Reckless financial behaviors: An exploratory life course study of French and American consumers

Achieving financial solvency has been viewed as a desirable life goal, because financial satisfaction promotes well-being. The vast majority of personal finance studies have attempted to understand the factors that promote saving and investment habits and skills, but studies that examine the factors that inhibit people’s abilities to achieve financial solvency are sparse. This paper reports the results of a study designed to understand the development of financial behaviors that are labelled as “reckless” because they undermine the person’s ability to achieve financial solvency. Because substantial evidence shows that personal finance habits begin to develop in early life and change throughout life, the present study uses the life course approach to examine the effects of select factors suggested by life course theory on the person’s propensity to exhibit financial behaviors that sabotage financial solvency at three stages in life. The influence of these factors is examined across three cohorts of US and French consumers using data collected from two online surveys. The findings of this exploratory study suggest the value of studying financial habits that impede financial solvency in time and context.