Financial Education as a Moderating Influence in Prudent Financial Management Practices among Malaysian Youth

Abstract

Studies have indicated that the key contributors to heavy financial debt among youth are global economic situation with uncertainty of economic growth, wide access of financial product, and sophistication of financial environment. Additionally, the market regards youth as a primary lucrative market and this has led the youth to fall into poor financial practices and widely exposed to bankruptcy. The inability for youth to become financially sustainable in manoeuvring their expenditure and savings further cemented the notion that youth are lacking in financial knowledge which lead to indecisive financial decision. The study aims to investigate the influence of financial education (FE) as a moderator to financial attitudes (FA), parental financial socialisation (PFS), and financial literacy (FL) to ensure the successfulness of Prudent Financial Management Practices (PFMP) among Malaysian youth. This study employed self-administered questionnaires which were adopted from previous studies and distributed to 140 youth in Malaysia which were later analysed using SPSS to address the research objectives. The result indicated that FE is not significant moderator to FA, PFS, and FL in determining the PFMP among youth in Malaysia. The finding further highlighted that PFMP among youth are the result of shared accountability from various stakeholders such as parents, policy makers, and financial institution.