| The purpose of the research was to test a model of financial well-being as a function of personal characteristics, objective attributes, perceived attributes, and evaluated attributes of the financial domain. The outcome variable, financial well-being, was measured using an adaptation of Cantril's (1965) self-anchoring scale.;Data were obtained from a convenience sample of Forsyth and Guilford County employees in North Carolina. The two problems of the study were: (1) Which of the following groups of attributes significantly explains variance in perceived financial well-being; personal characteristics, objective attributes, perceived attributes, or evaluated attributes? (2) Which individual attributes significantly explains variance in perceived financial well-being?;A mail survey was conducted from June, 1995, through August, 1995, with a randomly selected sample of government workers (N = 1200). A total of 456 questionnaires were returned providing a useable response of 324 or 27.3%.;In the empirical test of the model, structural equation modeling (SEM), using SAS;Entering all 18 variables into the model produced an R;The individual variables which contributed the most to the latent variable, perceived attributes, were perceived financial management ability (R;Higher income, greater financial management ability, and more mature financial life-cycle stage were positively associated with perceived attributes. Higher income and greater financial management ability were also associated with higher evaluated attributes while home ownership was associated with lower evaluated attributes. |
