The Mechanism of Social Security on Household Saving Behavior from the Perspective of Multidimensional Preferences
Keywords:
Multidimensional Preferences; Social Security Level; Household Saving Behavior; Precautionary Saving Motivation; Mediating EffectAbstract
Against the macro background of expanding domestic demand and unclogging the domestic circulation in China, the pattern of high savings and low consumption among urban and rural residents has not been fundamentally changed. Relevant academic discussions still lack sufficient micro-level paths and quantitative evidence on how social security affects household saving behavior in regions with concentrated private sectors. This paper takes Quanzhou, a city with a highly developed private economy, as the research setting to systematically examine the effect of social security on local residents’ household saving behavior and test the mediating role of precautionary saving motivation therein. Based on 537 micro-survey questionnaire data, this study employs SPSS 26.0 to conduct reliability and validity tests, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, multiple regression, and the Bootstrap mediating effect test. The empirical results show that social security has a significant negative effect on residents’ saving behavior in Quanzhou (β=-0.266, p<0.01) and significantly inhibits precautionary saving motivation; precautionary saving motivation has a significant positive driving effect on saving behavior and plays a partial mediating role between social security and saving behavior. This paper enriches the micro-empirical findings on household saving behavior in regions with a vibrant private economy, advances the localized application of precautionary saving theory, and can provide decision-making references for Quanzhou and similar regions to improve the social security system and guide residents to save and consume rationally.
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