Social Well-Being and Financial Literacy of Urban Residents (according to the results of the study — “Volgograd Omnibus”)

The article provides a brief overview of approaches to the issue of social well-being and shows the 2011–2016 trend data of social well-being of Volgograd Oblast’s urban population. The paper aims to study the aspects of interplay between social well-being and financial literacy of urban residents. To accomplish the identified goal the authors had to tackle the tasks as follows: clarification of the notions “social well-being” and “financial literacy”; analysis and selection of methods for the measurement of both social well-being and financial literacy; implementation of the sociological survey — “Volgograd Omnibus”; evaluation of social well-being among the diverse social groups that differ in the level of financial literacy. The research study included both theoretical methods (investigation, generalization, analysis, synthesis) and empirical ones (interrogation, collation). When it came to the analysis of the notions “social well-being” and “financial literacy”, emphasis was laid on certain subjective indicators that are of great value for the identification of the actual state of modern society. The sociological monitoring survey “Volgograd Omnibus” was conducted for the confirmation of the proposed hypothesis on the interplay between social well-being and financial literacy. The study subjects were residents of Volgograd and other towns of the region aged 16 and older. The data analysis testifies that negative assessments of social well-being have prevailed among the Volgograd Oblast’s population between 2011 and 2016. The 2014–2016 economic crisis has also aggravated the situation. Residents of Volgograd consider their financial literacy poor enough: half of the respondents designated their skills and knowledge as ‘satisfactory’ while a fifth part declared they had no financial literacy at all. To test the hypothesis a typology of social groups by levels of financial literacy self assessment was introduced. The analysis of social well-being indicators of the outlined groups has revealed a number of differences. Increase in the level of financial literacy is accompanied by 1) downward change in the index of interregional comparisons, 2) growth in the level of personal optimism (‘unadapted’ individuals give primarily negative assessments while ‘perfectly adapted’ ones, as a rule, have positive expectations), 3) growth in the index of purchasing power. The discovered differences in the indicators of social well-being among the social groups that give varying assessments of their financial literacy prompt the suggestion that there is actually some interplay between the considered phenomena. Further studies of the interplay between social well-being and financial literacy shall contribute to the efficiency improvement of financial literacy enhancement oriented arrangements.

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