Degree
Master of Business Administration
Faculty / School
School of Business Studies (SBS)
Advisor
Dr. Mohsin Zahid Khawaja, Assistant Professor, Department of Finance
Project Type
MBA Research Project
Keywords
https://ir.iba.edu.pk/do/search/?q=Risk%20Attitudes&start=0&context=8598587&facet=">Risk Attitudes, Gender, Age, Education, Impact
Abstract / Summary
The main goal of this study is to examine risk attitude of people in Pakistan. We did a detailed literature review and found out that numerous research have been conducted to assess risk attitude of individuals and what factors impact it. Most research finds out that gender is one of the main differentiating factors. Most survey and experiments done in past produced the results that female shows more risk aversive behavior in financial decision making and man are more risk takers in situations like gambling, lotteries, investment, and insurance. They tend to choose competitive pay schemes whereas women prefer fixed pay and avoid ambiguity and uncertainty. Woman are found to be less confident in their risky financial decisions but more confident in risky parenting situations or food choices. We are doing this research to find out whether these hypotheses hold in Pakistani Context (Urban) in today’s time when there is so much awareness about gender equality, women have equal opportunities for education, jobs and they are even offered equal pay plus additional benefits like maternity leaves and are provided with day care facilities for their infants at workplace. Since there is no such research done in past in Pakistan to assess to general risk behaviors related to investments, we hope that our findings will be a meaningful addition in this regard. We approached people of different ages, gender and educational backgrounds with a survey comprising of 8 questions in different risk domains. The overall response of our survey showed that females are more risk averse than males. And the combined effect of gender, age and education is significant on risk-taking behavior. Then we conducted our experiment by keeping the age and education level similar and through that we found that gender showed no impact on risk-taking in a controlled environment. Hence men and women, when provided with equal level of knowledge and informational frames and no outside influence or social pressure, showed similar risk attitudes. So, we conclude that the age and education level of the two genders can influence their levels of risk-taking in their decisions.
Recommended Citation
Haroon, A., Ali, A., & Usman, M. (2023). Impact of age, education, and gender on risk attitudes (Unpublished graduate research project). Institute of Business Administration, Pakistan. Retrieved from https://ir.iba.edu.pk/research-projects-mba/294
