UK desis have same savings habit as India, says LSE study

LONDON: UK-based children and grandchildren of migrants born in India and elsewhere are influenced by the same savings habits as that of their country of origin, a new study at the London School of Economics says.

Published in the PLOS One journal, the study titled The Cultural Origin Of Saving Behaviour establishes a link between culture and saving behaviour, using long-term data to explore the saving habits of migrants, their children and their grandchildren.

“(The) likelihood that Indian origin people report to have saved at the end of the month is roughly 30% for all generations, which closely matches with their home country savings,” study co-author Berkay Ozcan writes.

The focus on the UK enabled the researchers to observe people from different countries of origin in the same environment and isolate culture as the factor determining people’s saving habits.

The researchers found that despite living under different economic and institutional conditions to their country of birth, the money-saving behaviour of migrants and their children and grandchildren still tended to reflect that of their birth country.

The researchers suggest this is because different cultures place different levels of importance on saving which leads to ingrained saving behaviours and norms.

These norms are then passed down the generations through what the researchers call “intergenerational cultural transmission”, where parents pass their values onto their children.

THE STUDY IN PLOS ONE JOURNAL FOUND THAT CULTURE IMPACTS ON SAVING BEHAVIOUR FOR UP TO THREE GENERATIONS.