Confucian Culture And Family Risk Financial Asset Allocation

Solving the problem of "limited participation" of families in the financial market is one of the important ways to promote the development of China’s financial market.Compared with the situation of household asset allocation in developed regions such as Europe,America and Japan,the irrational household asset allocation in China is mainly manifested in two aspects: First,the participation rate of household risk financial market is at a low level;Second,the structure of financial asset allocation is unreasonable,which is mainly reflected in the absolute dominance of deposits.As the oldest and most basic organizational structure in the society,the rational and effective allocation of family financial assets plays an important role in the development of social economy and the healthy operation of the national economy.Solving the problem of "limited participation" in the risk financial market existing in China’s families will be a key link in the process of improving and developing the financial market.Based on the data of the 2015 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS2015),this paper provides a new theoretical analysis of the problem of family "limited participation" in the financial market from the perspective of traditional culture,an informal system.The study found that the traditional Confucian culture would significantly inhibit families from participating in the risk financial market and holding risk financial assets.This conclusion is still valid after using the rice suitability index as a instrumental variable.At the same time,the mechanism identification found that: First,the patriarchal view would inhibit women’s labor participation,increase the family’s preventive saving motivation,and thus reduce the family’s allocation of risk assets;Second,the concept of filial piety will strengthen the family’s risk aversion function,making the family disperse risk through the family rather than the risk financial market,thus reducing the family’s participation in the financial market;Third,the family-based view will strengthen the economic activities within the family and form an informal financial market between relatives,which will have a crowding-out effect on the family to participate in the formal financial market.However,in small-scale families,the mechanism is not significant because the economic activities within the family are not active.This study reveals the deep cultural factors of our family’s "limited participation" in the financial market,and provides a new solution to the contradiction between the traditional culture and the process of promoting the modernization of the financial market.