UK Children and Young People’s Financial Wellbeing Survey

• Context
• The study
• Key findings
• Points to consider

Context

The Money and Pensions Service’s vision is everyone making the most of their money and pensions. Previous research has shown that financial capability, by the time of reaching financial independence, is in large part a consequence of what is seen, learned, and experienced during childhood and adolescence. In 2020, MaPS launched the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing, part of which sets a National Goal of two million more children and young people aged five to 17 receiving a meaningful financial education by 2030. The findings from the Children and Young People’s Financial Wellbeing survey play a major role in producing robust measures of children and young people’s financial wellbeing and capability across the UK. This report covers the 2022 wave of the survey, updating and building on the 2019 and 2016 waves.

The study

The 2022 wave of the Children and Young People’s Financial Wellbeing survey was conducted by research company Critical Research, on behalf of MaPS amongst 4,740 children and young people aged 7-17, using a mixed methodology approach. The data collection period occurred between 18th August 2022 and 6th November 2022.

Interviews were conducted online with a UK nationally representative sample of 4,740 children (and their parent/carer). Whilst there was no face-to-face interviewing in this 2022 wave, a proportion of the online interviews were recruited face-to-face, with the survey completed in respondents’ own time using a link to the online survey provided by the face-to-face interviewer; the report refers to these as face-to-face push-to-web.

Weighting has been employed to ensure the overall reported population is representative of all young people aged seven to 17 in the UK. The nations with devolved governments (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) were over-sampled to allow robust, separate analysis.

Key findings

Findings include the following:

• Compared to three years ago, the same proportion of children and young people have received a meaningful financial education (47% in 2022 versus 48% in 2019).
• Progress is similar between the waves across the UK nations and age groups compared to 2019.
• A third (33%) of children recalling learning about money in school and finding it useful, and nearly a quarter (24%) have received financial education at home but only 10% report having both.
• 88% of children and young people reported they would ask their parents for money advice. However, just over half of parents/carers claim to feel confident talking to their children about money so supporting these parents to help their children is important.
• Children who have received a meaningful financial education are more likely to feel more confident and less anxious about money, to save more regularly, to use a bank account, to have a positive attitude and talk about money and to demonstrate money management skills.
• Some children are less likely than average to receive a meaningful financial education including young children, children living in social housing, rural areas and in lower income households and children whose parents/carers have mental health conditions.

Points to consider

• Methodological limitations: The report gives detailed information about the methodology and has an accompanying technical report available at https://maps.org.uk/content/dam/maps-corporate/en/publications/research/2023/maps-cyp-financial-wellneing-survey-2022-technical-report-june-2023.pdf. The technical report discusses all of the extensive measures that were taken to ensure that the data set is robust and reliable.
• Relevance: Highly relevant as part of the ongoing National Goal to deliver meaningful financial education to children and young people.
• Generalisability/ transferability: Specific to the UK.
• Applicability: Of interest to anyone working with children and young people such as educators or support agencies as well as to government and policy makers and financial institutions.