Empowering Futures: Boosting Girls’ Financial Confidence Through Gamified Learning – A Gender Equality Research Brief

Highlights

• In 2022, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) delivered “gamified” financial educational interventions to approximately 7,400 students in grades 6 to 12 across Canada.
• These gamified interventions increased financial knowledge and confidence for both girls and boys. These targeted, engaging approaches used behavioural science to boost financial literacy and resilience among youth.
• Areas where the gender gap closed: The interventions closed the gender gap in several key areas, such as awareness of future expenses, knowledge about credit cards, and where to find financial information. Girls showed substantial improvements by the end of the intervention, bringing their knowledge on par with that of boys.
• Areas where the gender gap narrowed: While some gender gaps persisted, the interventions notably elevated girls’ confidence to the level that boys were before the intervention in areas such as money management and preparedness for future financial decisions.

Foreword

As early as kindergarten, little girls are led to believe that they aren’t as good as boys are at math.^{Footnote 1}  Confidence in mathematics and dealing with numbers sets a child up for confidence in dealing with money. When the opposite takes place and children believe they aren’t equipped or wired for math, it can lead to a lasting lack of confidence in finances. As a result, young girls may grow into young women who are less financially confident and less financially knowledgeable than their male peers. A worldwide study has shown that by the time they reach 15 years old, the average girl is conditioned to feel less confident than the average boy in dealing with money matters.^{Footnote 2}  Moreover, approximately one-third of the gender gap in financial knowledge among adults can be explained by women’s lower levels of confidence.^{Footnote 3}

For this reason, women and girls are highlighted within Canada’s National Financial Literacy Strategy as a diverse population that can benefit from tailored approaches to strengthen financial resilience. To help close the gender gap, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) developed and tested the benefits of early interventions at building the financial confidence and knowledge among youth, especially young girls.

Methodology

From February 2022 to January 2023, FCAC used the education platform ChatterHigh to deliver educational interventions to students in grades 6 to 12 across all provinces and territories in Canada. As part of these interventions, students completed gamified courses, including engaging in online scavenger hunts that required students to search FCAC webpages for answers to financial questions. Once students completed the activities, they were rewarded with points that helped their school earn fun prizes.

FCAC created and delivered two gamified courses that were informed by behavioural science:

• Money Management Foundations (Grade 6 to 12; approximately 30 minutes to complete). This course covers fundamental financial topics like discerning needs from wants, budgeting, savings, and understanding debit and credit cards.
• Managing My Money After High School (Grade 9 to 12; approximately 45 minutes to complete). This course prepares students for financial decisions related to entering the workforce and financing higher education.

FCAC’s courses were accessible to schools nationwide and available in English and French. The courses’ structure was intentionally user-friendly for teachers, allowing for a more seamless integration within their class’s coursework. To assess the impact on students’ financial confidence and knowledge, surveys were administered before and after course completion. A total of 7,359 students from 301 schools within 139 districts successfully completed the courses.

Key findings

Overall, FCAC’s targeted financial education interventions presented on the ChatterHigh platform helped strengthen the financial knowledge and confidence of participating students. The interventions equipped youth with the necessary skills and knowledge to make informed financial decisions and fostered a mindset of financial resilience.

Notably, the interventions helped to close or narrow the gender gap in several key areas:

Areas where gender gap closed

1. Credit card knowledge: Before the intervention, just over half of girls and two-thirds of boys had credit card knowledge. After the intervention, both genders strengthened their knowledge, with 72.2% of girls and 73.5% of boys indicating they knew a lot about credit cards. Girls experienced a noteworthy 18.4 percentage point increase in this area, bringing their knowledge and confidence on par with boys.

Figure 1.

Note: * denotes that the difference in results is statistically significant (P < 0.05), while “ns” denotes that the difference in results is not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05).

Data source: Money Management After High School course

2. Awareness of future expenses: Initially, 57.6% of girls and 69.1% of boys were aware of expenses they might encounter after high school, such as rent and living expenses. The intervention boosted this awareness by 20.2 percentage points for girls and 8.3 for boys, effectively closing the gender gap.

Figure 2.

Note: * denotes that the difference in results is statistically significant (P < 0.05), while “ns” denotes that the difference in results is not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05).

Data source: Money Management After High School course

3. Finding financial information: Initially, fewer girls (57.2%) than boys (65.5%) knew where to find financial information. Post-intervention, the gender knowledge gap was eliminated, with girls improving by 23.4 percentage points and boys by 16.7 points. This substantial gain underscores the impact of this intervention in enhancing youth’s ability to access trustworthy financial information to help them make good money-management decisions.

Figure 3.

Note: * denotes that the difference in results is statistically significant (P < 0.05), while “ns” denotes that the difference in results is not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05).

Data source: Money Management After High School course

Areas where the gender gap narrowed

1. Confidence in money management: Confidence in managing money saw a significant boost for both genders. Initially, 39.7% of girls and 53.8% of boys felt confident about managing money. Notably, the percentage of girls who said they could confidently manage their money surged by approximately 15 percentage points, while the percentage for boys grew by 11 percentage points. Although a gender gap remained after the intervention, it’s evident that both groups made remarkable progress in building financial confidence.

Figure 4.

Note: * denotes that the difference in results is statistically significant (P < 0.05), while “ns” denotes that the difference in results is not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05).

Data source: Money Management Foundations course

2. Preparedness for Financial Decisions: Before the intervention, 45.8% of girls and 61.9% of boys reported feeling prepared for financial decisions. Afterward, those numbers increased to 66.5% for girls and 76.3% for boys: girls’ confidence rose by 20.7 points and that of boys rose by 14.4 points.

Figure 5.

Note: * denotes that the difference in results is statistically significant (P < 0.05), while “ns” denotes that the difference in results is not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05).

Data source: Money Management After High School course

Conclusion

These interventions highlight the importance of strengthening financial confidence among youth and demonstrate that the gender gap can be closed or narrowed in many areas. While gender gaps still exist, targeted interventions that leverage gamified financial education can significantly improve financial knowledge, boost confidence, and promote positive financial behaviours. As a testament to the success of these interventions, FCAC will be running this initiative with larger numbers of students across the country.

The use of behavioural science to create youth-targeted courses that are designed to be user-friendly for teachers and fun for students has proven effective in engaging and educating young minds. By working in collaboration with partners across the financial literacy ecosystem, we can strengthen financial literacy among youth and, importantly, address the gender gap in financial literacy and confidence. Together, we can encourage youth to adopt positive financial behaviours and foster their ability to make informed financial decisions and secure a more financially resilient future.

It is imperative to continue developing and implementing programs and interventions that not only equip youth with financial knowledge, but also instill in them the confidence to apply this knowledge effectively. This is a priority not just for individual girls and women, but for the betterment of society as a whole: Canadian women are expected to control approximately $4 trillion in financial assets by 2028, nearly double the level in 2019.^{Footnote 4}  By investing in initiatives targeted toward young girls, we will foster future generations of financially confident and knowledgeable women who can help drive Canada’s economic growth.