Financial literacy among high school teenagers in a developing country context - an empirical study with reference to high school students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Both developed and developing countries and economies have become increasingly concerned about the level of financial literacy of their citizens. Previous studies indicate that unlike the case in the industrialized world, the issue of financial literacy is a contemporary issue in the developing world, and it is an understudied field in this context. This study was initiated to survey the level of basic financial literacy among high school students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Such a study corresponds to global initiatives such as by OECD requesting scholars to show case the level of financial literacy among young people in different countries/contexts. The data collection instrument was a standard questionnaire that measures the level of basic financial literacy of high school teenagers in Ethiopia. The questionnaire is based on the instrument originally developed by Lusardi and  Mitchell, (2005); and this study uses the slightly updated version used by Van Rooij, Lusardi and Alessie, (2011) that measures basic financial literacy from angles of numeracy, interest compounding, inflation, time value of money, and money illusion. The study concludes that the level of financial literacy is not fairly good among the high school students. The high school students in the capital are not well versed with the basic financial literacy dimensions/measurements, mainly with the assessments of interest compounding, inflation, time value of money, and money illusion. The worst assessment results are a 90.8% failure in the money illusion question, a 70.9% failure in interest compounding assessment question, and a 62.7% failure in the time value of money assessment question. These are followed by a 58.4% failure in the inflation assessment question and a 31.3% failure in the easiest assessment question of numeracy. By and large, these findings testify that the high school students in Addis Ababa have serious deficiency in basic financial literacy. Policy makers and educators may need to seriously pay attention to this shocking deficiency in the level of basic financial literacy among the high school students and take measures to educate the youth this basic life skill at young age while they are still at school.JEL Classification Code: D14