A Systematic Literature Review on Personal Financial Well-Being: The Link to Key Sustainable Development Goals 2030

Abstract

This study presents systematic literature review (SLR) of financial well-being which is crucial for attaining several key UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDG 1, 3, 10 and 16). After applying the criteria of selection, the study included 133 publications from 79 high-impact journals, using Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database. Unlike previous studies, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by conducting systematic review of financial well-being literature from a holistic perspective and presenting the most recent and up-to-date research findings in the area. VOSviewer, a software tool was used to create bibliometric networks. The results of this systematic review study suggested the following conclusions: (a) financial well-being is a dynamic and multidimensional construct; (b) studies studying antecedents of financial well-being are far more in number than consequences; (c) majority of the previous studies are based on quantitative research methods (112), that is, secondary data research (75); (d) financial well-being has been mostly quantified using subjective measures; (e) the previous studies seems to be dominated by developed countries like the USA, Canada, Germany, and, England posing several limitations in practice; (f) Financial well-being was mostly studied with ‘poverty’, ‘behavior’, ‘income’, ‘health’ and ‘growth’. Limitations and future research directions of the current study are discussed.