Empowering Women in Finance through Developing Girls’ Financial Literacy Skills in the United States

This study examines the effectiveness of a financial literacy program, Invest in Girls (IIG), in promoting financial capability among high school girls. Using a quasi-experimental separate-samples pretest-posttest design and a longitudinal qualitative study, the study aims to assess the program efficacy and investigate the perspectives of the female students on its impact on their knowledge, behavior, and future goals and aspirations. The results indicated that the participants had significantly higher confidence for engaging in financial literacy after the program. The findings from the longitudinal study also suggested that that the program was influencing the students in positive ways, increasing their financial capability and leading them to consider wide occupational pathways available in finance. Given the lack of female leaders in the world of finance, the IIG program aims to address gender disparity in financial knowledge and highlight the importance of building financial literacy skills among girls.

The Effects of Gender and Marital Status on Accrued Debt in Retirement Planning

The effects of gender and marital status on accrued debt in retirement planning becomes an urgent concern because unmarried women face greater financial challenges in retirement than their counterparts. This study used data from the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), designed by FINRA. We identified debt that influences retirement planning among a sample of pre-retirees, aged 51 to 61 years, and consider the associations of gender, marital status, debt, and retirement planning. Our results indicated that mortgage debt and credit card debt were negatively associated with retirement planning for women. Having a retirement account is positively associated with retirement planning and it also mediates the relationship between credit card debt and retirement planning. We urge women and financial planning executives to take time during the pre-retirement years to assess their various forms of debt and determine how it affects retirement planning objectives given current marital status.

A Century of Family Budget Counseling

This article will review family social work’s concern with budget counseling, an aspect of financial capability, during the century following World War I, based on articles appearing in the major family social work journal, Families in Society; publications of its sponsoring organization; standard budgets published with the participation of family social work agencies in many cities; handbooks and textbooks intended for social workers; and other sources.

A Process to Identify and Address Barriers to Providing Financial Capability Programming to Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

Financial dependence on an abusive partner is a threat to long-term safety for survivors of interpersonal violence. This study piloted a process to identify and address barriers to implementation of financial capability and asset building (FCAB) programming for survivors in one domestic and sexual violence agency. A tiered implementation approach included (a) a participatory diagnostic evaluation with clients ( n = 10), staff ( n = 10), and stakeholders ( n = 3); (b) an expert panel to prioritize the barriers and propose implementation strategies; and (c) the development of a tailored action plan. The formative evaluation identified limited staff financial knowledge, self-efficacy, and incentives as barriers. The tailored action plan included research-tested implementation strategies: (a) conduct ongoing training for staff, (b) identify “champions,” and (c) change the record system. Monitoring and evaluation of the action plan is ongoing; the process provides a replicable method for social service agencies to improve FCAB programming and to ultimately improve economic conditions for clients.

The Aspects of Policy Determination in the Formation of Autonomous Regions in Indonesia

This article examines the aspects that are determined in the formation of autonomous regions in Indonesia. As a country that adheres to the principle of decentralization, the policy of establishing an autonomous region is important and urgent in the context of the welfare of the people. The research method used in this article uses a literature search study. The results of the research are aspects used in the formation of autonomous regions are population criteria, economic capability criteria, regional potential criteria, financial capability criteria, socio-cultural criteria, socio-political criteria, area, defense and security, community welfare level, and span of control.

Savings for retirement and the millennial generation in Mexico: perception about the importance of having a retirement fund

The aim of this study focused on knowing the existing relation between Savings, Financial Capability, Future forecast and Retirement funds in relation to gender, which allows to determine the Savings culture, while also proving if there is a relationship between Savings, Financial Capability, Future forecast and Retirement funds in relation to gender among the population known as Millennial generation. The study is non-experimental, approached from the hypothetic-deductive paradigm, it is descriptive and correlational, as well as transversally cut. The participants were 89 Millennials(73% women and 27% men), whoseagesranged between 18 to 35 years old. The sample was non-probabilistic by auto-determination, since the technique used was “snowball sampling”, which consisted on sharing the instrument through social networks. For the study, the survey designed by the Mexican National Commission of Retirement Savings System (2017) was used. For the data capture and analysis, the program SPSS Statistics v23 was used and the measurement technique was Pearson s Chi square with df and sig <0.05. The main results show how young millennials have not thought about retirement or at least, they are currently not taking action on this issue, hence, they have not decided to save money for the future at the moment.Regarding the parametricresults, it was determined that thereis no relationship between what millennials perceive about keeping a record of monthly income and expenses, what they would do in case they received an unexpected sum of money, receive a monthly pension, the retirement age, amount of the retirement pension and the knowledge of what a retirement fund is with the variable gender.