Personal Financial Management Behaviors during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Vietnam.

Abstract

This paper is aimed at investigating the factors affecting personal financial management behaviors in Vietnam during the Covid-19 pandemic. With data of interviewing online 477 individuals, the research team used the reliability test with Cronbach’s Alpha, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Pearson correlation analysis’s results, and linear OLS model. The key findings are: First, four factors have strong impacts on personal financial management behavior are: (i) Covid-19 pandemic; (ii) Financial habits from parents; (iii) Financial education from parents; (iv) Financial well-being. Of which, the factor of socialization has been separated in to “financial habits from parents”, and “financial education from parents”. Second, differently from previous studies, two variables of financial knowledge and financial attitude have no impact on personal financial management behavior. These differences come from the special characteristics of Vietnam culture: First, parents are the main financial sources for the youth, and also the model of financial management for children. Second, as financial management capacity building courses are not much available in Vietnam, people depend on family own’s experiences to build up their financial management behaviors. Basing on the results, the recommendations are focusing on improving financial management capability of parents in order to improve individual financial management capacity.