The RBA’s 2024 student survey finds that students across New South Wales continued to view the field of economics as relevant and beneficial to society; however, perceptions of the study of Economics in Years 11 and 12 remained less favourable. New insights from the 2024 survey highlight the role of early exposure to Economics through the Years 7-10 Commerce elective, particularly following the introduction of a core economics topic into the 2019 Commerce syllabus. This early engagement is associated with greater student interest, confidence and understanding of Economics. Notably, the largest improvements were observed for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, who are under-represented in Economics. These findings suggest that an increased focus on efforts to give more Years 7-10 students the opportunity to engage with Economics could help to broaden participation and improve perceptions of the subject among a more diverse cohort of Years 11-12 students.
Since the early 1990s, Economics enrolments in Australia have declined markedly, accompanied by a noticeable drop in student diversity (Dwyer 2024). Trends in Economics enrolments are concerning, not only for the economics profession and policymaking, but also for broader economic literacy across the Australian population. Knowledge of economic concepts provides individuals with essential tools to make informed decisions, understand the impacts of economic and other government policies, and actively participate in economic and societal debates (McCowage and Dwyer 2022). Building a more diverse pipeline of future economists is also important for ensuring that economic policies are inclusive, representative and responsive to the needs of all Australians.
Early exposure to Economics in junior high school presents a key opportunity to increase engagement with the subject. In New South Wales (NSW), the Years 7-10 Commerce elective introduces students to foundational economic concepts and issues. Enrolments in junior high school Commerce are significantly higher and more gender-balanced than in senior high school Economics (Graph 1). Commerce is also taught more widely across schools of varying socio-economic status, sectors and locations, whereas Economics is mostly offered in non-government, government-selective or metropolitan schools that are typically located in higher socio-economic areas (Graph 2).
To gain updated and deeper insights into the factors influencing students’ decisions to study (or not study) Years 11-12 Economics, a second wave of the RBA’s High School Student Survey was conducted in 2024, following the first wave in 2019. A representative sample of 38 schools and 4,474 students across Years 10-12 in NSW participated in the online survey. Between the 2019 and 2024 survey waves, major global events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of unusually high inflation, brought economics into sharper public focus. The new survey data enable us to explore whether students’ views of economics have evolved against the backdrop of these developments. We provide an update on this in the first part of this article.
A key addition to the 2024 survey was a set of questions that allowed us to identify which Commerce students ultimately went on to study Economics, in turn enabling us to assess the role of Commerce in students’ decisions to study Economics in Years 11-12. We also explore the impact of a revision to the NSW Years 7-10 Commerce syllabus, which introduced a new core topic on the ‘Economic and Business Environment’ in 2020. This change ensures that all students who choose Commerce now engage with economic concepts before making their subject choices for their senior years, whereas previously schools could decide whether or not to teach an optional economics topic to their Commerce students (NESA 2025). In the second part of this article, we use the survey results to explore evidence on the effect of this syllabus change on interest in and perceptions of Economics, and find some promising results.
Students’ perceptions of Economics: An update
Students across Years 10-12 who participated in the 2024 survey agreed that economics is ‘important to know in today’s society’ and recognised that it can be used for social good, consistent with findings from 2019 (Graph 3). Many students also agreed that economics teaches skills and provides tools that are useful for everyday life and that it goes beyond just being about money, albeit to a slightly lesser degree than in 2019.
Students generally reported they thought they could do well in Economics if they tried and viewed it as a subject that scales well for the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). They were also less likely to see it as being risky to study than they did in 2019 (Graph 4). However, the reported interest in Economics declined between 2019 and 2024, especially among students who did not choose to study the subject. While the reasons for this trend are unclear, anecdotal evidence from teachers points to a perceived decline in student engagement and attitudes towards learning since the pandemic, which may have swayed some students away from pursuing Economics. Perhaps consistent with this, Economics is perceived as having a heavier workload than most other subjects. Other factors that may have weighed on student interest include ongoing low self-reported understanding of what Economics is and of the career pathways available from studying it.
The decline in interest in studying Economics between 2019 and 2024 was broad-based across surveyed males and females, and across students from higher and lower socio-economic status backgrounds (Graph 5). Gaps in perceptions of Economics by sex and socio-economic status also persist. Specifically, surveyed females and students from lower socio-economic schools were less likely to:
* be interested in Economics (i.e. an ‘interest gap’)
* report a good understanding of Economics and its career options (i.e. a ‘perceived knowledge gap’)
* believe they could do well in it (i.e. a ‘confidence gap’).
Although the pandemic and ensuing period of high inflation did not translate into increased overall interest in studying Economics, there is evidence of increased interest in some more specific topics (Table 1). Of note, ‘income determinants’ and ‘wealth distribution’ ranked more highly as topics of interest in 2024 compared with 2019, possibly reflecting rising cost-of-living (including housing cost) concerns. In 2024, the topics ranked most interesting by students were the global economy, income determinants and the share market. Students who selected ‘other problems in society’ as a topic of interest were asked to elaborate in a free text response. Students generally cited social inequality (including discrimination), health, socio-economic inequality (such as poverty and access to housing), and environmental concerns as societal issues of most interest to them. These themes mirror the societal concerns identified by students overseas (Bowles and Carlin 2020).
In 2024, specific topics of interest continued to vary across demographic groups. Female students tended to engage more with issues related to the global economy and consumer decisions, whereas male students showed more interest in the share market and business production. Students from lower socio-economic schools generally reported lower levels of interest across topics, with the notable exception of unemployment.
The role of early exposure to Economics
The 2024 survey design allows us to examine the pathway from Year 10 Commerce to Years 11-12 Economics in greater detail. We find that enrolment in Economics is very strongly linked to prior Commerce study. Among the Years 11-12 Economics students surveyed, around 80 per cent had studied Commerce in Year 10, compared with only 55 per cent of Years 11-12 Business Studies students, who studied a broader pool of Year 10 subjects (Graph 6).
Prior study of Commerce is positively associated with studying Economics in Years 11-12, even after accounting for the fact that not all schools offer Economics, as well as other potential influences on Commerce and Economics enrolments such as demographics, perceptions of Economics, and school-specific factors (see Appendix B). However, the share of Year 10 Commerce students in the survey that went on to study Economics was only around 20 per cent, suggesting there is some scope to meaningfully increase the conversion rate of students from Commerce to Economics through targeted initiatives.
The impact of early exposure to Economics on student perceptions
Students who studied Year 10 Commerce consistently reported more positive perceptions of Economics than those who did not, across both survey waves. This is expected, as Commerce introduces students to economic concepts and is likely to attract those interested in business or societal issues, which are factors that also tend to contribute to more favourable perceptions of Economics.
One more notable finding is that the gaps in perceptions of Economics between those studying Year 10 Commerce and those not studying Commerce widened markedly between 2019 and 2024 (Graph 7, the grey line shows the 2019 gap, and the space between the red and blue dots shows the gap in 2024). Commerce students in 2024 reported greater understanding, confidence, interest and desire to learn more about Economics than Commerce students in 2019. They also viewed Economics as being more relevant to society, as having more favourable ATAR scaling and were encouraged more by teachers to learn about it. By contrast, non-Commerce students reported lower interest and confidence in Economics than their 2019 counterparts and little change in their other perceptions.
It is plausible that the inclusion of economics in the Commerce syllabus core content in 2020 (compared with an optional topic prior to then) contributed to these shifts in perception. This is because the change meant that Commerce students in 2024 had more exposure to economic concepts than their 2019 counterparts.
To examine the effect of the syllabus change on student perceptions of Economics, we used a difference-in-differences regression to compare changes in perceptions between Commerce students (‘the treatment group’) and non-Commerce students (‘the control group’) between 2019 and 2024. This approach allows us to control for common shocks (such as the pandemic) that are likely to have affected both groups similarly. We also control for observable student- and school-specific characteristics that could influence perceptions of Economics, with further detail set out in Appendix B.
The regression results strongly suggest that introducing the core economics topic in the Commerce syllabus led to a material improvement in student perceptions of the subject. Specifically, we find that studying Commerce had a significantly greater positive impact on students’ perceptions of Economics (including their interest, understanding and confidence) in 2024, compared with 2019. (Graph 8). Importantly, this effect is statistically significant even after controlling for individual and school characteristics, indicating that it cannot be explained by any of the factors that we can observe in the data.
Encouragingly, there is evidence that the syllabus change had the largest impact on Commerce students at lower socio-economic schools. These students reported larger improvements in their understanding of Economics and related careers, their desire to know more, their confidence in doing well, stronger perceptions that teachers promoted the subject, and also that Economics is useful in society and everyday life. This finding could reflect a combination of factors:
* It is possible that fewer schools in lower socio-economic status areas taught the optional economics topic prior to 2020 relative to more advantaged schools, making the syllabus changes more impactful on this group.
* It is possible that students from less advantaged backgrounds are more responsive to exposure to economics concepts than those with higher socio-economic status.
The data do not allow us to identify which schools taught the optional economics topic prior to 2020 to test the relative importance of these effects. In any case, the overall takeaway is that the syllabus changes played some role in narrowing socio-economic disparities in perceptions of Economics among those who study Commerce.
Both male and female Commerce students benefited from the introduction of the core economics topic into the Commerce syllabus, but there was a more notable decline in Economics being perceived as a risky subject choice by female students than by male students.
Implications
Many organisations, including the RBA, have implemented initiatives to promote economic literacy among high school students. While there is evidence that these initiatives have had positive effects on the schools and students who have benefited from them, overall interest and understanding of Economics remains low, particularly for female students and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The key question remains: How can we broaden participation in Economics on a larger scale?
Our findings suggest that an increased focus on early exposure to Economics could boost interest and understanding of Economics, particularly for some under-represented groups. Currently, the Economics and Business unit is introduced to students in junior high school years in the Australian Curriculum, though the adoption and adaptation of this differs between states and territories. For example, in Western Australia, all students in Years 7-10 study Economics and Business for one school term each year, but in NSW, it is only offered as part of the Commerce elective (NESA 2025; School Curriculum and Standards Authority 2025). In practice, however, liaison with teachers suggests that delivery of these units depends on school discretion and the expertise of available teachers. Given this variation, there is scope to improve the quality and consistency of early Economics education across Australia by providing teachers, and especially those teaching Economics at a school that does not typically teach it, with quality resources and professional development opportunities.
Interest in Economics overall could also be strengthened by incorporating more real-world issues into the teaching of Economics. The 2024 survey results suggest that students are interested in topics that are prominent in contemporary public debate, with topic preferences varying across under-represented groups. For example, female students tend to be more interested in the global economy and consumer decisions, while students from lower socio-economic schools expressed more interest in the topic of unemployment. To promote greater diversity in the Economics student population, topic preferences could be considered in curriculum design, pedagogical approaches, and resource development.
Finally, the 2024 results show that access to well-trained Economics teachers is essential. The absence of teachers with subject-matter expertise at schools that do not teach Economics was cited as a key barrier. This was the second-most cited barrier after a lack of student interest, though in practice these problems are likely to be interrelated. Economics teachers have reported challenges, such as having to stay up-to-date with changing economic conditions, sourcing suitable resources, and a lack of mentorship or professional networks (Parsons and You 2024; Parsons and You 2021). Data from the 2024 survey also show a positive association between schools where teachers actively promoted Economics and most student perceptions of Economics (like interest and understanding), holding other factors constant. Initiatives to increase the pool of trained Economics teachers, especially in regional and less advantaged schools, could therefore help to broaden student participation and engagement in the subject.
Conclusion
The RBA’s 2024 student survey reaffirms findings from the 2019 survey that, while NSW students continue to recognise the relevance and societal value of economics, their understanding and interest in Economics remains low. The 2024 survey results reinforce the importance of seeking evidence-based solutions to boost economic literacy among a diverse student base. New insights from the 2024 survey on the benefits of early exposure through the Commerce elective in Years 7-10 show the relevance of the elective as a pathway into Economics and as a means of building student confidence, interest and understanding in Economics over time. There is also evidence that the positive effects of Commerce study on student perceptions of Economics have increased between 2019 and 2024, with this change coinciding with the inclusion of economics as a core topic in the Commerce syllabus in 2020. It is also encouraging that these benefits have been most evident among students from lower socio-economic schools. Our findings provide an important direction for initiatives that are aimed at improving perceptions and expanding participation in Economics among diverse student cohorts.
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