Assessment of the knowledge and attitude of small and medium enterprises towards saving for retirement (case study of Kampala)

Abstract

This study was conducted in Kampala, Uganda by interviewing the business owners. The main objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of SMEs towards saving for retirement in Kampala as a case study. The study specifically aimed at finding out whether there is a relationship between the socio demographic characteristics (Age, gender, education level, marital status) of SMEs’ owners, knowledge of SMEs’ owners and the attitude of SMEs and saving for retirement. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected data from 150 small and medium business owners who were selected using simple random sampling technique. The study results indicated that 68% of the respondents (business) owners were males and 32% were the females. The results indicated that 35.33% of the respondents were aged 35 years and above, 41.33% aged between 25 to 34 years and 23.33% aged between 18 and 24 years. The results indicated that majority of the respondents were married (58.67%), followed by 24% who were still single,14.67% had divorced and separated and only 2.67% were in the widow/widower group. The results indicated that 43.33% of the respondents had acquired secondary education, 33.33% had acquired tertiary education and only 23.33% had acquired primary education. This means that most of the business owners have acquired secondary education and tertiary education. The multiple logistic regression results indicated significant relationships between saving for retirement and education level and between knowledge on saving and saving for retirement (pvalues<0.05). A statistically significant positive relationship between knowledge and saving for retirement was found out (odds ratio>1). A statistically significant positive relationship between education level and saving for retirement was found out (odds ratio>1). However not statistically significant relationships were found out between age, gender, marital status, and education level and saving for retirement (p-values>0.05). The study concluded knowledge and education level are the true predictors of saving for retirement whereas age, marital status, attitude, and gender of the SMEs owners do not influence successful delivery of the products.