To educate financial providers and advisors on the financial characteristics of Asian investors, Spectrem Group’s study Financial Attitudes and Concerns is one of a four-part Ethnic Segmentation Series that includes Asians, along with African-Americans and Hispanics. In the study, Asian investors are compared to the other referenced segments, as well as to all investors who are not part of the three segments studied.

While the ethnic segments are similar in many of their financial attitudes and concerns, there are areas in which they differ.

Asians were more likely than their other ethnic counterparts to credit frugality for their wealth creation (71 percent) and also more likely to credit taking risk (59 percent). They were fare less likely to credit “hard work” (86 percent, compared to 91 percent of African-Americans and 96 percent of Hispanics).

Asians were also far more likely to credit “being in the right place at the right time” (47 percent) and “luck (39 percent) than all other investors. They were far less likely to credit decisions made by their financial advisor (only 28 percent, compared to 48 percent of African-Americans and 48 percent of all other investors).

In terms of investment behaviors, Asians expressed far greater regrets about their financial decisions prior to the recession in terms of risk. Exactly one-third of Asian investors said they wished they had taken more risks with investments prior to the crash (compared to 21 percent outside the ethnic groups, 24 percent African-American and 23 percent Hispanic).

They were far less likely to express a desire that they had saved more, 34 percent to 52 percent Hispanic and 58 percent African-American.

Forty percent of Asian investors come from one adult working full-time. That is higher than the one-income homes of Hispanics (35 percent) and African-Americans (34 percent).

Asians were also less likely to retire young, with only 37 percent of retirees leaving the workforce under the age of 60 (compared to 41 percent of African-Americans and 44 percent of Hispanics). Asians are much more likely (36 percent) to retire after the age of 63, compared to 33 percent of Hispanics and only 25 percent of African Americans.

 

Despite the fact Asians retire later than the other ethnic groups, only 18 percent said they retired later than expected. While 82 percent of Asians said they retired earlier than they thought they would, 74 percent of Hispanics said they retired earlier than planned and 69 percent of African-Americans said so. Among those not in the three ethnic groups, 77 percent said they retired earlier than anticipated.

 

For more information on Spectrem Group's ethnic segmentation series, click here