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This study tests the hypothesis that public servants have higher levels of financial preparation for retirement compared to other occupations. Also, it identifies whether the model is invariant. The results indicate that public servants have better future expectations, financial planning, and savings behavior than other occupations. The level of financial preparation for retirement is low in all occupations. The construction of public policies that consider both the need to increase levels of planning and inequalities is essential for greater financial well-being in retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 2014 China Family Panel Studies survey (CFPS), we investigate the effects of financial planning ability and risk perception on household portfolio choice. Our findings show that households with greater financial planning ability are more likely to invest in financial markets and hold a larger proportion of risky financial assets. The empirical results suggest that a higher level of risk perception leads to more market participation and risky assets holding. Compared with the insignificant effect of financial literacy, we find that financial planning ability significantly affects household investment earnings, and high financial planning ability tends to contribute to a positive investment return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anchored in the behavioral life-cycle model, the life-cycle consumption model, and the utility theory, we propose a new model that examines the channel through which financial literacy impacts on financial satisfaction. The data were gleaned with a self-administrated questionnaire from individual investors. The results disclose that financial planning mediates the relationship between financial literacy and financial satisfaction, and further, reveal that the moderating role of gender of the relationship between financial planning and financial satisfaction. Our study contributes to the frontiers of extant literature and proffers many useful practical implications and thus, from a policy perspective, our findings are crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial literacy is defined as the knowledge, skills, and ability to navigate increasingly complex financial markets, and is considered to empower consumers to make responsible financial decisions. It has been widely promoted as a crucial life skill following the 2008 financial crisis. This study critically analyzes financial literacy education initiatives in Turkey through ethnographic research. Financial literacy curricula provide the basic knowledge of finance as well as instruct subjects ways to conduct financial planning, budgeting, debt management, creditworthiness, saving, and investment. Financial literacy agenda deepens neo-liberal governmentality by promoting an entrepreneurial subjectivity and making individuals more aware and responsible for social risks. The cultural political economy perspective of this study analyzes financialized capital accumulation dynamics together with the reshaping of culture and the constitution of financialized subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emotional and moral context of high cost, small loan lending has an important bearing on how low-income people engage in the mixed economy of credit, which is a term used to describe the different sectors involved in providing credit, from informal transactions between family and friends to formal fringe financial lenders and multinational banks. Decisions about accessing credit are constrained by more than material circumstances or access to information about the financial cost of such transactions. How individuals perceive different credit options is also influenced by emotions such as shame, guilt or anger. The emotional dimension is critical for understanding how, where and when individuals access credit. The policy field needs to give more attention to these neglected dimensions of decision-making, particularly since 'financial literacy' programs targeted at low-income households assume that lack of financial and budgetary knowledge is the key issue. Here, we argue, drawing on an empirical study, that a wider range of cultural and emotional factors needs to be taken into account in making sense of the social relations of money, credit and debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the US Department of Defense has become increasingly concerned with how the financial insecurity of military families compromises the overall security of the nation. Through an analysis of the policy reports focusing on predatory lending and military personnel and the initiatives designed to improve the financial capabilities of servicemembers and their families, this article situates the everyday domestic lives of indebted military personnel with respect to the racialized, gendered and militarized logics of global finance capital. Specifically, I argue that the perceived crisis in ‘financial readiness’ is endemic to the US security state and its efforts to protect and produce financialized markets at home and abroad. Inspired by the growing body of Cultural Studies and American Studies scholarship on the relationship between race, empire and the financialization of capitalism, this article unpacks the ways in which state practices of war-making fuel and are fueled by the chronic indebtedness of communities of colour and working-class communities. I open with a discussion of how the Pentagon's coercive enlistment practices burden economically insecure bodies with the work of securing the nation and, in doing so, create concentrated populations of young people who, with a regular pay cheque yet no credit history, are particularly vulnerable to the financial structures they ‘volunteered’ to defend. I then conclude with an examination of the Pentagon's family-focused financial readiness programmes that school servicemembers in how to invest for their futures and that call specifically upon military wives to do the labour of mobilizing household financial plans in the service of US imperial interests. By focusing on how military families are imagined to manage and mismanage their debt, this article offers insight into how the militarization of citizenship coincides with the financialization of family life in the United States today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent global financial turmoil and its ongoing implications have highlighted the importance of personal financial capability. This article outlines the critical role of financial capability in today's world. The findings of the first study of financial capability in Ireland are presented. The article then compares some important aspects of financial capability in Ireland and the UK and assesses what lessons can be learnt from such a comparison and the policy implications which arise. Differences include pension coverage and current account holdings, while similarities are evident in the area of keeping up with bills and commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]