Financial Wellbeing and Financial Resilience: Insights from Personal Experiences and Gender Differences

Abstract

This study aims to examine the relationships between perceived financial health indicators, lived financial experiences, and actions taken to cope with economic crises, as well as exploring potential gender differences. A non-experimental, quantitative, cross-sectional design is applied to a sample of 499 working professionals who graduated from universities in Veracruz, Mexico, and were employed in the public or private sector. A 24-item Likert scale instrument assessed financial health perceptions, experiences, and crisis-related behaviors. In this study, reliability indices (Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega) exceeded the acceptability threshold of 0.70. Data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, and Bayesian estimation to examine gender effects. The results supported a four-factor structure explaining 64.86% of the variance. Financial wellbeing showed a moderate association with resilience (r = 0.32), a weaker relationship with financial experiences (r = 0.18), and a strong association between experiences and crisis-related actions (r = 0.47). No statistically significant gender differences were identified. These findings contribute to understanding how experiential and behavioral components interact to shape financial outcomes, and we propose a refined three-factor framework linking financial experiences and adaptive actions to overall financial wellbeing.