Authors: Andrea Finney (Social Research and Statistics)
Funded by: Money Advice Service
Published by: Money Advice Service
Publication date: October 2016
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14086.27206

The Money Advice Service’s 2015 survey of financial capability was undertaken by GfK and achieved a nationally representative quota sample of some 3,461 respondents across the UK.1 The purpose of the analysis reported here was to derive components which capture different aspects of financial capability and explore levels and patterns of financial capability based on these.

As such, this report describes the process of deriving 13 financial capability components based on a combination of theoretical underpinning and statistical analysis. The mean (average) and distribution of scores for each component across the population of the UK are reported, along with breakdowns by key demographic and socio-economic groups. The relationships between the components are explored, including to understand the predictive power of components at lower levels of the framework on the scores of components at each of the higher levels. A range of potential mediators, including demographic and socio-economic characteristics, are tested to understand their additional influence on financial capability scores.

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Defining, measuring and predicting financial capability - Technical Report (PDF, 1,629kB)