Safety Under Scarcity in South Africa: A Perception-Based Analysis of Institutional Choice in a Vignette Survey Study

Financial scarcity shapes decision-making not only by constraining resources but also by altering how institutions are perceived. This study examines how subjective stress associated with financial scarcity relates to perceptions of institutional safety, trust, comprehension, and control, and how these perceptions influence preferences for formal and informal financial systems in South Africa. A web-based survey (N = 404) incorporating a standardised scarcity vignette, multidimensional perception ratings, and a behavioural choice task is used to evaluate a perception-based scarcity pathway.

Results indicate that scarcity-related stress is strongly associated with shifts in institutional perceptions, accounting for approximately 17% - 26% of the variance in composite safety evaluations across banks, stokvels, and mashonisas. Logistic regression and mediation analyses demonstrate that perceived bank safety statistically mediates nearly the entire association between stress and institutional choice, while the direct effect of stress on choice is negligible. Contrary to some scarcity models that predict institutional avoidance under financial strain, higher stress in this context is associated with slightly increased perceived bank safety and a modest reduction in informal system choice.

These findings refine behavioural scarcity theory by emphasising perceptual and relational mechanisms as the principal link between stress and financial behaviour. Financial decision-making under constraint appears to operate primarily through evaluations of institutional safety rather than through stress alone, with implications for financial inclusion policy and the maintenance of institutional trust.