A systematic review of financial education research

Abstract

Financial Education represents a complex and diffuse theoretical construct, whose understanding is linked to the epistemological perspectives adopted by researchers. In view of this, we sought to analyze the state of knowledge generated by the publications made available on Financial Education and Financial Literacy in the Spell and SciELO databases until 2019, in order to verify the dominant perspectives and recognize possible gaps to be explored in future research. To promote the analysis, 33 articles were selected, without filtering for language, subject area and classification. With regard to the results, it was recognized that the surveys were aimed at identifying the level of financial knowledge, in addition to the influence of socioeconomic and demographic variables on performance. Meanwhile, in terms of methodology, there was a significant number of field surveys that were descriptive and quantitative, with techniques such as descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and regression being identified. In turn, regarding the evidence, a predominance of compromised financial performance was influenced by variables such as gender, education and income. Considering these findings, it becomes possible to have a direction for future research, under a theoretical and interventional bias.