Financial Literacy among Portuguese Higher Education Students

Abstract

Our globalised world, with increasingly diversified and rapid trade, requires properly informed and equally rapid decisions, where financial literacy is a core life skill. The information, attitudes and financial knowledge associated with these decisions are essential to ensure the sustainability of economies. The day-to-day life of any citizen is surrounded by financial decisions that determine and condition not only the individual well-being, but also financial sustainability of families, institutions and, consequently, local, and global economies.The need for everyone to take responsibility places the financial literacy of a population as a key issue for good governance. Moreover, financial ignorance has costs. Thus, the promotion of an inclusive financial sector is one of the objectives of several governments and institutional bodies, so since 2015 it has been included in the 2030 UN agenda in 5 of the 17 sustainable development goals. The literacy in general corresponds to the ability of each individual to acquire knowledge, develop cognitive and social skills that allow him, with the information available in society to make the right decision.Financial education is useful for people of all ages and education level. However, higher education students are one of the groups in which any country tends to place many expectations, since they are the future decision makers, so this is the target audience of this research. The survey was released in April 10, and it will be open until May 10, 2022. This preliminary study, which is part of a wider research, aims to determine the level of financial literacy of higher education students in Portugal and to determine whether there are differences in gender, age, course area, and day/ post-work students. Keywords: financial literacy; financial knowledge; financial attitude; financial behaviour; higher education students.