An application with structural equation model to measure the effect of turkish family structure on financial decision-making processes: Ankara province example

The field of behavioral finance, where many anomalies in the financial system are investigated, continues to develop with new topics and research every day. Based on human behavior, one of the areas of interest in the field of finance is family finance relations, which fall within the scope of sociology and deal with social content. Families, which are one of the cornerstones of social life, have significant funds in the financial system and although they use these funds, it is seen that they are not given enough attention by financial actors and are not subject to sufficient research. Based on the fact that the family institution, which is quite complex and related to many areas, is one of the most important environmental factors in the individual's life, it is clear that it is one of the effective factors in financial decisions as well as showing the way and direction to social relations. In the finance literature, where the factors affecting financial decisions are questioned every day, revealing the family-based reasons for financial decisions is a necessary issue both for the welfare of the individual and other actors in the financial system. The individual's financial decisions regarding investment, savings, cash and borrowing are expressed as financial behavior. It is necessary to determine the effects of family characteristics such as family structures and family values on the individual's financial behavior, to reveal these factors, to research and reach conclusions. Reviewing family-based factors affecting financial behaviors and adding new factors will contribute to the literature. Informing and raising awareness of financial actors regarding the issues presented within the scope of the research will contribute to the development of a healthy and predictable financial system and will guide and direct individual and corporate finance actors. This study aims to examine the effect of Turkish family structure on financial decisions, and examine the effects of family values on financial decisions along with family structures. In this context, the relationships between family structure and family values variables and the sub-dimensions of financial management behavior variables such as cash management, debt/credit management, savings/investment management were examined. In addition, the relationships between the individual's financial knowledge level and financial attitude variables and family structure and family values variables were examined. In order to observe the relationships between demographic variables and determine whether there were significant differences between the variables, parametric tests such as T-test and Anova were used to interpret the results. In the study, in accordance with the purpose of the thesis, Structural Equation Model (SEM), which performs multi-directional causality relationship analysis and path analysis between variables, was used to test the effect of Turkish family structure on financial decisions. In the analysis results related to the sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables used in the study, it was determined that there was a significant relationship between the family income level and financial attitude, between the number of children in the family and attitude, between the duration of marriage and financial attitude, between the parental status in the family and financial attitude, between the family's nuclear family with or without children and extended family structure and financial attitude, and between the family structures according to the place of residence and financial attitude. According to the results of the Structural Equation Model analysis, it was determined that the Turkish family structure has an effect on financial management behavior. In addition, it was observed that the sub-dimensions of the Turkish family structure, namely social family perception, family structure perception and power balance in the family, also have an effect on financial management behavior. It was observed that family values did not have a significant effect on financial management behavior. Within the scope of the study, it was determined that financial knowledge has a mediating role in the effect of the Turkish family structure on financial management behavior. According to these results, while family structures are one of the important factors affecting the financial management behavior of the individual, the level of financial knowledge appears to be a factor that mediates this effect in the effect of the Turkish family structure on financial management behavior.