
How India Earns, Spends and Saves Results from The Max New York Life-NCAER India Financial Protection Survey
Rajesh Shukla
Published Report | The Max New York Life Insurance Limited
The Indian economy is growing from strength to strength. The fast-paced economic growth is bringing about a change in India’s socio-economic fabric. It is creating more jobs, fuelling aspirations and leading consumers to spend more. It is not uncommon to see Indian households spend beyond their current earning capacities, a phenomenon that was almost non-existent in the early 1990s.Easy availability of loans, increasing popularity of credit cards and rising consumerism are putting an increasing number of Indian households under the risk of being financially vulnerable in the future.
The lack of a comprehensive government-aided social security system only worsens their case. As a result of rapid urbanisation, rising consumerism and changing lifestyles, the social fabric of the country has also begun to change. The joint family system is fast giving way to nuclear families. Joint families, by their very nature, worked around the financial well-being and security of each of its members. As this system crumbles, there is a greater need to work towards making Indian households more financially secure. All these socio-economic indicators were instrumental in leading Max New York Life to undertake this study, along with the NCAER. These indicators brought us to the critical question: ‘How financially protected are we?’ As you would be aware, this is the first survey of its kind in the country.
The findings of this report reinforce the fact that a majority of Indian households are financially at risk. The call to action for the insurance sector is to address this issue and help create a financially secure nation.
Study Team: Rajesh Shukla, Nitasha Monga, Sandipan Ray, Charu Jain, Anuj Das, M. K Arora, Asha Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi, Preeti Kakar, Debraj Sinha and Subrata Bandopadhyay.
Consultants:
Dr N S Sastry, Former DG (NSSO and CSO) and Senior Advisor, NCAER, New Delhi.
Dr Anil Rai, Senior Scientist, IASRI, New Delhi.
Dr Amaresh Dubey, Senior Advisor, NCAER, New Delhi.
Ms Adite Chatterjee, Research & Communication Analyst, New Delhi.
Members of Advisory Committee
Mr Suman Bery, Director General, NCAER, New Delhi – Chairman.
Mr S L Rao, Chairman, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.
Dr D V S Sastry, Director General, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, Hyderabad.
Dr Subhasis Gangopadhyay, Director, Indian Development Foundation, Gurgaon.