Does Occupation and Financial Resilience Matter? Comparing Capability, Money Management, and Well-Being Among Indian Working Professionals

Abstract

The study on Financial Well-being has shifted from being a minor concern in household economics to a key idea in Behavioural Finance, Public Policy, and Consumer Psychology. Financial Wellbeing is no longer seen just as income or wealth, it now acknowledges that financial skills, money-management habits, and financial resilience all play a role in how people experience their finances. There is a need to explore whether these factors actually differ across various occupations and financial resilience levels. This study looks at these issues using survey data from 669 working professionals in India, covering four job categories (private sector, IT Professional, government employee, and self-employed) and four financial resilience categories (financial stress, high vulnerability, low vulnerability, and financial security) based on a validated framework. One-way ANOVA, with Welch’s adjustment and Games-Howell post-hoc comparisons for unequal variances was used to examine differences in financial capability, money management, materialism, and financial well-being across these groups. The results show a strong and consistent trend across resilience categories. Financial well-being increases significantly from financial stress to financial security . However, there are not many differences across job groups, except for materialism, which was notably higher among self-employed professionals. IT professionals, despite reflecting the lowest averages of the four groups on all measures , did not show significant differences compared to other job groups on any of the measured factors. The study discusses its implications for financial resilience theory, job-specific financial-wellness programs, and future qualitative research.