful as adults they require good financial skills and knowledge, but according to the existing statistics the financial literacy of young people is poor (Sherraden, Johnson, Guo, & Elliott, 2011). According to the findings of Webley (2005) kids procure enormous advancements in financial comprehension with in the times of somewhere in the range of 6 and 12, and when they reach to the age around 12, their comprehension is same as grown-up. Further they may likewise grab facts from their companions and the broad communications on monetary themes for instance, TV advertisements (John, 1999; Sherraden et al, 2011). Youthful youngsters initially gain knowledge about monetary administration by means of watching and displaying their parents (Otto, 2009; Sabri, MacDonald, Hira, & Masud, 2010)

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