Financial education isn’t a specialist hobby. It’s the basic grammar of everyday choices, such as a current account, a monthly payment, or an insurance policy, that shapes autonomy, safety, and opportunity. Yet across Europe, a gap persists between women and men. Surveys and tests show lower average scores for women and, crucially, lower confidence in their own financial skills. In 2025, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report put global progress towards parity at 68.8%, marking gains, but still far from the finish line, especially in economic participation.
Measures of financial inclusion tell a similar two-speed story. World Bank data show that the gender gap in account ownership has been narrowing over recent years, but it has not yet vanished. Digital services accelerate access, while gaps in both digital and financial skills risk leaving the most vulnerable individuals behind. OECD/INFE work points to the need for targeted action for groups with lower financial literacy, particularly in many countries, including women.
Within this landscape sits GBFE – Gender Balance in Financial Education, co-funded by Erasmus+ (KA210-ADU). The partnership combined research, digital training and virtual simulation, with a focus on women facing disadvantage. Partners included Arezzo Innovazione Fondazione di Partecipazione (coordinator, Italy), OpenCom I.S.S.C. (Italy), Markeut Skills SL (Spain), ARISE – Austrian Centre for Inclusion, Research and Sustainable Development (Austria) and Euro Education Bulgaria Ltd (Bulgaria).
GBFE’s research gathered 165 questionnaires across Italy, Spain, Austria and Bulgaria to explore knowledge, behaviours and attitudes. Patterns emerged: solid familiarity with basic banking, limited understanding of more complex tools; a tendency to seek financial information reactively; and low self-assessment of one’s own competence, especially among women with less education or patchy incomes. The project translated those findings into guidance, including short courses, practical content, plain language, and a direct focus on confidence, rather than just facts.
One standout output, Anna’s Journey to Financial Independence, uses story-driven simulation to guide learners through five scenarios: household budgeting, digital finance, saving, credit and insurance. It works like a “safe lab”: you make decisions, see the consequences, and learn by trying, a bridge between knowing and doing that lifts confidence alongside technical skill.
The team also developed a core course of multilingual video tutorials and a trainer’s handbook on inclusive instructional design, tying content to methods and outcomes. The core idea feels refreshingly simple: take financial education to where people are, link it to immediate goals (such as secure digital payments, a basic budget, access to microcredit, and essential protection), and track impact using comparable measures.
Step back and the European evidence points in one direction: financial literacy, confidence and inclusion move together. Field experiences, such as GBFE, thanks to Erasmus+, suggest that practical, modular, and real-life approaches make a difference, especially for those starting with less. There is no single blueprint, but there are testable paths.
A final, fair question for policymakers, educators and communicators: do we treat financial education as part of our civic infrastructure, like schooling and health, or leave it on the margins as an optional extra? The data points the way. It falls to politics, civic intermediaries, and the productive sector to turn that direction into continuity, so that equality, including economic equality, becomes a practice rather than a promise.
References:
WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025; World Bank Global Findex 2021/2025; OECD/INFE International Survey of dult Financial Literacy (2023); GBFE project documents.