Understanding savings, pensions and life assurance in 16-21-year-olds

This article examines the relationship between demographic variables (age, sex, education), knowledge of, and attitudes towards, savings, pensions and life assurance in a sample of British 16-21-year-olds, In all 452 young people from a variety of backgrounds completed a questionnaire, divided into three knowledge and three attitude sections. A factor analysis of each of the attitudes towards savings, pensions and life assurance scales revealed clearly interpretable factors. A correlational analysis showed participants' knowledge of each of the three economic issues to be positively correlated. Regression analysis showed that age, education, amount of money saved and knowledge of savings, pensions and life assurance were among the most important predictors of attitudes towards the three economic issues.