Saving Behaviour of Rural Households in Odisha

The economy of developing countries is completely reliant on growth in the primary and associated industries, which are primarily concentrated in rural areas. As a result, the development of emerging countries is solely dependent on the growth of the rural sector. The study is motivated by the background that household sector is the largest contributor to Gross Domestic Saving in the economy, the overall saving rate is declining due to declining household sector saving and public sector saving. The study looks into the saving behaviour of rural households in study area of Odisha. Descriptive statistics and trend analysis are used to analyze the objective. Analysis reveals that regarding forms of saving, households keep the highest percent of saving in terms of cash in hand. Secondly, households keep saving with bank accounts and then in terms of insurance deposits and postal deposits respectively. Households with two earners have the highest saving income ratio and it decreases as the number of earners increases. As income increases, the average propensity to save also increases. In terms of the occupation of households, the salaried person has the highest saving income ratio and cultivators and agricultural labourers have the lowest. In case of the educational qualification of the household head, higher years of schooling leads to a higher average propensity to save and vice versa. In the age group of households, the saving income ratio is at peak between the age group of 50 to 60 years, then it declines.