Should My Child Study A-Level Economics? A Guide for Parents
If your son or daughter is considering A-Level Economics, you may be wondering what the subject actually involves and, more importantly, whether it will suit them.
Economics can be an excellent A-Level. It combines current affairs, logical reasoning, graphs and data with written argument. It can help students understand everything from inflation and interest rates to unemployment, taxation, house prices and international trade.
But I would not recommend it simply because it sounds academic or because somebody has said it looks good on a university application. The more useful question is: will your child enjoy the way economists think?
That is what I would try to establish before choosing it.
What Do Students Actually Study in A-Level Economics?
Economics is essentially about choices. Individuals make choices, businesses make choices and governments make choices. Those choices have consequences.
Students begin with fairly simple ideas such as scarcity, opportunity cost, demand and supply. They then use those ideas to examine much bigger questions.
Why are some goods expensive and others cheap? What causes inflation? Why does unemployment rise? Should governments tax unhealthy products? What happens when the Bank of England increases interest rates? Why do countries trade with each other? Why are some economies richer than others?
The course is normally divided broadly into microeconomics, which looks at individual markets, consumers and businesses, and macroeconomics, which looks at the economy as a whole.
It is also worth checking what your child thinks economics actually is.
It is not a course in investing, personal finance or how to make money. A teenager who is interested in shares, cryptocurrency or financial markets may well enjoy economics, but those interests do not automatically mean the subject will suit them.
Economics is an academic subject concerned with questions such as how people respond to incentives, how markets allocate resources, why economies grow and what governments can — and cannot — do to influence economic outcomes.
If you would like a fuller overview, I have explained the course in What Will You Learn in A-Level Economics?.
What Sort of Student Is Likely to Enjoy Economics?
I don’t think there is one particular type. A student certainly does not have to be somebody who spends their evenings reading the Financial Times.
In fact, many students begin A-Level Economics knowing remarkably little about the economy. That isn’t a problem. I would be more interested in whether they are curious about why things happen.
Suppose the government increases the minimum wage. A good economics student doesn’t simply learn that this is “good” or “bad”. They start asking questions.
What might happen to workers’ incomes? What might businesses do in response? Could prices rise? Could employment fall? Would the effect be different for a large supermarket and a small café? Does it matter how large the increase is?
That is much closer to what studying economics is really about. Students who enjoy following an argument and asking “but does that always happen?” often take to the subject very well.
They also need to be willing to change their minds, because economics contains plenty of questions where there isn’t one simple answer. Personally, I think that is one of its attractions.
Does My Child Need to Be Good at Maths?
They need to be reasonably comfortable with maths, but A-Level Economics should not be confused with A-Level Mathematics.
Students work with percentages, ratios, graphs, index numbers and economic data. There are calculations too, but the mathematics itself is generally not especially advanced. Often the harder part is interpreting the result.
A graph or calculation gives the student some information. They then have to explain what it means and how it affects the economic argument.
Individual schools and sixth-form colleges set their own GCSE Maths requirements for entry to the course. A grade 6 is fairly common, but requirements vary and some institutions accept a grade 5.
We have a separate guide explaining What GCSE Grades Do You Need for A-Level Economics?.
There is also more detail about the mathematical side of the course in Do You Need Maths for A-Level Economics?. If you want to see the sort of maths students will actually use, with some simple examples, read What Maths Do You Actually Need for A-Level Economics?.
What About Essay Writing?
This matters too. Economics is not just a numerical subject. Students have to explain arguments in writing, and longer answers become increasingly important as the course progresses.
But an economics essay is not quite the same as an English or History essay. The emphasis is heavily on cause and effect.
For example, if interest rates rise, a student might explain how this affects borrowing, household spending, business investment and eventually economic growth.
They then need to consider whether that argument is convincing. How large was the interest-rate increase? Are households heavily indebted? What is happening to wages? Are businesses optimistic about the future? Could something else be pushing economic growth in the opposite direction?
This is why students who can think logically often do very well in economics even if they do not initially regard themselves as natural essay writers.
Writing technique can be learned. The ability to ask sensible questions is harder to teach.
Parents should also be aware that, for the main exam boards, A-Level Economics is an exam-based subject rather than a coursework subject. Students are assessed through written examination papers, so they do need to become comfortable explaining their ideas under exam conditions.
That does not mean they need excellent exam technique before starting. Like essay writing itself, that is something they should develop during the course.
Does My Child Need GCSE Economics?
No. Many students start A-Level Economics without having studied it at GCSE, and some schools do not even offer GCSE Economics.
A student who has taken the GCSE may recognise a few more ideas during the opening weeks, but I would not regard that as an important long-term advantage. A-Level Economics goes much further than recognising definitions or drawing familiar diagrams. Students need to analyse, apply and evaluate economic arguments.
I have looked at this question in more detail in Can You Study A-Level Economics Without GCSE Economics?.
So if your child is interested in economics but has never studied it before, that alone should not put them off.
Is Economics a Good A-Level for University?
It can be. Economics develops skills that are useful across a wide range of university subjects: working with evidence, analysing arguments, handling quantitative information and explaining ideas clearly.
It is also an academic subject in its own right. But I would be wary of choosing any A-Level principally because it is thought to “look good” to universities. The right combination depends on what your child might eventually want to study.
If they are considering a university degree in economics, finance or financial economics, A-Level Economics can provide a particularly useful foundation.
They will already have begun thinking about markets, incentives, interest rates, inflation, economic growth and the way the wider economy affects financial decisions. Those ideas are developed much further at university.
There is, however, an important qualification.
Economics and Financial Economics can become considerably more mathematical at university than A-Level Economics is at school.
Some of the more mathematically demanding university courses place great importance on A-Level Maths, even where A-Level Economics itself is not an entry requirement.
So if your child is already thinking seriously about studying Economics or Financial Economics at university, I would look at the entry requirements of a selection of universities before they finalise their A-Level choices.
It would be a mistake to assume that taking A-Level Economics while dropping maths is necessarily the best preparation for an economics degree.
For a student who has no idea what they want to do at university — which is perfectly normal at 16 — Economics can still be a useful and interesting A-Level.
Economics or Business?
Parents sometimes assume that economics and business are very similar subjects. There is some overlap, but they are not the same.
Business tends to focus more directly on firms: marketing, finance, operations, human resources and business strategy.
Economics asks broader questions about how markets and whole economies work. A student interested in how a company should price a product or organise its marketing might naturally be drawn towards business. A student who wants to know why inflation has risen, what determines wages, whether taxation changes behaviour or why interest rates affect house prices may be more attracted to economics.
Neither choice should be made simply because one subject is supposed to be “better” than the other. What matters is which way of looking at the world interests the student more.
When Might Economics Not Be the Right Choice?
I think this is worth saying because economics is not going to suit everybody.
I would think carefully if your child strongly dislikes most of the following:
explaining ideas in writing;
graphs and numerical information;
following a chain of cause and effect;
reading about what is happening in the world;
considering different sides of an argument;
questions where the correct answer may depend on the circumstances.
The last point is particularly important. Economics is full of “it depends”.
Will a tax reduce consumption? Probably. But how much?
Will an increase in the minimum wage reduce employment? Possibly. But that depends on the labour market, the size of the increase and how employers respond.
Will cutting interest rates increase economic growth? It might. But what if households are worried about the future and do not want to borrow?
Students who want every question to have one short, definite answer can initially find this frustrating. Students who enjoy asking what an argument depends upon often find it fascinating.
If you are wondering about the overall difficulty of the course, see Is A-Level Economics Difficult?.
How Can Parents Help?
You do not need to know any economics yourself, and I wouldn’t suggest trying to become your child’s economics teacher at home.
One of the most useful things you can do is simply talk about what is happening. If the news says that inflation has fallen, ask what that actually means. Have prices fallen, or are they simply rising more slowly?
If interest rates change, ask who might gain and who might lose. If the government announces a new tax, ask what people might do differently as a result.
You don’t need to know the answer. The conversation itself is useful.
In fact, asking a question without immediately supplying the answer can be more helpful than explaining something to them.
Why do you think that happened?
What might happen next?
Who would be affected?
What could make the outcome different?
Those are very simple questions, but they encourage exactly the sort of reasoning that economics requires.
Economics becomes much easier when students stop seeing it as a collection of diagrams and definitions and start recognising that it is a way of thinking about the real world.
So, Should Your Child Take A-Level Economics?
If they are curious about why things happen, reasonably comfortable with numbers and willing to explain their thinking in writing, I think economics is well worth considering.
They do not need GCSE Economics. They do not need to arrive knowing how the economy works. And they certainly do not need to have decided that they want to become an economist.
What they do need is some willingness to think.
Why did that happen? What happens next? Who gains and who loses? What assumptions are we making? Would the answer change if the circumstances were different?
Those questions sit at the heart of economics.
If your child finds that way of thinking interesting, there is a good chance they will find the subject interesting too.