Italy has always been at the bottom of the rankings for financial education, but now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is supported by Annamaria Lusardi, founder and director of Gflec in Washington, as well as president of the National Committee for financial education in Italy a few months ago.
In the latest survey conducted among young people in the OECD area, Italian adolescents (aged 15) were positioned in the middle of the table. There is no need to rejoice, also because the figure does not extend to girls, still at the bottom of the ranking behind Brazil and Indonesia. But the fact remains that Italy, on average, is the country that has improved the most. Confirming that, finally, something is moving. Albeit slowly.
“Italy can make many changes. And women cannot fall behind”, says Lusardi, to whom the Minister of Economy, Pier Carlo Padoan, has entrusted the mission of implementing a national strategy, which can bring together the many efforts made in recent years, often in sporadic and unorganized manner.
But the pragmatic spirit that animated the second annual Global Thinking conference dedicated to "Financial education for a sustainable future" confirms that the system has now entered a more mature phase. "It is not a question of funds, which are not lacking, but of organization", said Andrea Beltratti, president of Feduf (Foundation for financial and savings education of Abi), one of the technicians that Claudia Segre, president of the Global Thinking Foundation , involved in the study day together with Magda Bianco of the Bank of Italy and the president of Invalsi Anna Maria Ajello.
Without forgetting the speech by Alan Krueger, former chairman of President Obama's council of economic consultants, who outlined a picture of the economic gig, the new frontier of work that promises to overwhelm the barriers of more consolidated knowledge. In addition of course to Annamaria Lusardi, coordinator of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center in Washington, who presented for the occasion a research on the gender implications in financial literacy commissioned by the Glt Foundation.
According to an international research carried out in 2014 which involved people of all ages in advanced countries, only 37% of Italians were able to answer at least three out of four questions (the questions concerned elementary mathematical knowledge, the calculation of compound interest, the concept of inflation and that of risk diversification). Worse than in South Africa and Russia. The comparison with the Brics is not risky. Even in Italy, as in the Emerging Countries, the most literate are young people. Also in Italy, as in the BRICS, the parameter in which the interviewees reveal themselves to be weaker is that of risk diversification.
The situation precipitates when the gender gap is examined: women experience a delay of 5 percentage points compared to men. What to attribute this delay to? Income has little to do with it, according to Lusardi. Even the cultural level does not explain the gap, above all if one considers that girls are on average much better at school. Perhaps a certain weight can be attributed to the traditional diffidence of the academic culture towards social choices. A more significant weight is linked to the lower female employment rate: the world of work is a channel for the transmission of knowledge and experience which is denied to women who stay at home.
The result of this gap is a consistent reduction of freedom. “Ignorance in this matter is not an option – says Lusardi – If anything, it is a serious handicap like not being able to read or write. Italy must and can do a lot in this matter”.
It is not the case, according to Beltratti, to ask for the establishment of new school subjects: "The kids are far too busy, and I don't see room for any replacements". And so the step forward compared to what has been done in recent years requires a recipe based on organization, to capitalize on the thousands of initiatives that are already being implemented, more attention to quality and, above all, to measuring results.
