American Women Among the World’s Top in Financial Literacy

Despite known shortcomings American women are among the world’s most literate in personal finance.

According to the Visa Inc. global Financial Literacy Barometer, U.S. women rank fourth after Brazil, Australia and Mexico, the top three most financially literate women in the world.

The findings were reported at the seventh Financial Literacy and Education Summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Visa Inc., an event held annually to mark the financial literacy month in the U.S. and Money Smart Week in Chicago.

There were many causes of the crisis, said Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who was the event’s keynote speaker, “but the problems experienced by many Americans were exacerbated by this plain fact: faced with the growing complexity of financial decisions around mortgages and other household credit, they were poorly equipped to deal with that complexity by making sound and sensible decisions.”

Financial education is an issue of “considerable urgency” in the U.S. today and a matter that requires both government intervention and nationwide collaboration, Cordray said.

“Financial literacy remains a vital public policy issue the world over,” agreed Jason Alderman, senior director of Global Financial Education, Visa Inc. “It is imperative that governments and the private sector collaborate to ensure people everywhere have the tools and resources they need to achieve financial success.”

Government officials from many countries around gathered at the summit indicated that financial literacy is a worldwide concern, said Charles Evans, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The goal of the public-private partnership between the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Visa is “to improve financial literacy outcomes in the United States and around the world."

And as a rule, the same as elsewhere in the world, U.S. women tend to be in charge of their family’s financial affairs, so these data reiterate the need for more efficient financial education programs designed for women.

Conducted with 25,000 participants in 27 countries, the Financial Literacy Barometer survey found that women believe “governments should require schools to teach financial literacy to children” at an early age, earlier than male respondents.

Women are far more determined than men to ensure that their children grow up financially literate. Plus survey data show women spend nearly three more weeks a year than men “talking to and educating their own children about money management.”

Despite their beliefs and good intentions, except for Australia, women in all the other countries surveyed had saved less money for emergencies than the men of their nation. Australian women had barely saved a few extra days of living expenses more than the men.

The Financial Literacy and Education Summit is part of Visa’s global financial education program: Practical Money Skills for Life.