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The UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing is taking forward the work of the Financial Capability Strategy
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Thematic reviews bring together findings from multiple studies on a particular topic

Thematic reviews

Thematic reviews are short overviews of key findings from multiple UK-based research and evaluation reports on a particular topic. Each review will vary depending on the available information, and will aim to include:

We hope our thematic reviews provide a useful overview to help you get a quick understanding on a particular topic, or to act as a ‘way in’ to more detailed information contained in specific evidence summaries.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any feedback, including suggestions for research that you think should be covered in future updates.

Thematic Review:

Mental Health

Mental health and money problems are said to be inextricably linked, as people with mental health problems are more likely to experience financial issues, particularly problem debt, and people with financial difficulties are more likely to experience mental health problems. Understanding the relationships between money and mental health can help us understand how to help people manage their everyday finances.

Thematic Review:

Financial Wellbeing in the Workplace

This page looks at various topics surrounding the topic of Financial Wellbeing in the Workplace, including thematic reviews and mini-insights.

Thematic Review:

Children and Young People

Experiences and learning about money when we’re young can have a direct impact on the ability to manage money later in life. Children start to learn vital money skills and habits between the ages of three and seven. As young people develop into their teens, they benefit from being given increasing responsibility for managing and making choices with money. This way, they learn the skills they’ll need for living independently.

Thematic Review:

Pensions and Retirement

As people approach later life, they need to know how much they should be saving into their pension and what options they have for accessing it. But behavioural bias research shows that people live for today. They find it hard to make trade-offs between spending now, saving for the short term, having safety-net savings and planning for later life.

Thematic Review:

Savings

All our evidence shows that a more widespread habit of regular saving would be transformational for the nation’s financial wellbeing: 1) People will have some level of resilience for when a financial shock hits them. Many of them will not need to seek debt advice who otherwise would need to; and 2) The shift in attitude needed for a savings focus will have other positive effects on financial wellbeing. These include a sense of control and a future focus about personal finances.

Thematic Review:

Credit

Credit helps people balance their spending. But regularly using credit to buy everyday essentials, such as food, or pay off other borrowing are clear signs of lower financial wellbeing. Credit might be used because some people have no other way to pay for these essentials, but others do have choices. Overall, this issue affects 9m people.

Thematic Review:

How can we help women to achieve better financial outcomes?

There is an expanding body of global research that associates being a woman with experiencing worse financial outcomes. This association is particularly strong in studies of financial wellbeing and, most notably, those focused on measures of longer-term wellbeing. This thematic review explores these complexities further, along with what is known about the financial wellbeing gender gap and what can be done, outside of policy change, to contribute to closing this gap.