Factors Impacting the Financial Wellbeing of People in Regional Areas: The Case of the North Burnett Region

<p dir="ltr">Financial wellbeing refers to people’s perceptions of current financial stability in their usual circumstances, their readiness to handle emergencies, and their confidence to cope financially in the future. However, financial wellbeing studies in Australia have commonly focused on urban population centres rather than regional areas. Given the far-reaching impact of financial wellbeing on peoples’ financial health, a clearer understanding of financial wellbeing and the influencing factors is pivotal in enhancing people’s financial wellbeing level in the regional areas as well as in the urban ones. Given this need, the current research aimed to examine the factors associated with an individual’s’ financial wellbeing in the North Burnett Region in Queensland. This study used a combination of quantitative analysis of a survey questionnaire and a case study. The survey questionnaire, consisting of three parts, was developed to measure the following: (i) the financial wellbeing of households; (ii) the household’s demographic characteristics in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, marital status, education, employment status, occupation, household income, dwelling status, property ownership, first language, and resident location; and (iii) the household’s accessibility to natural disaster support and COVID-19 support, and, further, to what extent they are comfortable in asking for help and how satisfied they were with the financial support. The final sample collected 108 responses between January and October 2022. OLS regression analysis was employed to examine the relationship between financial wellbeing, demographic factors, and the access to financial support programs. The Robustness Analysis was also performed after the data management and taking account the dummy variable approach. </p><p dir="ltr">The results showed seven factors influencing financial wellbeing of people living in the North Burnett Region: ethnicity, age, employment status, income, property ownership, comfortable asking for help, and satisfaction with financial support programs. Specifically, Indigenous people iv tended to have lower financial wellbeing than other ethnicities, older people were more likely to have higher financial wellbeing than younger people, working people had higher financial wellbeing than those who were unemployed, less household income also meant less financial wellbeing, property owners had higher financial wellbeing than those who did not own property, people who were comfortable in asking for support tended to have higher financial wellbeing than those who were uncomfortable asking for help, and individuals who were satisfied with financial support also had higher financial wellbeing. </p><p dir="ltr">In addition, the case study caried out of the North Burnett Region documented the existing financial support programs from the government and private sector in the region. It showed that both government and non-government organisations had provided access to financial support programs. Nonetheless, it was found that more local financial support was essential in enhancing financial wellbeing, and the distribution of financial support should be equitable and efficient to ensure each household got the support they needed. </p><p dir="ltr">The North Burnett Region is disadvantaged economically with lower-than-average personal annual income, family annual income, and the total region’s annual income, but it has a higher than-average homeless rate. This region has been also neglected in previous research on financial wellbeing. Thus, this current study intended to fill the gap through examining the factors associated with people’s financial wellbeing, including the sources of and issues around existing support programs in the North Burnett Region. </p><p dir="ltr">The research outcomes are expected to contribute to the state’s policies on the region’s development and social welfare initiatives. The federal and state governments may need to consider the factors of age, ethnicity, household income and employment status when designing policies to enhance financial wellbeing. The economic policies could focus on housing v affordability in the North Burnett Region, more monetary stimulus for regional development, and growing the region through increased business and investment opportunities. Finally, the satisfaction level with financial support is clearly an indicator that people in the North Burnett Region value financial support and assistance. A recommendation to both government and nongovernment organisations is to provide greater access to financial services for people living in regional areas such as the North Burnett. </p><p dir="ltr">As for the future research direction, open-ended questionnaires could be utilised to learn more about the determinants of financial wellbeing in the North Burnett Region; asking more in-depth questions will provide further insight into why people are satisfied or unsatisfied about the financial support received during the natural disasters and COVID-19. Lastly, the scope of the current study could be expanded to include more factors, such as the impact of life change, the relationship with family and community, and health conditions.</p>