Sharda University and BITS Pilani

The current study proposes to examine the investment profile of low-income households In India. The work would focus on identifying the profiles of households that make investments in assets financial assets like bank accounts, insurance, retirement product, and physical assets like gold and real estate. The study will incorporate both household-level factors such as the nature of employment (formal or informal), educational attainment, household income, social caste, family size and composition, dependency-ratio, social network, along with trust in financial institutions. The study will also explore whether household investment goals are related to household structure. For instance, does a household with a girl child invest more in gold, or whether households having elderly invests in retirement planning.

The study employs large-scale nationally representative data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) collected in 2011-12, which has information on household investment, debt, borrowing and socioeconomic factors of around 41500 households in 1503 villages and 971 urban neighborhoods across India. The study aims to provide policy insights into the financial preferences of households and the demand for various investment products.