Page 1 of 12
Archives of Business Research – Vol. 10, No. 3
Publication Date: March 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/abr.103.11912. Xumei, C., Xinyan, Y., Wei, Q., Jiamin, Q., Xiaofeng, Z., & Qishui, C. (2022). Analysis of Factors Influencing Middle-aged and Elderly
People’s Decisions of Investment and Financial Management. Archives of Business Research, 10(03). 21-32.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Analysis of Factors Influencing Middle-aged and Elderly People’s
Decisions of Investment and Financial Management
Chen Xumei
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
Yin Xinyan
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
Qiu Wei
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
Qian Jiamin
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
Zhang Xiaofeng
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
Chi Qishui
Business School, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China)
ABSTRACT
In this paper,we took middle-aged and elderly people as the research objects and
collected the influence degree data of factors affecting the investment and financial
decision-making through questionnaire,then applied statistical methods and the
analytic hierarchy process to determine the primary and secondary ranking of the
influence degree of these influencing factors.This study may provide reference for
middle-aged and elderly people doing investment and financial management,
financial institution constructing platform and developing product,government
supervision,etc.We found that the most important factor affecting the investment
and financial decisions of middle-aged and elderly people is the system stability in
the platform factors,followed by the professional guidance in the personal
characteristics and the operation difficulty in the platform factors.
Keywords: middle-aged and elderly people,investment and financial management,
investment decision-making,the analytic hierarchy process
INTRODUCTION
Since the Reform and opening-up, China has achieved more than 40 years of development, and
the economy has achieved high-quality development. The accumulation of residents’ wealth
has been increasing. With the implementation of the "Internet plus" strategy, residents are
beginning to get involved in the investment market and invest in various financial products to
avoid the shrinking of wealth and ensure the preservation and appreciation of wealth.
Page 2 of 12
22
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 3, March-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
At present, China has entered the era of national financial management, and the middle-aged
and elderly people have become an important force in investment and financial management.
However, relevant research show that the middle-aged and elderly people's financial
management awareness is not strong enough, and have a low degree of understanding of
financial products, their investment and financial management choices are few, and their
operation methods are relatively backward. Therefore, most of the middle-aged and elderly
people have not carried out investment and financial management.
Based on the above situation, this research mainly analyzes the influencing factors of
investment and financial decision-making of middle-aged and elderly people, measures the
impact of various factors on investment and financial decision-making of middle-aged and
elderly people, provides reference for investment and financial decision-making of middle-aged
and elderly people, and is conducive to promoting rational investment of elderly people; It also
provides suggestions for financial institutions to develop investment and financial products, so
as to promote them to develop products more targeted. At the same time, the government can
issue relevant policies or laws and regulations according to the influence degree of various
factors, strengthen the supervision of the financial market, improve the effectiveness of the
financial market and optimize the allocation of market resources.
There are few literatures on the analysis of investment and financial behavior of middle-aged
and elderly people at home and abroad. On all the entry points of investment and financial
management, domestic literature mainly focuses on pension finance, investment and financial
management needs, investment and financial management behavior, while foreign literature
mainly discusses the influence of personal characteristics and social environment on
investment and financial management behavior.
On the issue of pension finance, Hou & Xiong (2017) systematically analyzed the development
status and problems of China's pension finance and put forward suggestions, which pointed out
that most financial products of commercial banks have a short duration and are difficult to meet
the long-term requirements of pension investment. Zhang & Ji (2018) through cohort analysis
and regional environment comparison, this paper discusses the pension planning of the elderly,
and the results show that cash savings is still the main means of Pension Reserves.
In terms of investment and financial needs, Wang (2016) used the Logistic method to analyze
the demand for financial services of rural families and its influencing factors in the new
urbanization. The results show that the investment and financial needs of rural families tend to
be diversified and comprehensive. The new urbanization affects the demand for financial
services by affecting rural families' preference for financial services. Gan(2020) found that
under the epidemic situation, the overall preference of families for low-risk assets, the
willingness of families to invest online has increased year by year, and the increased willingness
to invest in funds may be medium and long-term behavior.
In terms of investment and financial management, Zhao & Cheng (2016) built a personal user
acceptance model for online investment and wealth management based on UTAUT model and
relevant literature. The research results show that the acceptance Intention and convenience
jointly determine the acceptance behavior of individual users for online investment and wealth
management, and the main factors affecting the acceptance intention are performance
Page 3 of 12
23
Xumei, C., Xinyan, Y., Wei, Q., Jiamin, Q., Xiaofeng, Z., & Qishui, C. (2022). Analysis of Factors Influencing Middle-aged and Elderly People’s Decisions
of Investment and Financial Management. Archives of Business Research, 10(03). 21-32.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.103.11912
expectation and perceived risk. Liao & Wang (2017) research shows that the improvement of
monetary system, business and investment environment will increase residents' participation
in the financial market. Liu (2019) by investigating and analyzing the investment behavior of
market investors of financial products of commercial banks, it is found that investors have
heterogeneous preference for the initial purchase amount, term and income type of financial
products. Investors with heterogeneous risk attitude determine their investment choice
behavior by the utility generated by different preferences for these characteristic attributes.
Regarding the personal characteristics of investors, Brooks et al. (2018) found that risk
tolerance decreases with age, indicating to a certain extent that risk tolerance has a moderate
age effect. Groups with low financial literacy tend to participate less in the stock market to buy
stocks, which means that financial knowledge affects financial decisions (Rooij, Lusardi &
Alessie, 2018).In terms of gender, compared with men, women are less confident of their ability
to participate in the stock market (Vaarmets, Liivamaggi & Talpsepp, 2019).Because the
average score of women in financial knowledge is lower than that of men, the number of people
participating in the stock market is relatively small. At the same time, when basic financial
knowledge is controlled, the estimated gender gap in stock market participation will narrow,
but the gender gap in risk-taking is still large (A J A & B A D, 2015). Wei and CHO (2019) found
that there is a non-linear relationship between a person's subjective well-being and the
probability of financial market participation. The probability of risk financial market
participation increases with the increase of self-reported happiness index.
On the impact of social environment, Liang & Guo (2015) studied the impact of social
interaction on the stock market and found that it plays an important role in transmitting
relevant information to potential investors and has a positive impact on family stock market
participation. Social families living in communities with high stock market participation rate
are more likely to invest in stocks. In addition, the research results also show that peer effect
and perceived financial literacy are related to financial market participation and has a
significant positive correlation (Nguyen T & Nguyen k m, 2020). Economic activities, occupation
and religion also affect stock market participation (Vaarmets, Liivamaggi & Talpsepp, 2019).
To sum up, the analysis of investment and financial management in the existing literature is not
comprehensive and in-depth, some research results still remain at the correlation level, and
there is little analysis on the factors affecting individual investment and financial management
decisions. Therefore, in order to further analyze the influencing factors of investment and
financial behavior, this paper selects the middle-aged and elderly as the research object to
explore the weight ranking of factors affecting their investment and financial decision-making.
The innovations of this paper are as follows:
(1)The research point of view is innovative: this paper selects the elderly as the research object,
analyzes the influencing factors of subject’s investment and financial behavior, and explores the
weight ranking of factors. At present, there are few existing studies on investment and financial
management of the elderly, thus this paper will help to make up for the existing research blank.
(2)The research variables are innovative: compared with other domestic studies, this paper not
only studies the impact of personal factors on the investment and financial decision-making of
the elderly, but also investigates the impact of social factors and platform factors, so that the
research conclusions can comprehensively and fully explain the characteristics of the