¿Que Quieren Las y Los Jovenes Ahorradores? / What Do Youth Savers Want?

After twenty years of research and practice on the subject, the economic development field finally seems to have accepted that poor people can and do save money. Yet for many development practitioners—as well as parents, teachers, and bankers—“youth savings” is still an oxymoron. Often these adults believe that young people—especially low-income youth—cannot save money because they simply do not have it. This paper focuses summarizes the most important findings common to all four market studies in YouthSave’s countries, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal. This summary is meant to provide those interested in designing youth savings accounts with a set of plausible hypotheses to prove, refine, or disprove for their particular populations of interest—a head start in designing market research to understand the needs of youth savers.