AN EVALUATION OF THE FINANCIAL CONDITIONS AND BEHAVIORS OF CONSUMERS DURING THE COVID-19 PROCESS

Abstract

Following the announcement of the COVID-19, which is thought to have emerged from a local fish and wild animal market in December 2019 in Wuhan, China for the first time, as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, serious problems have emerged in the global economy and many changes have occurred in our lives from education to our consumption habits. Our world had to wake up painfully from a sweet virtual dream with the COVID-19 Pandemic. This awakening, which is the harbinger of long-term interaction and transformation that societies will experience, has brought striking changes and a series of measures into our lives. Operations of a large number of businesses have been necessarily suspended temporarily, and measures have been taken to prevent contact with the virus by limiting the out-of-home activities of the people. These measures have created negative economic consequences and continue to do so. In this study, the economic conditions of consumers (income, borrowing, and savings) during the COVID-19 period were examined. For this purpose, 324 participants were included in the study through the online data collection method. The obtained data were analyzed through SPSS 20 package program, and the chi-square test was used for the data analysis. The research concluded that there has been a decrease in the income of individuals during the pandemic process and an increase of approximately 20.0% in the rate of those who have trouble meeting their needs with their current income during the pandemic period compared to the pre-COVID-19 period and that they are trying to compensate this by reducing their expenditures, that more than 1/4 of them use consumer loan and they use this loan to compensate the cash shortage, and that the level of savings of approximately 1/3 of them has decreased and their borrowing level has increased.