INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR AND AWARENESS AMONG TEACHERS OF PRIVATE COLLEGES

Abstract

In India, unlike certain western countries, social security is a big concern. Investors are invariably faced with a dilemma as to where to put their money to get maximum yield. There has been a considerable surge in the investment options that are available to the investors. The investors need to decide their portfolio from the available pool of investment opportunities. But, the investors realize that the decision making process is not an easy task. Teaching community is busy with their own assignments of teaching, examinations, evaluations, coping with new syllabus, new subjects, etc. As such, they do not have enough time and scope for study into investment analysis and avenues. Now that, a majority of teaching community is in private sector, they have very less appetite for investments. This makes the situation worse and academicians are desperately in need of good investments to plan their retirement life. A proper understanding of money, and it’s worth, the open avenues for investment, various financial institutions, the rate etc., are essential to successfully manage one’s finance for achieving life’s goal. The study discusses about the marital status and other factors influencing the investment behaviour of college teachers towards different investment avenues with special reference to Bhopal. In this regard, this study will help us to know the investment pattern among the academicians in Bhopal, the investment behaviour and the extent of investment awareness amongst them. The study also aims to explore the risk return dynamics on the investment made by them. The data was collected by distributing a structured questionnaire to 100 teachers in different private UG and PG colleges. The major impact on nature and extent of savings depends on the level of income of teachers. The research shows that majority of the respondents are saving money, resorting to the traditional investment avenues, believing the same to be safer, considering unpredictable contingencies in the future. These main avenues of investment are bank deposits followed by gold, and the main purpose of investment is for education of children, and security after retirement.