Understanding investment culture: ideologies of financialization and Hong Kong young people’s lay theories of investment

ABSTRACT

Echoing calls for research on the complex ways various factors intersect with the formation of financial subjectivities in specific places (Lai, K. P. Y. 2013. “The Lehman Minibonds Crisis and Financialisation of Investor Subjects in Singapore: The Lehman Minibonds Crisis.” Area 45 (3): 273–282), this study examines how young people in the highly financialized Hong Kong society negotiate with the ideologies of financialization and develop lay theories of investment. Analyses of focus group discussions show that young people consider financial investment as important. They hold an image of the ideal investor but tend to distance themselves from it. The result is a preference for “low risk” investment. When further articulated with other cultural beliefs, many of them see domestic properties as the most preferable investment option despite the skyrocketing prices. Beyond Hong Kong, the analysis shows how local responses to financialization and, more generally, aspects of a society’s investment culture can be understood as the result of people selectively articulating the ideologies of financialization with basic economic concepts and existing cultural beliefs.

KEYWORDS:

• Financialization
• ideal investor
• investment culture
• lay theories
• focus groups
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Retrieved from the website of Rating and Valuation Department of the Hong Kong government: http://www.rvd.gov.hk/en/property_market_statistics/index.html.

2 The survey was conducted by the second author. It adopted probability sampling and was executed by a university research center. Further information is available upon request.

3 The average yearly salary of a university graduate in Hong Kong in 2018 is around HKD180,000 before tax. A person earning HKD300,000 after tax at 27 can be regarded as above average, though not very well-off. This figure is realistic and yet allows people to think beyond meeting the necessities.

4 Pseudonyms are used throughout the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study reported here was funded by a South China Programme grant offered by the Hong Kong Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Notes on contributors

Jack Lipei Tang

Jack Lipei Tang is an MPhil student at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is interested in areas of political communication, gender studies, and social media.

Francis L. F. Lee

Francis L. F. Lee is Director and Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He works in the areas of political communication, journalism, and media and social movements. He is the lead author of Media, Social Mobilization, and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (Routledge, 2011) and Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 2018).