Investigating the Impact of Social Assistance and Borrowing Behavior on Reducing Economic Worry

When individuals have insufficient financial resources to meet their basic needs, they are more likely to experience economic worries. For those experiencing hardship, social assistance is one of the most important public tools for supporting people’s financial standing to better sustain their lives; social assistance is also expected to reduce economic worries for the same reason. When individuals experiencing economic worries cannot receive adequate social assistance, this may result in more borrowing behavior. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this study is to examine the possible effects of social assistance on economic worries so that we create an economic worries index using principal component analysis. To identify these potential effects, data from the 2016 KONDA Research and Consultancy survey were analyzed with the help of a generalized ordered logit model. Empirical findings show that an increase in education level results in a decreasing effect on economic worries. In addition, the study shows that borrowing increases economic worries; when the relationship between economic worries and social assistance is more closely examined, the findings indicate that social assistance is insufficient for reducing economic worries.