A STUDY OF INVESTMENT AWARENESS AND PREFERENCE OF WORKING WOMEN IN JAFFNA DISTRICT IN SRI LANKA Nagajeyakumaran Atchyuthan atchyuthan@yahoo.com Rathirani Yogendrarajah Head, Department of Financial Management, University of Jaffna rathiy22@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study aims focus on awareness and preferences of working women with special reference to Jaffna district, Sri Lanka. The study is based on female employees who are working in government and private sector organizations at middle level staff position. For the purpose of this study the primary data which was collected by questionnaire using convenient sampling technique with the sample size of 125 respondents in Jaffna district, Sri Lanka. The data has been analyzed using percentage analysis and chi-square test. The researcher has analyzed that working women mostly aware of the investment avenues and they highly depend on their husbands while taking investment decisions, because Jaffna is a male dominant society. The study concludes that awareness level of working women in Jaffna is not significantly related to age, occupation and educational qualifications. The investment preference order of the respondents indicated towards secured investment attitude. Bank deposits and gold were popular investment avenues for majority of the investors. Key words: working women, awareness, preferences, age, investment 1. Introduction Comparing with the ancient time present day women are more educated and knowledgeable. In past days role was purely to look after their home and they limited their world as their families. Their world was limited to their families. But now, the people and women themselves were recognizing the importance of education. Today, we can find many educated women in the world. They are progressing in real sense of knowledge, because in almost all sectors we find women are working in higher positions successfully. Now days, we find more and more women who are financially independent. They are getting paid attractive salaries. But what about their investment behavior? Are they financially aware enough to make their own investments? If yes, then what are their investment patterns? What are their perceptions towards savings and investment, what is their risk bearing capacity? The answers to these questions are necessary for getting the picture of the role of working women especially women who are reside in Jaffna in taking the investment decisions. In Sri Lanka savings market has been expanding over the period and there is a smooth increase of household savings. Moreover, general profile of women investors is changing in tune with time. But they lack in various scopes of investment such as awareness and 105
preference of investment. An attempt therefore has been made by the researcher to identify the factors influencing women investors behavior, to evaluate the level of awareness among women investors and to analyze the preference of women investor towards various investment outlets. Employed women have a greater tendency to save and invest because of their independent earning power. They are also motivated by the investment behavior of their coworkers in their work place. They are supposed to be risk adverse, safety oriented and guided by certainty of returns. With aggregate level of knowledge and awareness, women slowly take part in the risk investment portfolios and they are becoming systematic in their investment behavior. Working women have started actively participating in investing their surplus money, though it all depends upon the various parameters such as degree of their risk taking capability, influence of family members and friends and the challenge to get exposed to modern and innovative investment avenues. The present research study is focused on the working women s attitude towards investment and the marital status and age factors responsible for investment behavior of women. While investing, the family related matters such as child education, child marriage, life protection and medical expenses have much more impact on the minds of married working women than on unmarried ones This study will give certain direction to choose best investment among alternatives. Also this study will also useful to the various financial sectors to frame the policies for women based on their requirement. So as to the saving habits of women will be raised which ensure economic development of the country. 2. Literature review Shanthi and Murugeasan (2016) concluded that there is no relationship between education with investment while there is a significant relationship between age and income. On the other hand N.S.Shukla (2016) found that there is no relationship between education with investment while there is significant relationship between Age and Income. Priya Vasagadekar (2014) on working women she concluded that because of the education, now days women are getting the best job offers with high remuneration. It has become the present day need for working women in India to increase their wealth. As most of the women are low in financial literacy, it becomes hardly possible for them to manage their investment activities on their own. Also the risk taking level of working women in India is low. This is due to shortage of sound financial knowledge. Rajeshwari Jain (2014) finds that working women have a preference to invest fixed deposit in bank a safe investment option & for tax saving purpose who also indicated that women also select gold as good investment alternative to bank deposit. Study on Perception of Women Investors towards Investments Kanagaraj et al. (2014) concludes, occupation and educational level does not influence awareness of women investors in Coimbatore city. Sellappan et al. (2013) further suggest that married women are highly interested in making investment than the unmarried. As well as the younger are significantly interested to invest in stock market, insurance and bank fixed deposits as the elder women. The middle age persons wish to invest in real estate source of investment. Puneet Bhushan & Yajulu Medury (2013) indicated that women are more traditional and take less risk and significant gender differences occur in investment preferences for insurance, fixed deposits and market investments among employees. Agrawal (2009) noted that there is no significant difference between male and female investors in the expected rate of return. According to Clark and Strauss, (2008) it has been observed that women are more risk averse than men; the young are more risk seeking than the old; wealthier individuals showcase a greater willingness to invest in equities and the poor are risk adverse securities. Shobhana et al. (2006) have carried out a study on investor s awareness and preferences. They examined the level of investor awareness regarding investment choice and investment risks. The study discovered that the investment in real estate is preferred by a popular of the respondents. While examining the investment behavior of high income women in America Tahira and Cäzilia (2006 )found that women were involved in investment decisions, many authors reported making them with their partners rather than alone. They also suggest that women were more likely than men to have fixed income investments such as savings accounts, certificates of deposits, and life insurance with cash value women were also more likely than men to invest in government savings bonds or government savings bond mutual funds. 3. Statement of the problem This study intends to put on some knowledge about how demographic factors that influence investment awareness and ways these factors impact investment preferences and decision making process among the working women. The individuals may be equal in all aspects, but their awareness and preferences are different in same situation. Earlier studies involved with research but they did this 106
commonly (both men and women). In this study researchers are trying to find out the factors which affect working women investment decisions by considering demographic factors. Hence keeping this in mind, the present study intended to investigate the awareness level and preferences of working women, to understand the association between demographic factors and investment awareness & preferences of working female investors in Jaffna district. Even though there are many researches that have been done in this area worldwide not lot of researches has been done in Sri Lankan context. Therefore, it is believed that this study would reduce the knowledge gap in this area. 3. Research objective To investigate the impact of demographic factors on investment awareness and preferences among the working women 4. Conceptual framework Demographic Factors Marital Status Age Designation Investment Awareness 5. Methodology Investment Preferences Occupation Educational Level The research work was carried out in Jaffna district. The study survey was conducted in 2017 with the help of a structured questionnaire consisting of relevant questions. The focus of the study was on understanding the awareness and preferences of working women in different sectors were interviewed for this purpose. Working women were from banks, university, schools and other small firms. Structured questionnaire was provided to them & their responses were noted. In this study among the vast of population of all working women of Jaffna district 125 working women had been selected as sample. Convenient sampling technique is used to collect the response for respondents. The data analysis tools used were simple percentages, tables and Chi- square test were used as data analysis tools. 6. Hypothesis H1: There is a significant relationship between age and investment awareness of working women investors H2: There is a significant relationship between educational qualification and investment awareness of working women investors H3: There is a significant relationship between occupation and investment awareness of working women investors 107
7. Results and Discussion Table: 1. Analysis of demographic factors of working women investors Serial. No Investors Particulars No of Respondents Percentage (%) 1 Marital Status Single 50 40 Married 75 60 Up to 30 years 46 36.8 2 Age 31-40 49 39.2 41-50 21 16.8 Above 50 years 09 7.2 Managerial Level 15 12 3 Level of Designation Middle Level 81 64.8 Operational Level 29 23.2 4 Occupation Public Sector 103 82.4 Private Sector 22 17.6 O/L 3 2.4 A/L 36 28.8 5 Educational Qualification Graduate 67 53.6 Post Graduate 16 12.8 Others 3 2.4 The above table shows that 60% of the working women are married and the rest of the 40% of the respondents are unmarried. While considering the age, it is found that 36.8% belong to the age group of up to 30 years. Respondents in the age group of 31-40 years constitute 39.2%. 16.8% of respondents are in the age group of 41-50, 7.2% of respondents are in the age group of 50 and above. The analysis shows that 12% of women hold position at corporate level, and 64.8%womens are hold designation at middle level of the organization and remaining 23.2% are holds position at operational level of the organization. With regards to occupations, 82.4% of the investors are working in public sectors and 17.6% of the investors are working in private sectors. Among the respondents 2.4% are with an ordinary level qualification, 28.8% with advanced level qualification, 53.6% are graduates, whereas the majority of the investors are graduates. Post graduates constitute 12.8% and 2.4% belong to others. 108
Figure 1: Awareness about the investment avenues From the above figure 1, we can know that out of 125 respondents 87.2% had the knowledge on various investment avenues and the remaining 12.8% of them had no knowledge about various investment avenues. Above figure1 indicates that most of the respondents know about the various investment avenues of the investments. Most of the respondents are graduates, since their education knowledge may help to aware of the investment alternatives Table 2: Objective of the investment Serial No Objectives No. of respondents Percentage (%) 1 High return 4 3.2 2 Future security 41 32.8 3 Tax benefit 1 0.8 4 Children s education 31 24.8 5 Children s marriage 7 5.6 6 Personal safety 41 32.8 Total 125 100 Normally objectives of the investment vary from one person to another. Most of the investors invest their savings for the objective of future security and personal safety, followed by 24.8% respondents preferred Children s education and 5.6% respondents selected children s marriage as their investment objectives. High return and tax benefit has the lowest priority among the investment objectives. Hence future security and personal safety are the prime motive of investment among the Jaffna working women. 109
Table 3: Sources of Information about Various Investments Serial No Source No. of respondents Percentage (%) 1 Family members 36 28.8 2 Friends 24 19.2 3 TV/Newspaper 29 23.2 4 Financial Brokers 3 2.4 5 Internet 27 21.6 6 Books/Magazines 6 4.8 Total 125 100 A successful investor must keep the latest information herself/himself up to date of the latest information. All the required information especially the one relating to investments is not available at one place, so investors are able to get transparent information about their various sources. From the above table 3 it is ascertained that a maximum of 28.8% of working women get the information about the investment avenues through family members followed by 23.2% of investors get the information through television media/newspaper, 21.6% of investors receive the information through the internet, 19.2%, 4.8% and 2.4% of the investors obtain the information about the investment alternative through friends, books and magazines, financial brokers respectively. So the combined frequency distribution analysis revealed that a major percentage of the working women are getting the information through family members and television/newspaper. Table 4: Preference of alternative investment Serial No Investment alternative No. of respondents Percentage (%) 1 Bank Deposits 68 54.4 2 Post Office Deposit 4 3.2 3 Gold 17 13.6 4 Insurance 17 13.6 5 Real Estates 3 2.4 6 Stock Market 9 7.2 7 Others 7 5.6 Total 125 100 The above table 4 shows that out of 125 respondents 54.4% of the investors prefer to invest their money in bank deposits, 13.6% of the investors invest their money in gold and insurance respectively. 7.2% of investors invest their Money in stock market, 3.2 % of the investors invest their money in post office deposit, 2.4 % of the respondents invest their money in real estate and the remaining 5.6% of the investors invest their money in others. Most of the investors invest their money in gold and bank deposits, gold and insurance, because they want only safety to their investment amount. 110
Table 5: Hypotheses testing Demographic Do you aware about investment avenues Variable Particulars Yes No Total Up to 30 years 40 6 46 31-40 43 6 49 Age 41-50 18 3 21 Above 50 years 8 1 9 Total 109 16 125 Asymptotic Sig 0.994 Educational Qualification Occupation O/L 3 0 3 A/L 32 4 36 Graduate 58 9 67 Post Graduate 14 2 16 Others 2 1 3 Total 109 16 125 Public sector 88 15 103 Private sector 21 1 22 Total 109 16 125 0.792 0.202 As a resultant of chi-square asymptotic significance was 0.994 which is more than 0.05, hence it clearly states that there is a no significant relationship between age and investment awareness of working women in Jaffna. So (H1) is not accepted. Surprisingly our findings inconsistent with previous studies, for example Shanthi and Murugeasan (2016) Likewise for education, there is no significant relationship with investment awareness of working women in Jaffna. Asymptotic significance was 0.792 which is more than 0.05; hence it clearly states that there is a no significant relationship between educational level and investment awareness of working women in Jaffna. So a hypothesis (H2) is not accepted. Our results also consistent with the findings prior researches. (Shanthi and Murugeasan 2016; Kanagaraj et al.2014 N.S.Shukla 2016); they concluded that there is no relationship between education qualifications with investment awareness. Finally for occupation, we also found there is no significant association between occupation and investment awareness of female working investors in Jaffna. Asymptotic significance was 0.202 which is more than 0.05; hence it clearly states that there is a no significant relationship is exists between occupational level and investment awareness. So a hypothesis (H3) is not accepted. Our findings consistent with the findings of Kanagaraj et al. (2014), they also signifies there is no significant relationship between occupation and awareness of Investment Avenue 111
Figure 1: Dependence on their husband to make investment decision 60% (75) of our respondents are married. Among that 72% working women rely on their husbands while taking investment decisions remaining and 28% of working women are taking investment decision by their own. These findings indicate women highly depend on their husbands for their investment decisions. Even though making money independently, working women in Jaffna are still dependent on their life partners. The reason for not making investments on their own might be male dominance in some cases. 8. Conclusion Through the study it is evident that most of the working women are aware of various investments avenues. In addition to that understanding the demographics with the help of the Chi-Square test, it was found that there is no relationship exists between education with investment awareness while there is also no significant relationship between age and investment awareness. As far as the Sri Lanka scenario is concerned, working women here have started doing investments gradually. The percentage of married working women who take their own financial decisions for making investments is low. Many a times, they rely on their husbands to make investment decisions. Because Jaffna is a male dominant society and their culture also respect the males. The study discloses that working women have more prefer to invest in bank deposits. Majority of the working women under the study supports this. It was also revealed that gold was the second preference of working women. It is not surprising that naturally women prefer to invest their money in bank deposits and gold rather than other investment alternatives. It is also found while investing money; working women emphasize more on safety and liquidity rather than higher return. Findings also suggest that Jaffna working not willing to take risk to earn high return from their investment. In addition normally in these region females always think about their future, personal safety and children s education, it s not surprising that almost 91% of respondents are with this objective. This study confirms the earlier findings with regard to the relationship between age, occupation, educational qualifications and awareness level of working women investors. Women are less likely to take investment risks for whatever the reason. The present study has important implications for investment managers as it has come out with certain interesting facts of women investors especially working people. Female investor still prefers to invest in financial products which give risk free returns. 112
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