The significance of financial self-efficacy in explaining women’s personal finance behaviour

Lisa Farrell (), Tim Fry and Leonora Risse

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2016, vol. 54, issue C, 85-99

Abstract: Much policy attention has been placed on enhancing individuals’ financial knowledge and literacy, chiefly through financial education programs. However, managing one’s personal finances takes more than financial knowledge and literacy: an individual also needs a sense of self-assuredness, or ‘self-belief’, in their own capabilities. This personal attribute is known within the psychology literature as ‘self-efficacy’. This paper examines the significance of an individual’s financial self-efficacy in explaining their personal finance behaviour, through the application of a psychometric instrument. Using a 2013 survey of Australian women, financial self-efficacy emerges as one of the strongest predictors of the type and number of financial products that a woman holds. Specifically, our analysis reveals that women with higher financial self-efficacy – that is, with greater self-assuredness in their financial management capacities – are more likely to hold investment and savings products, and less likely to hold debt-related products. Even alongside other important factors – such as education, financial risk preferences, age and household income – the explanatory power of financial self-efficacy is found to be significant at the 1% critical level. Moreover, the significance of financial self-efficacy is independently identified from that of financial literacy factors, which bears important implications for the development of policies aiming to improve financial outcomes.

Keywords: Financial self-efficacy; Personal finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:54:y:2016:i:c:p:85-99

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2015.07.001

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