Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in New Zealand

Diana Crossan, David Feslier () and Roger Hurnard
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Diana Crossan: Retirement Commission, New Zealand
David Feslier: Retirement Commission, New Zealand
Roger Hurnard: Retirement Commission, New Zealand

No 113, CeRP Working Papers from Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy)

Abstract: We compare levels of financial literacy in New Zealand with levels in five other countries and between the general adult population of New Zealand, people of Maori ethnicity and, more particularly, the people of Ngai Tahu, a Maori tribe based mainly in the South Island of New Zealand who have initiated a long-term savings scheme and are also providing financial education courses for members of their tribe. Our findings indicate that, while the financial knowledge level of Maori people generally is lower than for non-Maori (controlling for demographic and economic factors), there is little difference between the financial knowledge of the people of Ngai Tahu and other New Zealanders. Finally, the analysis finds financial literacy (defined as getting all three test questions correct) is not significantly associated with thinking about planning for retirement ‘a lot’, although it appears to be significant for other measures of financial achievement. This result could reflect the dominant role of New Zealand’s universal public pension in providing retirement income security.

Keywords: Financial literacy; retirement planning; financial education; Maori; Ngai Tahu; New Zeland. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crp:wpaper:113

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