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The profiling of young adult financial behavior can help financial service providers and financial advisors to target suitable marketing resources to specific customer segments. The purpose of this paper is to validate the scale for financial management behavior of young adults in an emerging market, segment these individuals and investigate the impact of demographic variables on key dimensions.

A structured questionnaire is used to validate a financial management behavior scale using data collected from 270 young adults in India. Based on dimensions obtained through factor analysis, cluster analysis is performed to identify young adult segments. Statistical techniques, such as the t-test and one-way analysis of variance, are used to examine the impact of demographic variables on financial management behavioral dimensions.

The factor analysis confirms three key financial management dimensions: cash management, credit management and savings management. Using cluster analysis, the young adults are segmented into three subgroups: responsible customers, credit-oriented customers and vulnerable customers. Young adults in these groups follow hierarchical patterns in terms of financial management behavior.

Since few studies are available from the standpoint of young adults in emerging markets, this study adds value to the literature by investigating the financial management behavior of young adults in India. Notably, it can serve as a reference for comparing similarities and differences on the basis of financial management behavior with other countries and customer segments.