Determinants of spending habits: a case study of University of KwaZulu-Natal students.

Abstract

As the cost of university education continues to increase, university students’ spending habits have become topical. Good spending habits among students will guarantee their financial stability. Spending habits are an aspect of financial behaviour; a component of financial literacy. Financial literacy comprises three components: financial knowledge, financial attitudes, and financial behaviours. The relationship between these components has been examined, especially among university students. However, the relationship between financial knowledge, financial attitude together with demographic characteristics and spending habits have not been welladdressed in the extant literature, particularly among university student’s in South Africa. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap on students’ spending by examining the determinants of their (university student’s) spending habits. This study uses spending habits as the dependable variable, and financial knowledge, financial attitude, gender, age, family background, racial group, years in university, the course of study and financial aid as independent variables. The study employed quantitative research method; it used questionnaire adapted from previous studies. The reliability of the scales for the constructs was confirmed using Cronbach Alpha and the coefficient values more than 0.70. A total of 479 completed questionnaires were collected and used for the study. The study employed Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS 24) to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the demographic characteristics and the results were presented in tables and charts. Binary Logistic Regression and ANOVA were used to examine the relationship between the explanatory variables and the dependable variable. The finding revealed that financial attitude can influence students’ spending habits while other explanatory variables did not have a significant influence on students’ spending habits. The study further sought to investigate the significant relationship between gender and spending habits, the course of study and spending habits, and racial groups and spending habits using Crosstabulation and Chi-Square analysis. The findings shows that there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and spending habits, the course of study and spending habits, and racial groups and spending habits of the respondents. These findings suggest that a financial literacy programme by the university authority with emphasis on financial attitudes will enhance the good spending habits of the students. However, the research findings only reflect the responses of the study population of the College of Law and Management as well as College of Humanities of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.