Gender, Age, and Generational Differences in the Use Intention of Mobile Payments and Its Antecedents

Abstract

Although mobile payments have gained considerable attention in academic research, there still are major gaps in our more in-depth understanding of the antecedents of their acceptance and use. In this study, we aim to address these gaps by examining the potential gender and age differences in the use intention of mobile payments and its antecedents in terms of the effects of the antecedent factors on use intention as well as the antecedent factors and use intention themselves while also considering the critical prerequisite of measurement invariance. Moreover, through a careful selection of the compared age groups, we extend the examination to cover also the potential generational differences between digital natives and digital immigrants. As the data for the study, we use the responses to an online survey that were collected from Finnish consumers in May 2020 and are analysed by using structural equation modelling (SEM). In terms of gender, we find no differences in the effects of the antecedent factors on use intention but find women to perceive the use of mobile payments as both less easy and less secure than men. In turn, in terms of age and generation, we find the effect of social influence on use intention to be stronger for younger users representing digital natives, whereas older users representing digital immigrants were found to perceive the use of mobile payments as less easy. Finally, we discuss these findings in more detail from both theoretical and practical perspectives.