DIGITAL FINANCIAL LITERACY: ASSESSING THE IMPACT ON WELL-BEING OF MARGINALIZED PEOPLE

Abstract

This paper explains that Digital Financial Literacy (DFL) has the potential to enhance the overall welfare of the marginalized individuals in Karnataka, India. As the digital economy in India is rapidly growing, the marginalized populations, such as the SC/ST communities, rural women, and casual workers, are often left in the status of being digitally excluded, even though they have bank accounts. In this study, the effects of digital knowledge, behavior, security awareness, and autonomy on the financial security level and psychological level of stress in these groups are measured. The primary data were collected by adopting a descriptive and analytical research design where a stratified random sampling of 384 respondents in various districts of Karnataka was used to collect the primary data. It employed a structured questionnaire that had Likert scale of 5 and employed Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis using SPSS. The findings show that 66.4% of the variance in the financial well-being can be explained by the DFL variables (R 2 =.664, p <.001). The budget control was found to be the most effective predictor of well-being, and security awareness was found to be a very important protection against fraud. On the other hand, there is a large autonomy gap, with reliance on middlemen in transactions being adversely correlated with financial control. The paper concludes that the availability of digital devices cannot be considered sufficient; well-being must be meaningful and not dependent on the availability of digital devices. It suggests that local, Kannada-oriented financial education and enhanced cybersecurity training is necessary to recommend marginalized groups to passive inclusion and active economic empowerment.