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Should Parents Financially Support their Adult Children? Normative Views in Australia

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Abstract

Social welfare policies generally assume that parents remain responsible for adult children. Recent social changes in industrialized nations, however, have rendered family obligation norms more complex. We examined 300 Australians’ norms concerning parents’ obligations to support adult children financially. Utilizing a quasi-experimental design, we investigated the extent to which respondents agreed that parents should support adult children, and the influence of situational factors. More respondents were in favor of assisting adult children than against, but there was no consensus as to what parents should do. Respondents generally agreed on factors that should be considered, then attempted to balance parental responsibility norms with adult independence norms. Parental help was more strongly endorsed when need was considered legitimate, and when the adult child was younger. Implications for Australian social policy are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Australian dollars.

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Funding

This research was funded in part by a small grant from the University where the authors are employed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, WA, 6027, Australia

    Deirdre Drake, Justine Dandy, Jennifer M. I. Loh & David Preece

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  1. Deirdre Drake
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  2. Justine Dandy
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  3. Jennifer M. I. Loh
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  4. David Preece
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Correspondence to Deirdre Drake.

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All the authors declares that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendix: Example Vignette (age = 20 s, need = house deposit)

Appendix: Example Vignette (age = 20 s, need = house deposit)

Andrew is a married man in his early twenties. Andrew needs some money to help pay a deposit for a house. He can get most of the money from other sources, but he still needs another $1500.

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Drake, D., Dandy, J., Loh, J.M.I. et al. Should Parents Financially Support their Adult Children? Normative Views in Australia. J Fam Econ Iss 39, 348–359 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9558-z

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