Can the TikTok phenomenon girl math partially explain why young women are less financially literate than young men?

Abstract

In the summer of 2023, a phenomenon known as girl math emerged on TikTok, emphasizing young women’s spending behavior. The trend sparked debate, some criticized it for potentially harming young women's economic understanding, while others dismissed it as harmless fun. This master´s thesis dives into this debate, with an investigation on whether the TikTok phenomenon girl math can explain portions of why young women are less financially literate than young men.

We conducted an online vignette survey with 303 participants, presenting nine hypothetical purchasing scenarios (vignettes) encapsulating common girl math behavior. The respondents rated their agreement with each scenario, allowing us to categorize them as either adherence or non-adherence to the girl math bias. Additionally, we replicated the Global Financial Literacy Survey by Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services (Hasler & Lusardi, 2017) to assess the gender gap in financial literacy, categorizing the respondents based on their knowledge of basic financial concepts.

The results from the analysis indicate that those adhering to the girl math bias are more likely to possess insufficient knowledge of basic financial knowledge. We also found that women are less financially literate than men. Results from Mann-Whitney U tests uncovered that women showed significantly higher agreement with seven out of nine vignettes, supporting the existence of the girl math bias and its gender-specific nature. Our findings hold important implications, particularly for young women, suggesting that the girl math phenomenon is not solely a fun online trend. The girl math bias could distort financial understanding and hinder effective money management among young adults, impacting their capacity to make complex economic decisions.