INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE (IJRISS)
ISSN No. 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS | Volume IX Issue X October 2025
suggesting that people anchor their decisions more on what they earn now and their stage in life. The positive
relationship between age and consumption mirrors the earnings pattern common among public-sector workers,
whose income generally rises with rank and experience. This outcome supports the life-cycle hypothesis and
echoes the conclusions of Britta (2012), showing that many individuals tend to consume more later in life. A
similar pattern appears in the savings function: both current income and age encourage higher savings, even
though consumption and saving move in opposite directions, as expected. The intertemporal utility estimates
further reveal that people derive greater expected satisfaction from future consumption, implying a need to
save more at present. This is consistent with studies by Karlsson et al. (1995) and Shefrin and Thaler (1988).
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions
Individuals make intertemporal choices consciously or unconsciously. Every purchase involves deciding
whether to buy now or postpone it, and most people try to balance their present comfort with the kind of life
they hope to maintain in the future. This study examines how staff of the University of Uyo navigate these
intertemporal consumption decisions. The results point to two main factors: current income and age. These
factors shape how respondents divide their resources between spending today and saving for later.
Interestingly, expectations about future income and remaining working years did not play a significant role.
This suggests that many respondents do not view their future earnings as strong determinants of later spending
choices, perhaps a reflection of how sharply the cost of living has risen in Nigeria. Since incomes rarely keep
pace with prices, people tend to favor present consumption. Yet, the estimated utility patterns hint that greater
saving could yield higher future well-being.
Recommendations
From the findings of this study, the following recommendations are offered;
1. Individuals should be more conscious of making intertemporal choices based on their expected income
and future consumption needs because when the future becomes the present, their income constraint may
increasingly limit their ability to maximize utility from the consumption of their desired commodities.
2. Government should pay more attention to improving the welfare of university staff in form increase in
earnings so that they could make better intertemporal choices to improve their lifetime living standards.
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