IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v12y2025i1d10.1057_s41599-025-04692-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Housing Provident Fund, risk attitude, and household financial investment engagement: an asset-building perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Yingying Zhang

    (School of Social Work)

  • Shu Fang

    (Central University of Finance and Economics)

Abstract

The income gap stemming from disparities in asset ownership is a significant contributor to economic inequality and social polarization. Asset income is derived from the growth and realization of these assets, with financial investment serving as the key mechanism for transforming household assets into asset-generated income. Institutionalized wealth accumulation mechanisms play a vital role in facilitating household asset growth through the influence of risk preferences.The Housing Provident Fund (HPF), an integral component of China’s social welfare and security system, is one such policy aimed at promoting asset building. This study employs linear regression and ordered logit regression, using cross-sectional data from the 2019 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), to investigate the relationship between HPF possession, risk attitude, and financial investment engagement. To ensure robustness, a bootstrap mediation analysis is conducted to evaluate the mediating role of household heads’ risk attitudes in this relationship. The results indicate that HPF possession is positively associated with financial investment engagement (β = 0.091, p

Suggested Citation

  • Yingying Zhang & Shu Fang, 2025. "Housing Provident Fund, risk attitude, and household financial investment engagement: an asset-building perspective," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-04692-4
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-04692-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-04692-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-025-04692-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dana Goldman & Nicole Maestas, 2013. "Medical Expenditure Risk And Household Portfolio Choice," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 527-550, June.
    2. Davidson, Russell & Flachaire, Emmanuel, 2008. "The wild bootstrap, tamed at last," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 162-169, September.
    3. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "Trusting the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2557-2600, December.
    4. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    5. 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.
    6. Luigi Guiso & Monica Paiella, 2008. "Risk Aversion, Wealth, and Background Risk," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1109-1150, December.
    7. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    8. Barry Z. Cynamon & Steven M. Fazzari, 2016. "Inequality, the Great Recession and slow recovery," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(2), pages 373-399.
    9. JAMES G. MacKINNON, 2006. "Bootstrap Methods in Econometrics," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(s1), pages 2-18, September.
    10. Atella, Vincenzo & Brunetti, Marianna & Maestas, Nicole, 2012. "Household portfolio choices, health status and health care systems: A cross-country analysis based on SHARE," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1320-1335.
    11. Justine S. Hastings & Brigitte C. Madrian & William L. Skimmyhorn, 2013. "Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and Economic Outcomes," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 347-373, May.
    12. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2020. "Investment in Financial Information and Portfolio Performance," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(348), pages 1133-1170, October.
    13. Kerkhofs, Marcel & Lindeboom, Maarten & Theeuwes, Jules, 1999. "Retirement, financial incentives and health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 203-227, June.
    14. Fräßdorf, Anna & Grabka, Markus M. & Schwarze, Johannes, 2011. "The Impact of Household Capital Income on Income Inequality - A Factor Decomposition Analysis for the UK, Germany and the USA," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 35-56.
    15. Gormley, Todd & Liu, Hong & Zhou, Guofu, 2010. "Limited participation and consumption-saving puzzles: A simple explanation and the role of insurance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 331-344, May.
    16. John Beshears & James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2009. "The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 167-195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Editor's Choice Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 519-578.
    18. Joao F. Cocco, 2005. "Consumption and Portfolio Choice over the Life Cycle," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 491-533.
    19. Campbell, John Y. & Viceira, Luis M., 2002. "Strategic Asset Allocation: Portfolio Choice for Long-Term Investors," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296942, Decembrie.
    20. DiPasquale, Denise & Glaeser, Edward L., 1999. "Incentives and Social Capital: Are Homeowners Better Citizens?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 354-384, March.
    21. Beverly, Sondra G. & Sherraden, Michael, 1999. "Institutional determinants of saving: implications for low-income households and public policy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 457-473.
    22. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2011. "Individuals' uncertainty about future social security benefits and portfolio choice," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 498-519, April.
    23. Carroll, Chris & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Why have private savings rates in the United States and Canada diverged?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 249-279, September.
    24. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1987. "Justifying Public Provision of Social Security," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 674-696.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    2. Yinan Yang & Qian Wang, 2018. "Insurance Inclusion, Time Preference And Stock Investment Of The Chinese Households," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(01), pages 27-44, March.
    3. Niu, Geng & Wang, Qi & Li, Han & Zhou, Yang, 2020. "Number of brothers, risk sharing, and stock market participation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Buss, Adrian & Vilkov, Grigory & Uppal, Raman, 2020. "Investor Sophistication and Portfolio Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 15116, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. 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.
    6. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    7. Dal Borgo, Mariela, 2021. "Do bankruptcy protection levels affect households' demand for stocks?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 564, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    8. Huang, Bin & Wang, Bin & Chen, Zixuan, 2024. "Individual investment adaptations to COVID-19 lockdowns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    9. Rui Li & Jing Wu & Shuo Zhang & Siqing Zhang & Yuanyang Wu, 2023. "Social Endowment Insurance and Inequality of the Household Portfolio Choice: The Moderating Effect of Financial Literacy," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, February.
    10. Cupák, Andrej & Fessler, Pirmin & Hsu, Joanne W. & Paradowski, Piotr R., 2022. "Investor confidence and high financial literacy jointly shape investments in risky assets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    11. Padmaja Ayyagari & Daifeng He, 2017. "The Role of Medical Expenditure Risk in Portfolio Allocation Decisions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1447-1458, November.
    12. Lu, Xiaomeng & Guo, Jiaojiao & Gan, Li, 2020. "International comparison of household asset allocation: Micro-evidence from cross-country comparisons," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    13. Binswanger, Johannes, 2012. "Life cycle saving: Insights from the perspective of bounded rationality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 605-623.
    14. Stephen G Dimmock & Roy Kouwenberg & Olivia S Mitchell & Kim Peijnenburg, 2021. "Household Portfolio Underdiversification and Probability Weighting: Evidence from the Field," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(9), pages 4524-4563.
    15. Ke, Da, 2024. "Left behind: Partisan identity, stock market participation, and wealth inequality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    16. Andreas Fagereng & Charles Gottlieb & Luigi Guiso, 2017. "Asset Market Participation and Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 705-750, April.
    17. Amitabh Chandra & Courtney Coile & Corina Mommaerts, 2023. "What Can Economics Say about Alzheimer's Disease?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 428-470, June.
    18. Mariassunta Giannetti & Tracy Yue Wang, 2016. "Corporate Scandals and Household Stock Market Participation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2591-2636, December.
    19. Bart Dees & Theo Nijman & Arthur Soest, 2023. "Stated Product Choices of Heterogeneous Agents are Largely Consistent with Standard Models," De Economist, Springer, vol. 171(3), pages 267-302, September.
    20. Andrej Cupak & Pirmin Fessler & Joanne W. Hsu & Piotr R. Paradowski, 2020. "Confidence, financial literacy and investment in risky assets: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Working and Discussion Papers WP 4/2020, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.

    More about this item

    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:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-04692-4. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    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.