The influence of lifestyle, financial literacy and religiosity on the level of indebtedness among civil servants in Putrajaya

• المؤلف الرئيسي: Mohamed Farhan, Mohamed Ainuddin
• التنسيق: أطروحة
• اللغة: الإنجليزية
• منشور في: 2021
• الموضوعات: BP174 The practice of Islam; HJ Public Finance
• الوصول للمادة أونلاين: https://etd.uum.edu.my/9671/1/s822908_01.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9671/

Debt has become an important instrument to leave a decent life in this current era because of limited resources of an individuals or households. Certain study has found that lifestyle is one of the factors that influence the level of debt among household and individuals. While, lack financial literacy among individuals could also be factor that leads to high level of indebtedness where most studies have found that high level of financial literacy correlate with lower level of debt. Looking from the view of religion, Islam does not prohibit Muslim from venturing into debt. Nonetheless, Islam does not allow the follower to indulge in over indebtedness. One segment of the society that interest many researchers is the civil servants. Civil servants are the back bone of Malaysia Government and they represent 10.5 percent of the Malaysia’s total work force. In terms of indebtedness, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) reported that the expansion civil servant’s debt is more than national average while their debt payment commitment consumes half of their monthly income. Therefore, this paper aims to examine factors of lifestyle, financial literacy and religiosity on the level of indebtedness among civil servants. Data was collected through questionnaire distributed to civil servants of various scheme and position level in ministries operated in Putrajaya. SPSS Version 23 was used to analyze the data by employing correlation and regression analysis to find the relationship and influence between the independent variable and the dependent variables. the findings of this study show that there are no significant relation and influence of the factors of lifestyle, financial literacy and religiosity on the level of indebtedness. This finding rejects the generalize perception that civil servants are highly dependent on debt to maintain certain level of lifestyle and their lack of financial literacy. There is other factor not discovered in this study might influence the level of debt among civil servants in Putrajaya. Thus, other factors should be explored so that targeted policy response can be drafted to tackle the issue of indebtedness among civil servants.