Trends of standard of living preferences of economics university students as a result of the economic crisis

Abstract

One of today’s central subject ranges is the theme of personal financial decisions. Standard of living preferences are also closely related to these. The generation that will soon enter the labor market still has these questions in front of them. This is the reason why we focused on university students in our study. We asked Hungarian, Austrian, and Slovak economics students in our questionnaire research. We conducted the study in 2 successive years, in the autumn of 2019 and the autumn of 2020. The first phase of the coronavirus pandemic happened between the two occasions. We examined the received responses along the lines of demographic variables, with the application of linear modelling and decision trees. The year was proven to be the most important variable, which indicates that the crisis caused by the coronavirus had a significant effect on the ideas of students regarding a better standard of living. Our results not only highlight the importance of financial literacy, but also show that personal opinions transform in a crisis regarding the criteria that embody a higher standard of living. It appears that a severe economic crisis increases the sense of responsibility and the importance of future security. Of course, because of the short time that passed, the practical verification of our findings will have to wait.