This study mainly aimed to show that financial literacy is not always enough in explaining workers' individual pension plan ownership as financial literacy knowledge does not always result in financially literate decisions/actions, and in such cases perceived consumer risks can be used to explain the IPP ownership decision of workers.
The data were collected via a questionnaire adapted from earlier questionnaires using convenience and snowball sampling methods with Internet based applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. T-tests, ANOVA and Chi-Square tests were conducted to find out if there is a relation/interaction between individual pension plan (IPP) ownership and financial literacy, and perceived consumer risks (N = 651).
It is found out that financial literacy level does not have a statistically significant relation with individual pension system (IPS) involvement of workers in Turkey, but perceived consumer risks show differences based on IPP ownership.
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study contributes to the literature being the first paper to study the relationship between financial literacy and workers' IPP ownership decisions in Turkey and it also shows that perceived consumer risks can be used for explaining workers' IPS involvement in cases where financial literacy knowledge does not translate into financially literate decisions.
