Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an economic impact on a global scale never experienced before. Almost two years into the pandemic, all households would have been aware of financial hardship as they would have known someone who was impacted, if not impacted themselves. Lessons learned from previous crises are that households' financial behaviour generally change during such times. As a result, consumers would have become more mindful of their purchase behaviour based on an increased awareness of unstable market conditions.
The purpose of this study was to determine and describe how the financial management of households, across different income groups, was affected and subsequently adapted during the pandemic in South Africa, guided by a Mental Accounting approach, and explicated in terms of Prospect Theory. This research further aimed to explore the influence of mindful consumption on the relationship between households’ income disruption and their financial management behaviour and to indicate how recent events have affected their financial planning for the future.
This was a quantitative study that adopted a positivist philosophy, executed as a cross-sectional endeavour. The researcher conducted an online survey using a questionnaire comprising a combination of self-generated questions, as well as adaptations of existing scales. A combination of convenience and snowball sampling techniques produced a sample size of 264 households from various income groups within South Africa.
The study showed that finances of different household income groups were impacted differently and that the upper-income households managed their finances better than the middle-income group. Indications are that households’ savings, insurance maintenance, and credit management worsen as income disruption increases. Repetitive temperance, which is one of the dimensions of mindful consumption, was established as a significant moderator of the relationship between household income disruption and financial management behaviour. A conceptual model was developed for businesses in the financial sector to better understand households’ financial choices, which could guide the choice of product and service offerings to households from different income groups during financial crises in the future.
