The“Financial Diary”project is an important research that Chinese Academy of Financial Inclusion (CAFI) has been following by conducting field research for more than two years. The research aims to learn the financial conditions of Chinese urban and rural residents by studying their long-term records of their household income and expenditure, so as to provide reference and guidance for designing future financial products and financial literacy courses.

In 2021, AXA became a key partner of CAFI's“Financial Diary”project. To increase the diversity and richness of the research sample, CAFI commissioned Shanghai Lequn Social Work Service (Lequn) to assist researchers to conduct preliminary in-home interviews and collect full annual financial data from 60 households.

On April 19th, Lequn and CAFI held a kick-off ceremony for the “Shanghai Financial Diary” project at the Pudong Public Welfare Park, where Lecun Director Ms. Mei Lu gave a welcome speech to the CAFI research team and representatives of participating families. Mr. Xiugen Mo, Vice President of CAFI, introduced the background of CAFI and the members of the research team. Ms. Ruyuan Yin, assistant director of Legum, introduced Legum's organizational structure and special services. 

Director of Shanghai Lequn Social Work Service

Mei Lu

Xiugen Mo

Vice President of CAFI

In order to improve data collection, CAFI researcher Shuo Wang carried out professional training for the investigators of the project after the launch ceremony. As planned, CAFI research team conducted the first in-home interview with Lequn social workers and provided detailed training and guidance on account recording and data collection. In the following 3-day household survey, the social workers, would complete the collection of financial data from 30 registered Shanghai households and 30 unregistered Shanghai households and record their financial situation, financial management capacity and financial risks management capacity.

Mei Lu, the Director of Shanghai Lequn Social Work Service, presented account books to participating families.  

The data on Shanghai households' financial situation will add important samples to the project, further enriching the geographical coverage and categories of the research and providing a reference for more comparative studies.

Researchers of CAFI and Lequn have been conducting in-home surveys in Shanghai. During the process, CAFI researcher Dr. Peng Deng said, “Thanks to Lequn, we were able to reach out to low-income households in Shanghai and we realized the importance of finance as a tool in smoothing out household income fluctuations and handling emergent financial stress.”

Community work is significant to improve the quality of residents’life and solve their worries. Social workers have good knowledge about the residents, so they are a good fit to conduct the survey, and help improve the efficiency and quality of the samples in the project.

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