Development and Validation of a Financial Behavior Scale for Low-Income Earning Groups Abhijith P S, Antony Joseph K Journal of Poverty, 2026 Most research studying financial behavior, including those studying the behavior of economically deprived sections, have ignored manual laborers. They are a segment that plays a significant role in economic development, but the lack of access to economic resources forces them to perform undesirable financial behaviors. Even though policymakers claim that removing stress in managing money is one way of achieving financial well-being, somehow, their financial empowerment has been overlooked in mainstream literature. This study aims to develop and validate a measure of financial behavior for the toiling class and to assess how different demographic segments vary in different dimensions of behavioral practices. An 18-item scale has been developed, taking input from several existing measures of financial behavior and considering the unique characteristics of the population. The behavioral attributes of 401 laborers were measured in Kerala, India. Factor analysis resulted in four components with coherent reliability. The alpha reliability of the whole scale was 0.864. A detailed analysis using demographic variables revealed that gender, age, and education are significant for most of the behavioral dimensions and overall financial behavior. The type of laborer was found to be significant for three behavioral dimensions. Other than providing a measure of financial behavior for students and researchers of economically deprived sections, a scale can help counselors, educators, and policymakers bring focused and constructive interventions into the lives of the poor.
Reverse FinTech Socialisation: A Remedy for Financial Exclusion in the Digital Era P. S. Abhijith, Antony Joseph K. International Journal of E Business Research, 2022 Technology has brought unprecedented changes in the financial realm, and its benefits were evident during the times of COVID-19. Nonetheless, digital divide has kept fintech out of the reach of many. Digital financial exclusion needs practical solutions to bring positive attitudes and confidence to use fintech among these segments. This is an original work that suggests reverse fintech socialisation as a tool to create such confidence within the digitally excluded. Employing a cross-sectional design, a sample of 349 middle-aged mothers was drawn from Kerala, India to examine the relationships between attitude, reverse socialisation, and confidence to deal in fintech. Findings supported the hypothesised relations between these variables and revealed that attitude predicts reverse fintech socialisation, which has a very high influence on confidence. Age, income, and income earner in the family too were found significant for confidence. Findings imply that policymakers can formulate interventions that make use of the youth to create confidence within the digital immigrants to use fintech.
RECENT SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Development and Validation of a Financial Behavior Scale for Low-Income Earning Groups PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Journal of Poverty , 2024 2024
Development of a Financial Self-efficacy Scale for Economically Marginalized Women PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Humanities and Social Science Studies 10 (2), 25-34 , 2022 2022
Reverse FinTech Socialisation: A Remedy for Financial Exclusion in the Digital Era PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR) 18 (1), 1-17 , 2022 2022 Citations: 9
Impact of Multiple Income Sources on Financial Self-efficacy: A Study on Women MGNREGA Workers in Kerala PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Contemporary Research in Finance, 94-100 , 2021 2021 Citations: 2
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Reverse FinTech Socialisation: A Remedy for Financial Exclusion in the Digital Era PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph International Journal of E-Business Research (IJEBR) 18 (1), 1-17 , 2022 2022 Citations: 9
Impact of Multiple Income Sources on Financial Self-efficacy: A Study on Women MGNREGA Workers in Kerala PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Contemporary Research in Finance, 94-100 , 2021 2021 Citations: 2
Development and Validation of a Financial Behavior Scale for Low-Income Earning Groups PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Journal of Poverty , 2024 2024
Development of a Financial Self-efficacy Scale for Economically Marginalized Women PS Abhijith, K Antony Joseph Humanities and Social Science Studies 10 (2), 25-34 , 2022 2022
