Malia Mendez
8 min read
After Britt Baker graduated from Harvard Business School in 2016, her friends back in California begged for a souvenir: the best investment advice she'd learned.
Baker, 37, indulged them, starting out of her Fairfax, Calif., living room a finance club that eventually became her present-day financial education startup, Dow Janes — which boasts an Instagram following of nearly half a million. But the wisdom she doled out at those early club meetings didn’t actually come from business school, she said. It came from her parents and grandparents, who instilled in her from childhood the importance and mechanics of managing money wisely.
Not all of Baker’s peers were so fortunate, she said. Indeed, research has shown that many parents in the U.S. are unlikely to teach their children, particularly their daughters, about managing money beyond packing a piggy bank.
Read more: Momentum is building to require California high schoolers to learn how to manage money
More than half of Americans said their parents never discussed money with them in a 2024 Fidelity survey. Additionally, a 2021 CardRatings.com survey revealed a significant gender gap when it came to early financial education, with 22% of female respondents never having received such education from their parents compared with 15% of male respondents. A 2024 PNC Investments survey similarly found that at a young age, female respondents received less instruction about wealth-building strategies than their male counterparts.
These education gaps have led to low financial literacy rates among women in the U.S., especially those belonging to Gen Z. But social media-savvy money experts like Baker in recent years have aimed to change that with accessible financial education content.
Their engagement has surged as a volatile stock market and global turmoil surrounding Trump’s tariffs have left American consumers, especially those new to managing their money, desperate for guidance.
Read more: Hiltzik: Confused about Trump's tariff policy? Join the club.
On Instagram, finance education accounts like Dow Janes use anything from infographics to trending meme formats to repackage complex economics concepts for public consumption. In recent months, special interest topics like Trump's tariffs and recession threat have gotten more attention.
The goal, Baker said, is to get more finance-related content in front of more eyes.
“The more people are talking about money, the better, because it gets less serious,” Baker said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard about a high-yield savings account because of some influencer, so now I’m going to look it up.’
