When it Comes to Financial Literacy, is Gender Really an Issue?

In Australia the introduction of compulsory superannuation has resulted in the financial services industryflourishing and the introduction of numerous new products and services. As a result financial education iscritically important to differentiate the extensive range of providers, products and services as means to achievefinancial security. Several research papers published since 2000 have attempted to measure the level offinancial literacy in today’s society. Some of these studies have suggested that gender is a significant variableimpacting on the level of financial literacy. However, to date no such evidence relating to gender differenceand its impact on the level of financial literacy is available in Australia. The purpose of this pilot study was toexplore the validity of the research outcomes of Chen and Volpe (2002) in an Australian context. To this endthe study concentrates on determining the level of financial literacy among Australian undergraduate businessstudents at the University of Western Sydney (UWS).