More adult children than ever before struggle financially and turn to their parents for support. This raises the question: how does their financial anxiety affect their parents? New research (Eng et al., 2024) examines how financial anxiety can “trickle up” to parents, potentially even impacting their future retirement plans.
THE RESEARCH STUDY
The researchers conducted studies in multiple countries that represented different norms around parent-child relationships and retirement plans. In the first two studies, they recruited parents who had a child between the ages of 17 and 25. The researchers found that parents who had children with higher financial anxiety also had higher financial anxiety themselves. In turn, they were less likely to plan to retire early.
In the third study, the researchers recruited parents and children in Indonesia to complete their surveys. The goal of this study was to find out why children’s financial anxiety can cross over to parents. They found that one reason this occurs is because financially anxious children were more likely to socially undermine their parents, such as by yelling or being rude. The other reason was because parents had to spend more money on these children, increasing their own financial anxiety.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
According to this study, it is important to remain aware that parents of adult children who struggle financially may be at risk of experiencing financial anxiety themselves. In these situations, intervention work could focus on improving trust and communication between parents and children. Further, the authors push for policy work that aims to help young adults, such as affordable housing, bridge employment, and age-inclusive workplace training.
Eng, A., Yan, L., & Yam, K. C. (2024). Trickle-up effects of children’s financial anxiety on parent retirement intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication.
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