Abstract
Financial well-being among young adults is an emerging and important field of research. This study aims to shed light on the current insights and future directions for young adults’ financial well-being research.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review was performed using (1) the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol to curate the corpus and (2) the bibliometric-content analysis technique to review that corpus on young adults’ financial well-being research.
Findings
Young adults’ financial well-being is influenced by contextual factors such as changes in macroeconomic environment, market factors, technological advancement and financial social comparisons, as well as personal factors such as sociodemographics, personality traits and values, skills and attitudes, financial practices, financial socialization, lifestyles and early life experiences, and subjective financial situation and mental health. Noteworthily, interest in this field is growing with a plethora of journals, countries, authors, theories, methods and measures.
Research limitations/implications
Several noteworthy gaps exist in the literature on young adults’ financial well-being, which include the lack of international collaboration, the lack of interventions to improve young adults’ financial well-being, the limited range of theoretical lenses, the limited consensus on measuring young adults’ financial well-being, the limited understanding of contextual factors, and the inconsistencies between personal factors and young adults’ financial well-being. Potential ways forward are proposed to address these gaps.
Originality/value
This review contributes to a seminal synthesis of young adults’ financial well-being research, providing both retrospective insights and prospective ways forward.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 333-368 |
| Number of pages | 36 |
| Journal | International Journal of Bank Marketing |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 2 Dec 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 17 Mar 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
Personality traits and values. Studies have attempted to investigate the role of personality traits and values on young adults’ financial well-being, wherein personality traits and values function as self-regulating mechanisms. Based on a longitudinal survey of college students, found that financial self-efficacy positively relates to financial well-being. This finding is supported by many studies (; ; ). Evidence put forth by also supports this line of reasoning. The authors found that financial fragility is negatively related to financial well-being, whereby young adults who lack the confidence to cover unexpected financial shocks tend to have lower financial well-being. These findings conform to the notion that financial self-efficacy gives people the capability to persist in light of financial failures ().
Keywords
- Bibliometric analysis
- Financial well-being
- Systematic review
- Young adults
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Marketing
