The Risks of Gaining and Losing from Debt According to the Perspective of Men and Women

Debt is a financial service frequently offered by financial institutions. However, decision to be in debt bear risks. According to the prospect theory, when a person is faced with a risk, they will consider the potential gains and losses. Thus, this research was conducted to explore perceptions regarding the gains and losses of incurring debt among men and women. This study involved 94 respondents, consisting of 35 men and 59 women. All respondents filled out open questions regarding the benefits and drawbacks of owing debt. This study utilized grounded theory and qualitative survey methods. Grounded theory was used to conduct axial coding in arranging response categories, while the qualitative survey was used to identify the diversity of respondents' characteristics. From the result of the analysis, the gain and losses of incurring debt were obtained. The response of women who mentioned the gains of debt had a higher percentage than that of men. Meanwhile, the percentage of men who saw debt as a mean to meet basic needs was higher than that of women. On the other hand, the result showed that there were two types of negative perceptions that formed towards debt, namely psychological loss and financial loss.