FLY-IN

Addressing Financial Literacy Needs Of Young NEET Women Towards Their Financial INclusion

Financial Literacy means the capability to make effective decisions regarding the use of money. A financially literate individual is able to make intelligent judgments and take effective choices regarding the usage and management of money. It is the ability to understand and properly apply financial management skills.

Research suggests that even though women tend to be more apprehensive about their future, they are more uneducated about how to secure it, and usually face more monetary challenges than men while making finance decisions (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2008; Lusardi et al., 2010, Atkinson and Messy, 2012). Small-scale needs assessment in the form of a survey was carried out to 50 young women per partner country (Sweden, UK, Cyprus, Greece and N. Macedonia), 250 in total, to investigate their knowledge and needs with regards to financial literacy.

The results, taking into account the perspective of the young women from different geographical contexts, revealed that young NEETs and those with a migrant background, seem to have less knowledge of financial literacy and more need to be trained in this field in order to increase their opportunities for social inclusion, financial independence, and employability opportunities. The survey results are in line with research carried out in the EU and worldwide, revealing that young and NEET women, as well as women of disadvantaged groups -mainly migrants (22.3 million non-EU citizens are living in the EU, Eurostat, 2018) often have less access to financial knowledge and formal financial products compared to men (OECD, 2012; Batsaikhan et al, 2018; Bruegel, 2018).

Indeed, even though gender equality in terms of economic and financial opportunities is becoming increasingly relevant at both national and international levels, as a way to improve women’s financial empowerment, the gender gap in financial literacy still remains unbridged. According to the 5th Sustainable Development Goal of the UN (2019), women have the right for equal access to education, decent work, and representation in economic decision-making processes that will enable them to fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large and being financially literate comes to play an invaluable part to that.

But, according to Bruegel (2018) despite its important role, financial literacy is not included in the school curricula, and, therefore, non-formal and life-long learning processes and solutions should be considered after the school cycle is completed. Promoting the involvement and coordination among relevant stakeholders (financial institutions, youth centres and educational organisations involved with youth, NEETs, migrants, and women empowerment in the EU) could contribute to the development of well-organised training programs on financial literacy for young women to increase their basic skills and key competences to keep up with the increasing complexity of the financial markets and acquire the financial knowledge, confidence, and ability to effectively participate in economic activities and financial decision-making, both within and outside their households.

In this context, FLY-IN project will be an effort to develop an educational program to train-the-youth workers coming from financial institutions, youth centres and educational organisations involved with youth, NEETs, migrants, and women empowerment to train young women with a double-disadvantage (NEET with a migrant background) to become financially literate.