The results of the Global Financial Literacy Survey have been presented on the 25th of June by OECD, outlining a terrible performance of Italy in terms of financial literacy. In fact, with just 11.1 points in the Financial Literacy Score, Italy reaches the last place in the ranking, below OECD countries’ average (13 points), as well as the 26 states that have participated to the survey’s average (12.7).

The poor financial knowledge is the most negatively affecting feature to the absolute result: with 3.9 points out of 7, Italian adults’ score is the worst among the Central Europe’s countries, second only to Romania.
Finally, another negative domestic primacy concerns (unfortunately) the gender gap in the overall score: Italian women, with Colombians, had collected the worst results among all the participants.

With the engagement to fill the gender gap and the digital divide, Global Thinking Foundation works everyday to enhance resilience, well-being and financial inclusion to prevent economic abuse and the Foundation will participate for the third year to the Financial Education’s Month, organized by the Italian Programming and Coordinating Financial Education’s Activities Committee.

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On May 7, 2020, the 2018 results of the third survey of the Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) on the level of financial education of 15-year-old male and female students from the 20 participating countries were presented in Paris.
Observing the PISA 2018 ranking, Estonia ranks first, Indonesia closes the ranking and Italy is below the OECD average (505 points) with 476 points, worsening the performance of the previous cycle of 2015. Furthermore, as many as 20% of Italian students do not reach the necessary level, which presupposes understanding the importance of a simple personal budget.

In all countries, a strong correlation is evident between the results in financial literacy and those in mathematics and reading. Still, also, in this case, Italy is an exception, where the performance in financial literacy is 15 points lower than that in mathematics and reading.
The 2018 photography does not show sizeable overall gender gaps: only 2% of boys performed better than girls, but there is another Italian exception, with an average of males 15 points higher than that of females.

Distance learning and at home, and multidisciplinary choice
Student performance does not necessarily have a positive connection with the country’s GDP or with the ability to access basic financial products. It, therefore, becomes essential to analyze other aspects such as the inclusion of business education in school curricula and other behavioural and attitudinal issues related to money. In this sense, Italy is in the penultimate position for children’s exposure to learning financial notions at school.

According to OECD experts, to fill these gaps, national governments should adopt a multidisciplinary approach to create national financial education strategies that support young people. It will be crucial paying attention to socio-economic and gender divergences, which provide safe access to financial services, exploiting the training potential that digitalization offers above all in this emergency context and which preserve the construction of good habits at family and school level.

Gender differences in mathematics and science assessment

1) Gender gap in math skills assessment.
In OECD countries, the average score in math skills is 5 points higher for boys. In Italy, this difference is even higher: 16 points. This gender gap in math skills seems to be more evident in medium-high score groups than in lower score groups.

2) Gender gap in science skills assessment.
For the first time compared to past cycles, in which sciences have been the main assessment area, the gender gap in scientific literacy has changed its course: the international average scores 2 points higher for girls.
In 2018, Italy-related results show that there aren’t statistical differences in boys and girls scores (470 vs 466). Analysing the different study programs, we can see a remarkable gender gap in high schools, where boys score, in average, 25 points more than girls. This gender gap is even more meaningful, although more moderate, in technical institutes. Instead, in the other study programs, the scores of boys and girls, in average, are not statistically dissimilar.