Lifestyle Persistence under Financial Constraints: Experimental Evidence on Women’s Financial Behavior: Ketahanan Gaya Hidup di Tengah Keterbatasan Keuangan: Bukti Eksperimental Mengenai Perilaku Keuangan Perempuan

Eugenius Besli (Institut Filsafat dan Teknologi Kreatif Ledalero)

JBMP (Jurnal Bisnis, Manajemen dan Perbankan)
Vol. 12 No. 2 (2026): September

This study aims to examine how women manage lifestyle-related consumption under financial constraints from a behavioral accounting perspective. Using an experimental approach, data were collected from a purposive sample of female university students a demographic frequently exposed to social lifestyle pressures despite limited finances and analyzed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and Pearson's chi-square tests. The results demonstrate that financial pressure does not deter women from maintaining certain lifestyle expenditures, particularly on cosmetics. Instead of prioritizing savings or other non-essential items, participants consistently favored cosmetic purchases, illustrating complex trade-offs between basic needs, savings, and lifestyle spending. Notably, chi-square analyses revealed no significant difference in budget allocation for cosmetics between the experimental and control groups, indicating that financial constraints do not fundamentally alter women's tendencies toward lifestyle consumption. Ultimately, the study implies that personal financial decision-making extends beyond strict economic rationality, highlighting the necessity for behavioral accounting models to consider how social pressures and personal priorities consistently override purely logical budget allocations.