Current and Future Financial Well-Being in 16 Countries

Abstract

Financial well-being—the evaluation of current personal finances and expectations for the financial future—has gained attention in research, practice, and policy. Yet, there is no consensus on its conceptualization or its operationalization. The authors contribute to this area of research by proposing a conceptual framework and reassessing a measure used in data on subjective financial well-being from 16 countries. The findings highlight methodological concerns in international marketing studies and show not only financial well-being but also its measures to be context dependent. Furthermore, although many studies use unidimensional financial well-being measures, some conceptualizations have at least two components: a current and a future element. The authors analyze the effects of individual and contextual factors on current and future financial well-being and explore their possible interaction. They observe income to be a significant predictor of both components of financial well-being, while institutional settings are correlated with current financial well-being and national culture with future financial well-being. They conclude that initiatives aimed at increasing financial well-being need to clearly target either its current or its future component as their antecedents differ.