IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ozl/journl/v25y2022i2p127-147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial fragility, financial literacy and the early withdrawal of retirement savings during COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Alison Preston

    (University of Western Australia)

Abstract

Using micro-data from the 2020 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey for a large nationally representative sample of adults aged 18-64, this paper examines the factors associated with the early withdrawal of retirement savings as a result of the coronavirus. Logistic regressions show that early withdrawal behaviour was in response to financial needs with the likelihood of making a withdrawal higher amongst the young, those classified as financially fragile, precariously employed, the unemployed, lone parents with dependent children, persons experiencing poor health and those with poor financial literacy. The results raise questions about the design of early release schemes and the objectives of the Australian retirement income system, including equity outcomes in retirement. Policy suggestions are discussed, including a call for suitable data for monitoring purposes. The latter is important if the long-term equity effects of COVID-19 related to early withdrawals are to be properly understood.

Suggested Citation

  • Alison Preston, 2022. "Financial fragility, financial literacy and the early withdrawal of retirement savings during COVID-19," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 25(2), pages 127-147.
    • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:25:y:2022:i:2:p:127-147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE252preston.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    2. Robert Argento & Victoria L. Bryant & John Sabelhaus, 2015. "Early Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts During The Great Recession," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Sumit Agarwal & Jessica Pan & Wenlan Qian, 2020. "Age of Decision: Pension Savings Withdrawal and Consumption and Debt Response," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 43-69, January.
    4. Preston, Alison & Wright, Robert E., 2022. "Gender, Financial Literacy and Pension Savings," IZA Discussion Papers 15250, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Elisa Birch & Alison Preston, 2021. "Women, COVID-19 and Superannuation," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 24(2), pages 175-198.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Moreno-García & Sergio Hernández-Mejía & Héctor Francisco Salazar Núñez, 2024. "Financial Literacy and Financial Fragility in Mexico," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, Enero - M.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koh, Benedict S.K. & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Fong, Joelle H., 2021. "Trust and retirement preparedness: Evidence from Singapore," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    2. Wang-Ly, Nathan & Newell, Ben R., 2022. "Allowing early access to retirement savings: Lessons from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 716-733.
    3. Goda, Gopi Shah & Jones, Damon & Ramnath, Shanthi, 2022. "Temporary and permanent effects of withdrawal penalties on retirement savings accounts✩," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    4. Seonghoon Kim & Kanghyock Koh, 2020. "Does Early Access To Pension Wealth Improve Health?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1783-1794, October.
    5. Leganza, Jonathan M., 2024. "The effect of required minimum distributions on intergenerational transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    6. Alison Preston, 2022. "Financial Fragility, Financial Literacy and the Early Withdrawal of Retirement Savings During COVID-19," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-12, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    7. Alison Preston & Robert E. Wright, 2023. "Gender, Financial Literacy and Pension Savings," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(324), pages 58-83, March.
    8. Bateman, Hazel & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Liu, Junhao & Newell, Ben R. & Thorp, Susan, 2023. "Determinants of early-access to retirement savings: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    9. Daniel Fernandes & John G. Lynch & Richard G. Netemeyer, 2014. "Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and Downstream Financial Behaviors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1861-1883, August.
    10. David Blake & John Pickles, 2021. "Mental Time Travel and Retirement Savings," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-13, December.
    11. Boggio, Cecilia & Coda Moscarola, Flavia & Gallice, Andrea, 2020. "What is good for the goose is good for the gander?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    12. Aileen Heinberg & Angela Hung & Arie Kapteyn & Annamaria Lusardi & Anya Savikhin Samek & Joanne Yoong, 2014. "Five steps to planning success: experimental evidence from US households," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 30(4), pages 697-724.
    13. Georgios Pakos & Panagiotis Mpogiatzidis, 2025. "Financial Literacy Among Healthcare Providers: A Systematic Review," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-25, January.
    14. Insoo Cho & Peter F. Orazem, 2021. "How endogenous risk preferences and sample selection affect analysis of firm survival," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1309-1332, April.
    15. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    16. Goda, Gopi Shah & Levy, Matthew R. & Manchester, Colleen Flaherty & Sojourner, Aaron & Tasoff, Joshua, 2020. "Who is a passive saver under opt-in and auto-enrollment?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 301-321.
    17. Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "How Do Expectations about the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 731-748, October.
    18. Bottazzi, Laura & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2021. "Stereotypes in financial literacy: Evidence from PISA," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Goldfayn-Frank, Olga & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "How do consumers adapt to a new environment in their economic forecasting? Evidence from the German reunification," IMFS Working Paper Series 129, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    20. Kovács Erzsébet & Vaskövi Ágnes, 2020. "Pension Pessimism in the Young Generation: Basics or Instincts to Blame?," Business Systems Research, Sciendo, vol. 11(2), pages 117-131, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    pension savings; superannuation; financial literacy; financial fragility; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • G53 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Financial Literacy
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:25:y:2022:i:2:p:127-147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sandie Rawnsley (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/becurau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.