Purpose

This study aims to explore the impact of the containment measures during COVID-19 on individuals’ finances, financial resilience during such distress and identifying the most financially vulnerable among them. Tracing such impact during the pandemic has been challenging due to a lack of representative data. This paper addresses this gap in the present study.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey has been conducted using a structured questionnaire containing various items that portray the impact on income, spending, saving, investment, borrowing, insurance and retirement. The sample consists of 699 respondents and purposive and snowball sampling has been used for data collection. The results are presented and analyzed using infographics and frequency distributions. This study conducts an analysis of variance and Chi-square tests for significance.

Findings

This paper finds a fall in income and limited ability to cope with the current economic conditions. The survey highlights inadequate savings and insurance, weak retirement planning, outstanding loans and under-diversified investments inhibiting financial resilience even among the higher-income group. Particularly, lower-income strata, women and not much educated are most financially vulnerable. Further, no substantial financial benefits have been received from the government and people rely on their usual income sources.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that measures the pandemic’s impact on personal finances, especially in connection with a developing economy like India. Policy interventions are critical to the millions for whom financial literacy is required now more than ever.

中文翻译：

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财务困境和 COVID-19：来自印度工作人员的证据

目的

本研究旨在探讨 COVID-19 期间的遏制措施对个人财务、此类困境期间的财务弹性的影响，并确定其中最脆弱的群体。由于缺乏代表性数据，在大流行期间追踪此类影响一直具有挑战性。本文解决了本研究中的这一差距。

设计/方法/方法

使用结构化问卷进行了一项调查，其中包含描述对收入、支出、储蓄、投资、借贷、保险和退休的影响的各种项目。样本由 699 名受访者组成，数据收集采用了有目的的滚雪球抽样。使用信息图表和频率分布来呈现和分析结果。本研究对显着性进行方差分析和卡方检验。

发现

本文发现收入下降和应对当前经济状况的能力有限。调查强调储蓄和保险不足、退休计划薄弱、未偿还贷款和投资多元化不足，即使在高收入群体中也抑制了财务弹性。特别是，低收入阶层、女性和受教育程度低的人群在经济上最脆弱。此外，政府没有获得实质性的经济利益，人们依赖其通常的收入来源。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，这是第一项衡量大流行对个人财务影响的研究，尤其是与印度这样的发展中经济体有关的影响。政策干预对于现在比以往任何时候都更需要金融知识的数百万人来说至关重要。