Abstract:

Money management is necessary as it has become essential that individuals get the financial skills to be able to survive in the future. Specifically, this study sought to investigate the factors influencing money management behavior among students of Malaysian private universities. Four factors are incorporated in the study namely financial literacy, parent socialization, peer influence, and self-control. A quantitative technique was employed through the use of 351 surveys distributed using a random sampling method to students of private universities in Selangor, Malaysia. The data is analyzed using regression analysis through IBM SPSS software version 24. The result shows that financial literacy has a significant positive influence on money management behavior. Students with the ability to understand the importance of saving money for emergencies tend to have more saving habits. Additionally, the result indicates that self-control has an impact on money management behavior. The reason is, that enhancing self-control helps to reduce overspending on unnecessary items. However, parent socialization and peer influence do not influence money management behavior. The findings of the study imply that to enhance the students’ money management behavior, more efforts should be implemented especially by the government, educators, parents, and students themselves.