Financial Literacy

Economic Notes by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
vol. 47, no. 2-3-2018: pp. 305–330
Young Adults and Their Finances: An

International Comparative Study on Applied
Financial Literacy
ANDREAS OEHLER – MATTHIAS HORNy – STEFAN WENDTz – LUCIA A. REISCH§
– THOMAS J. WALKERj
Recent years have brought a gradual shift of responsibility for pension

provisions, financial planning, health care and various insurances from
governmental institutions and firms to individuals. To tackle this
challenge, individuals need applied financial literacy and not merely
theoretical knowledge about financial products and mechanisms that does
not reflect real-life situations. We survey 448 business students in Canada,
Denmark, Germany and Iceland to examine how financial literacy is
expressed in their financial portfolios. We contrast these findings with the
respondents’ own expectations and needs. The results show that most
respondents exhibit good financial literacy as well as a realistic
assessment of risk and return and their impact on (financial) well-being.
(J.E.L.: D14, D83, G11).
1. Introduction
In the first two decades of this century several factors have prompted
increased attention to the financial literacy of households and non-
professional investors. The cutback of the welfare state in Europe and the
demographic change (so-called ageing) in the G7 countries have caused the
responsibility for pension provision, financial and pension planning, health
care and unemployment and disability insurance to be gradually shifted
from governmental institutions and firms to individuals (Reifner, 2006;
Oehler and Werner, 2008; Lusardi and Mitchell, 2009; Aubram et al.,
2016). Changes in the public and private pension systems increase the level

Professor and Chair of Finance, Bamberg University, Department of Management,
Business Administration and Economics, Kaerntenstr. 7, D-96045 Bamberg, Germany. E-mail:
andreas.oehler@uni-bamberg.de.
y
Bamberg University, Department of Finance, Bamberg, Germany.
z
Assistant Professor of Finance, School of Business, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik,
Iceland.
§
Professor, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen
Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark.
j
Professor of Finance, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal,
Canada.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,
Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
306 Economic Notes 2-3-2018: Review of Banking, Finance and Monetary Economics
of personal responsibility and make personal financial and retirement

planning more essential. This is also driven by a worldwide shift from a
retirement system with defined benefits to defined contributions by
governments and firms (Agnew et al., 2013; Balasubramnian and Brisker,
2016; Xiao and O’neill, 2016). Furthermore, there has been a vast increase
in the number of available financial products and their complexity (Leinert,
2004; Van Rooij et al., 2011; Balasubramnian and Brisker, 2016).
Digitization and the Internet deliver more but not necessarily better
information on financial products and/or financial planning. A certain level
of financial knowledge and understanding is required for consumers to
benefit from this technological development (Braunstein and Welch, 2002;
Micklitz and Oehler, 2006; Oehler and Werner, 2008). Aubram et al. (2016)
conclude in accordance with Wang (2013) that any kind of financial
information, for example, the reception of financial news or financial
reports, requires a sufficient level of financial literacy to be perceived,
understood and interpreted properly. Only then can financial information
serve as a basis for financial decisions.
According to Hastings et al. (2012, p. 5), one of the first definitions of
financial literacy is given in the JumpStart Survey from 1997: ‘the ability to
use knowledge and skills to manage one’s financial resources effectively for
lifetime financial security’. Since then the construct of financial literacy has
taken on a broad variety of meanings and interpretations. One strand of the
literature uses the term financial literacy to refer to the pure knowledge of
financial products, their basic consequences, the necessary numeracy skills
and the knowledge of basic financial concepts such as diversification (e.g.,
Van Rooij, 2012; Deuflhard et al., 2015; Lusardi, 2015). In such studies
three questions on interest compounding, inflation and risk diversification
are often asked. The answers on these ‘stored’ knowledge questions,
however, are a very weak predictor for financial behaviour (Bateman et al.,
2012; Agnew et al., 2013), which is driven by perceived rather than actual
financial literacy (Anderson et al., 2015).
We follow the extended financial literacy construct used by the OECD
(2014; OECD/INFE, 2016), which states that financial literacy is not only
the knowledge and understanding of financial concepts but also
encompasses the skills, motivation and confidence to apply such knowledge
in order to make effective decisions. This definition points out
implementation as a constitutive attribute of financial literacy. Thus it
corresponds to the growing strand of literature that uses the concept of
financial capability with the key element of practical skills (Bernheim et al.,
2001; Dixon, 2006; Oehler and Werner, 2008; Deepak et al., 2015; Aubram
et al., 2016; Xiao and O’Neill, 2016) and the related concept of financial
competencies by the OECD (OECD/INFE, 2016).
Empirically, it remains inconclusive how financially interested,
knowledgeable and skilled young consumers in particular are. On the
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A. Oehler et al.: Young Adults and Their Finances 307
one hand, studies commissioned by financial intermediaries such as banks,

insurance companies and mutual funds purport that young adults are not
very interested in personal finance and that they are hardly financially
literate (e.g., Metallrente, 2010). On the other hand, a methodically more
advanced study focusing on young age groups and undertaken by the largest
German broadcasting system in 2010/11 reveals that young adults are
highly interested in personal finance. In particular, a comparison of young
adults with other adults shows that there is no significant difference between
younger and older adults in the level of basic knowledge, skills, motivation
and confidence with regard to financial literacy (WDR, 2010/2011).
Understanding young adults’ financial decisions as well as their
applied financial literacy is of particular importance because educational
programs within (formal) education and the associated interventions appear
to be limited in their success (Bateman et al., 2012; Agnew et al., 2013).
Moreover, recent studies suggest that practice-oriented and more focused
financial education enabling practical learning experience under the
supervision of personal guides (such as parents) prepares young adults
quite well for the financial realities in everyday life (see, e.g., the large
meta-analysis by Oehler, 2013; Fernandes et al., 2014).
We conduct an international comparative study among 448 business
students from Northern Europe (Denmark, Iceland), North America
(Canada) and Western Europe (Germany). Our portfolio analyses focus on
basic financial needs and products such as liquidity provisions, liability
insurance and disability insurance, and on additional financial needs and
products that insure against income risks such as temporary life insurance
(protecting the family), retirement provisions and accident insurance
(Oehler, 2013).
The main contribution of this paper to the literature and the ongoing
public debate lies in its comparative investigation of applied financial
literacy in these three regions; it supplements the OECD (2014) study,
which did not include Canada, Denmark, Germany, or Iceland. Our unique
dataset enables an analysis of differences in students’ applied financial
literacy, particularly with respect to retirement planning, against the
background of different social security systems. While all four countries
provide their inhabitants with temporary public unemployment benefits and
governmental health care systems that cover basic medical care, the
countries show significant differences in their pension systems. One the one
hand, future retirees of the G7 countries Canada and Germany are required
to build up private pension savings to minimize the income gap at
retirement. On the other hand, Denmark and Iceland traditionally
implement pension systems with high net replacement rates that in some
cases even exceed the 100 per cent level of individual net earnings (OECD,
2015). Although students’ entry in receipt of pension payments lies decades
in the future (which, obviously, hampers the accuracy of forecasts of the

pension payments that students actually will receive), we assume that the
recent and current large differences between the pension systems’
replacement rates lead to differences in the portfolio compositions of
students in the four countries.
We claim that our approach provides a more realistic assessment of
financial literacy than prior concepts did. Instead of utilizing hypothetical
and purely theoretical textbook questions on portfolio diversification and
compound interest widely used by previous studies (see above), we focus
on applied financial literacy as reflected in the actual results of financial
decision making. The key assumption is that an individual’s actual financial
portfolio represents the most realistic measure of the person’s financial
literacy. Thus, the aim of our study is to examine financial literacy as
mirrored in young adults’ portfolio of financial products rather than
investigating ‘stored’ knowledge. In particular, we analyze young adults’
personal financial portfolios and contrast them with their stated financial
expectations and verifiable (‘objective’) product needs. Therefore, our
research contributes to a more realistic view of financial literacy and sheds
light on the real-life financial situation of young adults.
Our main results reveal that applied financial literacy among the
screened young adults in the countries we analyze appears to be good. More
than one third of the participants take care of their basic financial needs and
invest in the associated products. We attribute differences across countries
to their social and economic systems, which help explain that, for example,
a vast majority of Danish and German young adults have liability insurance,
whereas only one quarter of Canadian and German young adults hold
disability insurance.
With regard to additional financial needs and products, the results
show large differences among the product categories. On the one hand,
young adults appear to be well aware of accident risks and how to insure
against them. On the other hand, they hardly make financial investments or
contribute to voluntary retirement plans. This finding, however, does not
necessarily imply that young adults are financially illiterate; instead, it is
consistent with their low marginal net income, which needs to be taken into
consideration in a realistic approach to personal finance (Oehler and Wendt,
2017). In addition, it is consistent with the level of social security in general
and the specific pension system in each country. Surprisingly, the realized
and applied literacy of young adults as reflected in their portfolio structure
appears to be higher than what one would expect from their answers
regarding the products needed. Whether this effect is due to their parents’
involvement or whether it mirrors a response to media coverage about
younger people’s literacy is an interesting question for future research.
Our paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present how we
collect our dataset; we introduce our methodology and provide descriptive

statistics. Section 3 presents and discusses our results. In Section 4, we

conclude and suggest venues for future research.
2. Data and Methodology
We conduct an international comparative study among 448 university

students from Northern Europe (Denmark, Iceland), North America
(Canada) and Western Europe (Germany). Our survey follows the OECD’s
extended definition of financial literacy, which explicitly includes the
application of financial knowledge and understanding. Against the
backdrop of mixed findings, we deem it worthwhile to concentrate on
young adults’ financial decisions in a context-sensitive way. This means
that we investigate financial experience and literacy of young adults not in a
general way but rather focus on identifying and solving specific financial
problems of this age group. Based on our reading of the literature, we
strongly assume that the measurement of applied financial literacy of young
adults needs to take the actual context of financial decision making into
account, that is, the corresponding social situation or the existing financial
portfolio. Our portfolio analyses focus on basic financial needs and
products such as liquidity provisions, liability insurance, and disability
insurance, and on additional financial needs and products that insure
against income risks such as temporary life insurance (protecting the
family), retirement provisions and accident insurance (Oehler, 2013).
In the spring and fall semester of 2015 we carried out a survey among
448 business students to empirically study (1) the self-assessment of their
current financial situation; (2) their current portfolio of financial products;
(3) their perception of the relative importance of financial decision making
in general; and (4) their assessment of the importance of different financial
products. In all countries, the survey was distributed at the start of the
respective teaching session to avoid being biased by lecture-related
contents. We used a written standardized introductory text read aloud by the
investigator to the students before handing out the survey questions so that
framing or priming effects would be minimized.
We use a paper and pencil questionnaire with primarily closed-ended
questions. The questionnaire was designed after considering the aforemen-
tioned literature findings and is subdivided into four sets of questions.
(1) The first set is designed to assess the participants’ handling of their own
finances and the finances of their relatives. We ask the students, for
example, if they know where they can ask (and if they have already asked)
for information or advice regarding personal finance and if they take care of
their own finances and/or the finances of any relatives. Students answer
these questions on a scale ranging from fully agree to disagree. (2) In the
second set, we provide a list of financial products and ask the participants to

mark the products they own. (3) The third set of questions is designed to
capture the students’ thoughts in relation to their personal finances. They
are asked to choose their answer to the questions on a scale ranging from
fully agree to disagree. (4) The final set of questions asks the respondents to
assess the importance of listed financial products on a scale ranging from
very important/always necessary to not important at all. The questionnaire
was developed and tested in Germany and translated afterwards. The
aforementioned items were selected from previous studies cited above, in
particular from the WDR (2010/2011) study, Oehler (2013), and Oehler
(2011). The questionnaire is provided in the Appendix.
Descriptive statistics of the respondents are presented in Table 1. Two
hundred thirty-three students participated in Canada, 53 in Denmark, 99 in
Germany, and 63 in Iceland. The mean (median) age of the students in the
full sample is 23 (22) years. The students in Canada represent the youngest
subsample with a mean age of 22 (median: 21) years. Students in the
German subsample are on average 24 (median: 24) years old. The samples
from Denmark and Iceland cover the oldest students with a mean age of
25 years and a median age of 24 and 23 years, respectively. The full sample
contains 46 per cent female and 54 per cent male students. With 46 per cent
and 35 per cent, respectively, the Canadian and German samples contain
fewer women than men. In contrast, the sample from Denmark contains
57 per cent and the sample from Iceland 56 per cent female students. In the
full sample, 63 per cent of the students already have work experience. The
percentage of professionally experienced students is highest in the Danish
subsample (81 per cent) and lowest in the Icelandic one (46 per cent).
The Canadian sample includes 122 third- or fourth-year students
(52 per cent). Roughly 25 per cent of the students are second-year and less
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics
Full Sample Canada Denmark Germany Iceland
Age
Mean 23 22 25 24 25
Median 22 21 24 24 23
Std. Dev. 3.8 3.3 3.4 2.4 5.4
Gender
Female 46% 46% 57% 35% 56%
Male 54% 54% 43% 65% 44%
Work Experience 63% 67% 81% 57% 46%
N 448 233 53 99 63
Notes: We provide descriptive statistics of the participants’ age and gender based on their responses to our
questionnaire. We report the results for the full sample and separately for country samples. For the
participants’ age we provide the mean value (Mean), median value (Median) and standard deviation (Std.
Dev.). For participants’ gender we provide the percentage of female and male respondents. We further
report the percentage of students with work experience (Work Experience) and the number of participants
per sample (N). Example: The mean age of the 448 participants in the full sample is 23 years.

than 20 per cent are first-year students. More than 75 per cent of the students
from Denmark are in their sixth semester or beyond. However, the Danish
sample contains roughly 23 per cent first-semester students. More than
40 per cent of the respondents from Iceland have already finished two
semesters; less than 20 per cent of the Icelandic students are in the fourth
year of their study. The bachelor students of the German sample are, on
average, in their sixth semester, while the German master students are
evenly distributed among the first four semesters of their study.
As most of the students in our subsamples already attended some
business courses, we consider the sample of business students as a proxy for
economically educated young adults. Thus, our respondents might not be
representative of all young adults, but they represent a subgroup that is valid
as a prototype of economically well-educated people, at least in principle.
Assuming a continuum of financial literacy from illiterate to fully literate,
we hypothesize that our sample is closer to the literate pole.
In addition to examining the full sample, we separately analyze the four
country samples from Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland. To identify
whether potential differences between the students’ answers from different
countries are statistically significant, we employ non-parametric Wilcoxon
tests. We additionally use Wilcoxon tests to check whether our previous
results are influenced by gender effects. Since Oehler et al. (2017a, 2017b)
find that, on average, females show a higher degree of risk aversion in
investment decisions than males, we assume that females might own more
insurance products than males, while males are more likely to buy
investment products.
In addition, we use a series of conditional tests to analyze if young
adults actually own the financial products that they assess as being
important.
3. Results and Discussion
We present results in Figure 1 for the first set of questions that explore
the participants’ handling of their own finances and the finances of their
relatives. The answers show that most of the students (1) are aware of the
necessity to save for retirement; (2) know where they can ask for information
regarding personal finances; and (3) prefer to talk with their parents or
professionals (financial advisor, banks) about personal finances rather than
with friends. Sixty percent of the students already visited a financial advisor,
and 75 per cent of the students agree or fully agree with the statement that
they should start with retirement provisions as early as possible. At nearly
80 per cent, the highest level of agreement with the importance of starting
early to save for retirement can be observed among the respondents in
Canada and Iceland. The difference from the students in Denmark and

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
I have visited I should start My parents I know where My bank I take care of Friends help I regularly I take care of It’s important It’s
a financial saving for my take care of I can ask for does the job my children’s me with my visit financial my parents‘ to know who necessary to
advisor retirement as my personal information personal personal advisors personal I can ask occasionally
early as finances regarding finances finances finances abstain from
possible personal certain
finance expenditures
Canada D**/G/I D***/G***/I D/G/I** D/G/I D***/G***/I* D/G***/I** D**/G***/I D*/G/I D***/G***/I D/G***/I D***/G/I***
Denmark C**/G*/I C***/G*/I*** C/G/I** C/G/I C***/G/I C/G***/I C**/G***/I C*/G**/I C***/G***/I*** C/G***/I C***/G***/I
Germany C/D*/I C***/D*/I** C/D/I*** C/D/I C***/D/I C***/D***/I*** C***/D***/I*** C/D**/I C***/D***/I*** C***/D***/I*** C/D/I***
Iceland C/D/G C/D***/G** C**/D**/G*** C/D/G C*/D/G C**/D/G*** C/D/G*** C/D/G C/D***/G*** C/D/G*** C***/D/G***
Full Sample 60% 75% 38% 84% 46% 15% 11% 12% 15% 59% 59%
Figure 1: Percentage of Respondents Agreeing or Fully Agreeing With Statement

Notes: We report the percentage of students in Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland that
agree or fully agree with the statements. The table provides the results of non-parametric
Wilcoxon tests per country in which we compare the country’s values with other countries’
percentage. The symbols , and denote statistical significance at the ten-, five- and one-
per cent level, respectively. C, D, G and I represent Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland,
respectively.
Germany is significant at the one-percent level. Less than 40 per cent of the
students state that their parents take care of their personal finances. Instead,
our survey reveals that most students have given some thought to having a
contact person in case they have questions about personal finance.
Between 79 per cent and 91 per cent of the respondents in each country
agree with the statement that they know where they can turn to for
information. However, it is unlikely that the young adults’ contact person
works in their bank, since only 46 per cent of the respondents state that their
bank does the job. While 54 per cent of the Canadian students rely on the
service of their banks, the percentages in the remaining countries are
significantly lower. Even fewer students get help from friends (11 per cent)
or financial advisors (12 per cent).
Fifty-nine percent of the participants state that it is not necessary to
know everything about one’s personal finances, but that it is important to
know whom to ask. While roughly three quarters of the students in
Denmark and Germany agree with the latter statement, only about half of
the students in Canada and Iceland confirm the importance of a contact
person. We find significant discrepancies among the country samples
regarding the necessity of abstaining from expenditures in order to save for
retirement provisions. In Canada and Germany, 65 per cent of the students
state that they would cut back expenditures for retirement provisions. In
Denmark and Iceland, the percentage of students agreeing with the same
statement is 20 percentage points lower.

The analysis of the students’ statements reveals two stylized facts.

First, students in all four countries agree that it is important to have a contact
person who provides necessary information regarding financial issues, and
most of the students have already identified such a contact person. Second,
students in Canada, Germany and Iceland are well aware of the importance
of retirement savings.
We illustrate students’ answers about their ownership of financial
products in Figure 2, starting with results for basic financial needs and
products: liquidity provisions, liability insurance and disability insurance.
Overall, liquidity provisions and liability insurance are used by nearly half
of the students and are more widespread than disability insurance. In
Canada and Denmark, roughly one third of the students state that they have
liquidity provisions as an emergency fund, whereas 60 per cent of the
students in Germany and 46 per cent of the students in Iceland have liquidity
provisions. We find significant differences regarding the use of liability
insurance in the four countries. While only 25 per cent of the Canadian
respondents hold liability insurance, 83 per cent of the German students
own this product. In Denmark (Iceland) 66 per cent (44 per cent) of the
students entered into a liability insurance contract. Disability insurance is
less frequently owned than liability insurance in all four countries. We
assume that the higher premiums for disability insurance in combination
with young adults’ relatively low income cause this phenomenon. In
addition, young adults possibly use accident insurance as a (partial)
substitute for disability insurance for income protection (see the discussion
on income risk below).
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Liquidity Liability Disability Term life Whole life Travel Financial Financial Financial Voluntary Accident
provisions insurance insurance insurance insurance (health investments investments investments retirement insurance
care) with low risk with with high plan
insurance and low moderate risk and
return risk and high return
moderate
return
Canada 32% 25% 22% 33% 18% 56% 42% 30% 26% 8% 41%
Denmark 32% 66% 40% 32% 11% 76% 21% 9% 15% 15% 62%
Germany 60% 83% 25% 7% 9% 79% 62% 35% 30% 16% 58%
Iceland 46% 44% 43% 54% 24% 76% 22% 11% 16% 48% 67%
Full Sample 40% 45% 28% 30% 16% 66% 41% 26% 24% 16% 51%
Figure 2: Percentage of Respondents Stating that they Own a Financial Product

Notes: We report the percentage of students in Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland stating
that they own a financial product. Among the subsample of Canadian students, for example,
32 per cent state that they own liquidity provisions.

Furthermore, we report results on young adults’ use of financial

products that cover additional financial needs (term life insurance, travel
health care insurance, pension savings). Most students rely on travel health
care and accident insurance as well as low-risk financial investments, while
less than one fifth of the students engage in voluntary retirement plans or
whole life insurance. Thirty percent of the students own term life insurance.
The use of this product, however, strongly depends on the country and its
social security system, including, for example, pension and survivor
benefits. While more than half of the students in Iceland use this product,
less than 10 per cent of the German respondents have term life insurance.
We observe a similar pattern for capital or whole life insurance, although
ownership of these products is less widespread among students than term
life insurance. Around 10 per cent of students in Denmark and Germany and
20 per cent of Canadian and Icelandic students own capital or whole life
insurance. More than three quarters of the students in Denmark, Germany
and Iceland have travel health care insurance, while only 56 per cent of
Canadian students own such a product. The free health care system in
Canada, which in most cases also provides emergency medical coverage
abroad, may explain this phenomenon (and the fact that the European
students travel more could also be a factor).
We expect that students’ financial investments exhibit significant
country dependence due to the necessity to build up retirement savings in
Germany and Canada. Although students face stronger financial restrictions
than older adults, the media coverage regarding a possible income gap at
retirement could encourage the students in Canada and Germany to start
saving for retirement. Students in Germany show the highest percentage of
financial investments in all three investment categories, that is, investments
with low (60 per cent), moderate (35 per cent) and high (30 per cent)
expected risk and return, followed by students in Canada and those in
Denmark and Iceland. Investments in voluntary retirement plans are highest
in Iceland, while only 8–16 per cent of Canadian, Danish and German
students use these products. Accident insurance is widespread among
students in Denmark, Germany and Iceland. While about 60 per cent of the
students in those countries own accident insurance, only 40 per cent of the
Canadian students entered such contracts.
In summary, about half of the students already own liability and
accident insurance. Two thirds of the students hold travel health care
insurance contracts. Disability insurance is owned by 28 per cent of the
students. As disability insurance commonly comes with much higher
premiums than liability or travel health care insurance, it seems plausible
that students’ financial constraints hamper the use of disability insurance.
Instead of using disability insurance, students can employ accident
insurance to partially tackle their income risk. We provide the percentages
of students who own disability insurance and/or accident insurance (or

neither) in Figure 3. Only 5–8 per cent of the students in all four countries
solely own disability insurance. The percentage of students who only
employ accident insurance is much higher and ranges between 27 and 37
per cent. While 15 per cent of the Canadian students simultaneously use
disability and accident insurance, 37 per cent of the Icelandic students
employ this combination. In Canada, 52 per cent of the surveyed students do
not use any kind of insurance for income protection. This percentage is
significantly higher than in the three remaining countries, where only 27–37
per cent of the students use neither disability nor accident insurance. We
assume that most Canadian students do not enter into such insurance
contracts because disability is covered by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
In addition to the monthly CPP disability benefit, the CPP also pays a
benefit to the children of the affected person. Taking this effect into account,
most of the students in the four countries are insured against income risks to
some degree, although they face more financial constraints than older
adults.
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Only Only Disability Neither
disability accident and disability
insurance insurance accident nor
insurance accident
insurance Wilcoxon Test
Canada 7% 27% 15% 52% (D***/G**/I***)
Denmark 8% 30% 32% 30% (C***/G/I)
Germany 5% 37% 20% 37% (C**/D/I**)
Iceland 6% 30% 37% 27% (C***/D/G**)
Full Sample 7% 29% 21% 43%
Figure 3: Income Protection Through Disability and Accident Insurance Contracts

that they own disability insurance and/or accident insurance or neither. We furthermore provide
the results of non-parametric Wilcoxon tests per country in which we compare the country’s
values with other countries’ percentage. The symbols , and denote statistical
significance at the ten-, five- and one-percent level, respectively. C, D, G and I represent
Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland, respectively. In the subsample of Canadian students,
for example, 7 per cent state that they own disability insurance but no accident insurance.

We further analyze the degree to which the students already established

retirement savings. Students do not have to rely on voluntary retirement
plans to save for retirement. Instead, students may choose to establish
financial investments on their own. Therefore in Figure 4 we provide the
percentages of students who own financial investments (with low, medium,
or high risk) and/or voluntary retirement plans or neither. Although students
face higher financial restrictions than adults with more work experience,
almost 60 per cent of the surveyed students already have some savings to
cover expenses during retirement. About half of the Canadian students rely
solely on financial investments, whereas 1 per cent of the students use
voluntary retirement plans alone. The low participation rate regarding
voluntary retirement plans in Canada may be explained by the absence of
tax benefits for doing so. In Iceland, where payments to voluntary
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Only financial Only Financial Neither
investments voluntary investments financial
retirement and voluntary investments
plans retirement nor voluntary
plans retirement
plans Wilcoxon test
Canada 49% 1% 7% 43% (D/G***/I***)
Denmark 25% 8% 8% 60% (C/G***/I***)
Germany 60% 4% 12% 24% (C***/D***/I)
Iceland 11% 29% 19% 41% (C***/D***/G)
Full Sample 43% 6% 10% 41%
Figure 4: Retirement Savings With Financial Investments and Voluntary Retirement Plans
that they own financial investments and/or invest in voluntary retirement plans or neither. We
further provide the results of non-parametric Wilcoxon tests per country in which we compare
the country’s values with other countries’ percentage. The symbols , and denote
statistical significance at the ten-, five- and one-per cent level, respectively. C, D, G and I
represent Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland, respectively. In the subsample of Canadian
students, for example, 49 per cent state that they own financial investments but no investments
in voluntary retirement plans.

retirement plans entail tax benefits, 29 per cent of the students use only these
instruments, and merely 11 per cent of the students make financial
investments alone to contribute to pension savings.
In Denmark and Germany, financial investments are the most
widespread way to save for retirement. Both countries, however, differ
significantly in terms of how many students save for retirement at all. In
Denmark, more than 60 per cent of the students do not save for retirement,
while 75 per cent of the German students do. One possible explanation is
that the German students have good reason to assume that the payments of
the German pension system will not be sufficient to cover their financial
needs during retirement phase. Of the four countries, Germany has the
highest percentage of people older than 65 years and the highest percentage
of public pension expenses in relation to the GDP, leading to a forecasted
net pension replacement rate of roughly 50 per cent (see OECD, 2015).
Therefore, students’ behaviour in the context of retirement savings can
largely be explained by the countries’ pension systems.
After participants indicated which financial products they own, we
asked them to assess the importance of certain financial products in question
set 4. Figure 5 shows the percentage of students who assess a product
covering basic financial needs as very important or always necessary,
demonstrating that 38 per cent of the students assess liquidity provisions at
least as very important. German students assess basic insurances as more
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
care) with low risk with with high risk plan
insurance and low moderate and high
return risk and return
moderate
return
Canada D/G/I* D/G***/I* D*/G***/I* D**/G***/I D***/G***/I D/G/I D***/G/I*** D***/G***/I*** D***/G***/I*** D/G/I*** D**/G**/I
Denmark C/G/I* C/G*/I C*/G/I C**/G*/I** C***/G**/I C/G/I C***/G***/I** C***/G***/I** C***/G/I C/G/I*** C**/G***/I
Germany C/D/I C***/D*/I** C***/D/I C***/D*/I*** C***/D**/I*** C/D/I C/D***/I*** C***/D***/I** C***/D/I C/D/I*** C**/D***/I***
Iceland C*/D*/G C*/D/G** C*/D/G C/D**/G*** C/D/G*** C/D/G C***/D**/G*** C***/D**/G** C***/D/G C***/D***/G*** C/D/G***
Full Sample 38% 27% 25% 33% 23% 35% 22% 16% 11% 19% 45%
Figure 5: Percentage of Participants That Assess a Financial Product as Very Important/

Always Necessary
Notes: We report the percentage of students in Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland who
assess a financial product as very important or always necessary. The table provides the results
of non-parametric Wilcoxon tests per country in which we compare the country’s values with
other countries’ percentage. The symbols , and denote statistical significance at the ten-,
five- and one-percent level, respectively. C, D, G and I represent Canada, Denmark, Germany
and Iceland, respectively.

important than students do in Canada, Denmark and Iceland, with 44 per

cent of the German participants indicating that liability insurance is
important—a figure that is 10 (20) percentage points higher than in
Denmark (Iceland) and twice that of Canadian students. A similar picture
arises regarding disability insurance. While 33 per cent of the German
students assess disability insurance as necessary, only 20 per cent of the
Canadian participants share this view.
We further report students’ assessment regarding the importance of
financial products covering additional financial needs. Canadian and
Icelandic students ascribe a significantly higher importance to life insurance
than do Danish students. Less than 10 per cent of the German students state
that life insurance is at least very important in the students’ actual situation.
Thirty-five percent of the students in all four countries indicate that they
consider travel health care insurance to be important, with no statistically
significant differences among the countries. The percentage of students
assessing financial investments with low/moderate/high risk as being
important is significantly highest among the students in Canada. In contrast,
less than 10 per cent of the students in Denmark and Iceland state that
financial investments are important for them. The latter pattern, however,
flips when students are asked about voluntary retirement plans. More than
one third of the Icelandic students think that it is very important to engage in
voluntary retirement plans—twice as many as in the remaining three
countries. Putting these pieces together reveals that young adults care about
and plan for their retirement, but that they do so in different ways,
depending on their country’s social insurance system and habits. With the
exception of Germany, accident insurance is seen as the most important
financial product among students.
Students’ assessments regarding the necessity of financial products
show that the two most widespread insurance contracts—travel health care
and accident insurance—are also the two insurance products assessed as
most important. With the exception of life insurance and voluntary
retirement plans, we observe that there are more students who actually own
certain financial products than students who state that these products are
important. We are, however, not able to show whether this effect is caused
by parental involvement or whether it mirrors the media coverage on
younger people’s financial literacy.
Wilcoxon tests on gender differences do not support gender effects in
most cases.1 However, for the subsample of German students, these tests
reveal with a statistical significance at the one-percent level that—
compared to the male students—a lower percentage of female students have
financial investments with a moderate/high risk and return in their portfolio.
1
Results of the Wilcoxon tests are not separately reported in detail since the vast majority of
the tests show no statistically significant differences.

We find a similar effect regarding students’ assessment as to whether these

financial products are important or not. Compared to the female students, a
statistically significantly higher percentage of male students in Germany
think that investments with medium risk and return are very important. We
observe a similar gender effect for investments with a high risk and return
for Canadian, Danish and German students. These results are in line with
the findings of Oehler et al. (2017a, 2017b), who note that, on average,
females show a higher degree of risk aversion in investment decisions than
males. However, since we do not observe any statistically significant gender
differences for the remaining financial products, we do not think that this
effect significantly skews our results.
We analyze the degree to which students actually own the financial
products that they assess as being important in Figure 6. Our analysis
reveals that the majority of the students who assess a financial product as
being very important also own this product, for example, nearly 70 per cent
of the students who assessed liquidity provisions and liability insurance as
being very important actually own these two products. We furthermore
observe a clear tendency for young adults to be less likely to own a product
that they assess as less important. None of the students who state that
liquidity provisions are not important at all actually have liquidity
provisions. We see the same tendency for disability insurance. While more
than 50 per cent of the students who think that disability insurance is very
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
care) with a low with a with a high plan
insurance risk and low moderate risk and
return risk and high return
moderate
return
very important 70% 68% 51% 51% 39% 82% 67% 58% 64% 38% 63%
important for
certain
33% 51% 27% 28% 15% 70% 47% 39% 31% 17% 55%
occasions or
situations
important if other
occasions are 13% 25% 15% 16% 7% 53% 31% 13% 20% 10% 27%
already covered
less important 11% 24% 11% 9% 6% 33% 24% 13% 16% 2% 15%
not important 0% 25% 4% 5% 0% 17% 13% 15% 12% 10% 23%
Figure 6: Financial Product Ownership Among Young Adults in Relation to Their Assessment
Regarding the Necessity of These Financial Products (in Percent, Full Sample)
Notes: We report the percentage of students who actually own a financial product subdivided
by their assessment regarding the necessity of this financial product. For the product liability
insurance, for example, 68 per cent of the students who assess this product as very important
actually own liability insurance.

important entered such insurance contracts, only a negligible percentage of

the students who assessed disability insurance as not being important are
actually insured.
We find further evidence that students’ portfolios of financial
products align with their assessment regarding the importance of financial
products. More than half of the students stating that term life insurance is
very important already own such an insurance product. Travel health care
insurance is the only product that is owned by more than 30 per cent of
the students, even though they state that this insurance is less important.
Possible explanations for the high percentage of people with travel
insurance are the low premiums and the fact that travel insurance is
typically bundled with students’ exchange programs or travel packages
sold by travel agencies. Some insurance companies offer these products
for less than one Euro per month. In the context of financial investments
with low, moderate, or high risk, we observe that a large proportion of the
students who are convinced of the importance of financial investments
actually own bonds and stocks. While 58–67 per cent of these students
make such investments, the number of investors is 20 percentage points
lower among students who assess financial investments as being
important for certain occasions or situations. The latter phenomenon is
also observed for voluntary retirement plans, with accident insurance also
frequently owned by students assessing this insurance as important for
certain occasions or situations or important if other occasions are already
covered.
The comparison of students’ financial products with their assessments
of the necessity for these products provides two major findings. First, most
students have the motivation and skills to establish portfolios of financial
products that align with their personal assessments of the importance of
these financial products. Second, if financial education programs aim to
change young adults’ portfolios, these programs need to comprehensibly
point out the importance/unimportance of certain financial products. Our
results show that it is crucial that students assess a product as being very
important before they buy it. We observe a gap of 20–30 percentage points
between the ownership rates of students who assess a product as very
important and students who assess a product as important for certain
occasions or situations. The only exceptions to this phenomenon are
insurance products with low premiums such as travel health care and
accident insurance. We explain this finding by considering the financial
constraints of young adults. Because only 25 per cent of the students, on
average, are able to establish enough savings for moderate or risky financial
investments, it is unlikely that they are able to raise the money for insurance
contracts with high premiums such as disability insurance. Nevertheless,
the students seem to be aware of the risks and the necessity to insure against
them, which is why they at least enter into insurance contracts they can

afford with their relatively low monthly income, for example, travel health
care and accident insurance.
We therefore conclude that—when taking into account young adults’
financial constraints and the social system of their home country—most
of the students in the four countries exhibit good financial literacy and a
realistic assessment of risk and return for their (financial) well-being.
4. Conclusions and Further Research
The aim of our study is to examine financial literacy as expressed in

young adults’ portfolio of financial products rather than in the accumulation
of information (‘stored’ knowledge). To achieve this goal we survey
448 students in Canada, Denmark, Germany and Iceland. We analyze their
financial portfolios and contrast these findings with the students’ own
assessment of their product needs. By doing so, we are not only able to
assess young adults’ applied financial literacy, we can compare the results
across four countries with different social security systems.
Because our study focuses on applied financial literacy, it is based on
the idea that the most realistic measure of financial literacy refers to
people’s real financial portfolio instead of applying measures for financial
literacy based on hypothetical or textbook questions that might have some
theoretical value but do not focus on real life. We consider individuals’ real-
life portfolios of financial products as a result of their socialization, which is
primarily influenced by parents and school education; the portfolios also
reflect the given social system and the applicable regulations.
Our results show that most of the respondents in the four countries
exhibit good overall financial literacy and a realistic assessment of risk and
return and their impact on (financial) well-being. Our respondents are aware
that it is important to have a contact person who can provide necessary
information or advice regarding financial issues, and most of these
respondents have already identified a contact person. The respondents in
Canada, Germany and Iceland are also well aware of the importance of
retirement savings. Differences in the respondents’ behaviour in the context
of retirement savings can largely be explained by the corresponding
countries’ pension systems. Given that we surveyed students, that is, a
group that is typically characterized as facing financial restrictions, a
surprisingly high percentage already saves to cover expenses during
retirement.
Overall, the respondents appear to be aware of potential risks and the
necessity to insure against them; however, their opportunity to enter
insurance contracts is limited by their generally low monthly income.
About half of the respondents already own liability and accident insurance
contracts, and two thirds have entered travel health care insurance contracts.

More expensive insurance contracts such as disability insurance are owned

by roughly one fourth of the respondents only. The respondents’ assessment
of the necessity of financial products largely corresponds to their actual
portfolio of financial products. A smaller percentage of the respondents,
however, appear to own financial products without being convinced of their
importance. Perhaps the information that consumers receive on financial
products might be able to serve as a key driver helping to strengthen
understanding of those products that allow consumers to address basic or
additional financial needs, and helping to achieve an even better match
between the understanding of the necessity of some financial products for
specific situations, on the one hand, and the actual use of these financial
products on the other. Based on the findings from research in behavioural
economics and finance, necessary and sufficient conditions for good
consumer information include transparency, comprehensibleness, compa-
rability and quality, with the latter encompassing clarity, fit to personal
needs and verifiability. As discussed by Oehler and Wendt (2017),
information that consumers currently receive hardly fulfills these
conditions, which, in turn, considerably hampers the trustworthiness and
usability of this information. Without high-quality information, consumers
might be persuaded by financial institutions’ advertisements and other sales
activities for products that do not necessarily fit the consumer’s financial
needs but instead address a subjective preference for safety or an interest in
high returns, while such consumers are unaware of the corresponding risks.
As long as consumers do not have high-quality product information, they
will not be able to compare among financial products or financial service
providers. We leave to further research a more detailed investigation of the
divergence between perceived necessity of some financial products and
actual use of these products.
Our study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use a survey to
capture the respondents’ applied financial literacy by asking about
respondents’ personal financial portfolios and contrasting them with their
stated financial expectations and verifiable (‘objective’) product needs. We
are aware that our respondents might not be representative of all young
adults. We chose business students as a subgroup of young adults, which is
valid as a prototype of economically well educated people, at least in
principle. It is noticeable that almost all young adults in the four countries
seek (professional) advice (e.g., at their bank, financial advisors, or at least
their parents). We believe that seeking advice—no matter whether the
advice is needed due to a lack of one’s own financial knowledge or simply to
get a second opinion—could improve the quality of young adults’ financial
decisions. For example, the contact person’s advice might account for the
acquisition of some financial products even if the young adults would not
have been aware of the financial product’s importance in the first place.
Consequently, young adults’ aspiration to receive financial advice is a

crucial part of their financial literacy. The aspiration to get advice, however,
is not necessarily a (finance) domain-specific trait but rather a general skill.
This has important implications for the applicability of our results to other
young adults. Even if other young adults are probably less exposed to
financial and economic concepts than are business students, other young
adults might still be able to establish portfolios if they show similar efforts
to gather financial advice, like the business students in our sample.
Therefore, the actual influence of our sample selection on the external
validity of our findings could be rather small, in particular when young
adults seek advice from their parents or financial advisors when it comes to
personal finances. Nevertheless, further research on applied financial
literacy focusing on other demographic groups, both with respect to age and
circumstances or phases in life, such as other young adults, adults with
longer employment experience, or retirees, is very welcome. We are
convinced that research on applied financial literacy creates valuable
insights and will allow for the development of more helpful recommen-
dations for consumers in the field of personal and household finance. This
relates both to programs to foster financial literacy and to support for actual
financial decision making in an applied and practical sense.

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Appendix
Questionnaire
Comments:
In Canada, Denmark, and Iceland, the students received the
questionnaire in English as provided below. In Germany, students received

a German version of the questionnaire. Students in Canada were asked

about their education level (as in the version below), whereas students in
Denmark, Germany and Iceland were asked to indicate the number of
semesters they are already studying.
Dear Sir or Madam,
We kindly invite you to participate in an international study on financial

products. Answering the questionnaire will take approximately 10 minutes.
Please carefully read through the following questions and answer them
immediately. Please consider the questions from your perspective and give
the answers you think match best.
We will keep all your responses anonymous and destroy them after the
data analysis.
If you are interested in the results of the study, please send an email to
Prof. Dr. Oehler (andreas.oehler@uni-bamberg.de).
Fully
agree Disagree
1 How do you assess the following statements regarding

finances & money with respect to your own situation?
Please give your answers on the scale on the right. 1 2 3 4
I have previously visited a financial advisor, e.g., bank o o o o

advisor, insurance intermediary, or financial broker
I should start saving for my retirement as early as possible o o o o
My parents take care of my personal finances (investments, o o o o
loans etc.)
I know where I can ask for information regarding personal o o o o
finance
My bank does the job o o o o
I take care of my children’s personal finances o o o o
Friends help me with my personal finances o o o o
continued

Continued
Fully
agree Disagree
1 How do you assess the following statements regarding

finances & money with respect to your own situation?
Please give your answers on the scale on the right. 1 2 3 4
I regularly visit financial advisors o o o o

I take care of my parents‘ personal finances o o o o
It’s not necessary to know everything about personal o o o o
finance myself but it’s important to know who I can ask
For my own retirement provisions it’s necessary to o o o o
occasionally abstain from certain expenditures
2 Which of the following financial products do you own? Please Do not

answer with yes or no. Yes No know
Compulsory health insurance (including contracts your parents/ o o o

partner entered into)
Liquidity provisions, e.g., two monthly salaries as an emergency o o o
reserve
Liability insurance (including contracts your parents/partner entered o o o
into)
Disability insurance o o o
Term life insurance (to protect your family) o o o
Travel (health care) insurance (including contracts your parents/ o o o
Long term care insurance (including contracts your parents/partner o o o
entered into)
Financial investment with a low risk and low return, e.g., savings o o o
certificates, GICs, government bonds, mortgage bonds
Voluntary (contributory) retirement plan within the public pension o o o
scheme
Financial investment with a moderate risk and moderate return, e.g., o o o
worldwide diversified stock index or bond index
Financial investment with a high risk and high return, e.g. o o o
concentrated mutual funds with stocks, bonds or both; corporate
bonds, single stocks or bonds, open end or closed end real estate
funds, other shareholdings
Whole life insurance o o o
Voluntary retirement plan with a private insurer o o o
Disability insurance for children o o o
Accident insurance (including contracts your parents/partner entered o o o
into)
Private/voluntary health insurance (including contracts your parents/ o o o
Private/voluntary long term care insurance (including contracts your o o o
parents/partner entered into)
Other: __ _ o o o

Fully
agree Disagree
3 When you deal with your personal finances what is

primarily on your mind at that time? Please base your
answers on the scale on the right. 1 2 3 4
... it‘s a current topic o o o o

... it’s stressful o o o o
... it’s important o o o o
... it’s complex o o o o
... I need more practical information o o o o
... I don’t know who I can ask o o o o
... I ask my parents o o o o
... I ask my friends o o o o
... I ask a consumer organization o o o o
... I look for information on the Internet o o o o
... I compare offers from e.g., different banks, insurances, o o o o
mutual funds, financial advisors, financial brokers
... I only ask my bank o o o o
... Other: __ _ o o o o
Possible answers would be:

a: very important/always necessary
b: additionally important/for certain
occasions or situations
c: important if other occasions are
already covered
4 Below, you find a list of financial d: less important
products. e: not important at all
Please use the scale on the right to assess
how important these financial products
are for you: a b c d e
Compulsory health insurance o o o o o

Liquidity provisions, e.g., two monthly o o o o o
salaries as an emergency fund
Liability insurance o o o o o
Disability insurance o o o o o
Term life insurance (to protect your o o o o o
family)
Travel (health care) insurance o o o o o
Compulsory long term care insurance o o o o o
Financial investment with a low risk and o o o o o
low return, e.g., savings certificates,
GICs, government bonds, mortgage
bonds
continued

Continued
Possible answers would be:

a: very important/always necessary
b: additionally important/for certain
occasions or situations
c: important if other occasions are
already covered
4 Below, you find a list of financial d: less important
products. e: not important at all
Please use the scale on the right to assess
how important these financial products
are for you: a b c d e
Voluntary (contributory) retirement plan o o o o o

within the public pension scheme
Financial investment with a moderate o o o o o
risk and moderate return, e.g., a
worldwide diversified stock index or
bond index
Financial investment with a high risk and o o o o o
high return, e.g., mutual funds with
stocks, bonds or both; corporate bonds,
single stocks or bonds, open end or
closed end real estate funds, other
shareholdings
Whole life insurance o o o o o
Voluntary retirement plan with a private o o o o o
insurer
Disability insurance for children o o o o o
Accident insurance o o o o o
Private/voluntary health insurance o o o o o
Private/voluntary long term care o o o o o
insurance
Other: __ _ o o o o o
Thank you very much for your support and cooperation!
Non-technical Summary
Changes in the public and private pension systems increase

individuals’ responsibility for their own finances and make personal
financial and retirement planning more essential. To tackle this challenge,
individuals need applied financial literacy which covers not only the
knowledge and understanding of financial concepts but also the skills,
motivation, and confidence to apply such knowledge in order to make
effective decisions. In this context, understanding young adults’ financial

decisions on the one hand and their applied financial literacy on the other is
of particular importance because educational programs within (formal)
education and the associated interventions appear to be limited in their
success.
The aim of our study is to examine financial literacy as expressed in
young adults’ portfolio of financial products rather than in the accumulation
of information (“stored” knowledge). To achieve this goal we survey
448 students in Canada, Denmark, Germany, and Iceland. We analyze the
students’ financial portfolios and contrast them with the students’ own
assessment of their product needs. By doing so, we are not only able to
assess young adults’ applied financial literacy, but can also compare the
results across four countries with different social security systems.
Our results show that young adults are aware of the importance of
retirement savings and a contact person that provides necessary information
or advice regarding financial issues. Furthermore, differences in the
respondents’ behavior in the context of retirement savings can largely be
explained by the corresponding countries’ pension systems.
Additionally, the respondents’ assessment of the necessity of financial
products largely corresponds to their actual portfolio of financial products.
Overall, most students exhibit good applied financial literacy since they
have the motivation and skills to establish portfolios of financial products
that align with their personal assessments of the importance of these
financial products.
The implication of our findings for financial education programs is that
if these programs aim at changing young adults’ portfolios, they need to
comprehensibly point out the importance/unimportance of certain financial
products rather than providing theoretical knowledge about financial
products and mechanisms that does not reflect real-life situations.

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Economic Notes by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,

vol. 47, no. 2-3-2018: pp. 305–330

Young Adults and Their Finances: An

Recent years have brought a gradual shift of responsibility for pension

of personal responsibility and make personal ﬁnancial and retirement

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one hand, studies commissioned by ﬁnancial intermediaries such as banks,

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statistics. Section 3 presents and discusses our results. In Section 4, we

2. Data and Methodology

We conduct an international comparative study among 448 university

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Table 1: Descriptive Statistics

Full Sample Canada Denmark Germany Iceland

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3. Results and Discussion

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Figure 1: Percentage of Respondents Agreeing or Fully Agreeing With Statement

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The analysis of the students’ statements reveals two stylized facts.

Figure 2: Percentage of Respondents Stating that they Own a Financial Product

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Furthermore, we report results on young adults’ use of ﬁnancial

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Figure 3: Income Protection Through Disability and Accident Insurance Contracts

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We further analyze the degree to which the students already established

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Figure 5: Percentage of Participants That Assess a Financial Product as Very Important/

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important than students do in Canada, Denmark and Iceland, with 44 per

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We ﬁnd a similar effect regarding students’ assessment as to whether these

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important entered such insurance contracts, only a negligible percentage of

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4. Conclusions and Further Research

The aim of our study is to examine ﬁnancial literacy as expressed in

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More expensive insurance contracts such as disability insurance are owned

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J. R. AGNEW – H. BATEMAN – S. THORP (2013), “Financial Literacy and Retirement

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Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food, and Agriculture, Germany,

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a German version of the questionnaire. Students in Canada were asked

Dear Sir or Madam,

We kindly invite you to participate in an international study on ﬁnancial

1 How do you assess the following statements regarding

I have previously visited a financial advisor, e.g., bank o o o o

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1 How do you assess the following statements regarding

I regularly visit financial advisors o o o o

2 Which of the following financial products do you own? Please Do not

Compulsory health insurance (including contracts your parents/ o o o

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3 When you deal with your personal finances what is

... it‘s a current topic o o o o

Possible answers would be:

Compulsory health insurance o o o o o

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