Microeconomic theories of financial behaviour tend to assume that consumers possess financial skills necessary to undertake related financial decisions. We investigate this assumption by exploring the distribution of financial literacy among South Africans. In the absence of a standard measure, a financial literacy index is constructed for the country using data collected on attitudes (towards), access to and use of financial services over the period 2005 – 2009. We use the index to examine the extent to which differences in financial literacy correlate with demographic and economic characteristics. The Index reveals substantial variation in financial literacy by age, education, province and race. Overall, demographic characteristics contribute up to 10% of the financial literacy differences among individuals in South Africa. These results can be used to guide policy makers where to place more emphasis in terms of financial education for South Africans.

中文翻译：

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衡量和分析南非的金融知识

金融行为的微观经济学理论倾向于假定消费者具备进行相关金融决策所必需的金融技能。我们通过探索南非人之间金融知识的分布来调查这一假设。在没有标准措施的情况下，该国使用在2005年至2009年期间收集的关于态度（对待），获得和使用金融服务的数据来构建该国的金融素养指数。我们使用该指数来检查金融知识的差异与人口和经济特征有关。该指数揭示了金融素养的年龄，教育程度，省份和种族的差异。总体而言，人口统计学特征占南非个人财务知识差异的10％。