IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jfamec/v41y2020i2d10.1007_s10834-019-09643-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Because My Father Told Me To”: Exploratory Insights into Parental Influence on the Retirement Savings Behavior of Adult Children

Author

Listed:
  • Lynne Robertson-Rose

    (University of Edinburgh)

Abstract

The paper explores the influence of parents on their adult children’s retirement saving strategies. Using examples from 25 qualitative interviews the exploratory study shows how financial socialization can continue well beyond adolescence. It offers examples of parents encouraging their adult children to save for retirement and children’s reliance upon their parents for advice about pension contribution levels and asset allocation. Parents also provide salient examples—both negative and positive—from which adult children discover for themselves the consequences of earlier savings decisions. The paper’s two key points are that parents’ financial preparedness for retirement can impact the younger generation’s retirement choices and that family financial socialization continues into adulthood.

Suggested Citation

  • Lynne Robertson-Rose, 2020. "“Because My Father Told Me To”: Exploratory Insights into Parental Influence on the Retirement Savings Behavior of Adult Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 364-376, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:41:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10834-019-09643-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10834-019-09643-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10834-019-09643-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10834-019-09643-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melissa A. Curran & Emily Parrott & Sun Young Ahn & Joyce Serido & Soyeon Shim, 2018. "Young Adults’ Life Outcomes and Well-Being: Perceived Financial Socialization from Parents, the Romantic Partner, and Young Adults’ Own Financial Behaviors," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 445-456, September.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    3. Myria Allen & Renee Edwards & Celia Hayhoe & Lauren Leach, 2007. "Imagined interactions, family money management patterns and coalitions, and attitudes toward money and credit," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 3-22, March.
    4. Benjamin Saunders & Julius Sim & Tom Kingstone & Shula Baker & Jackie Waterfield & Bernadette Bartlam & Heather Burroughs & Clare Jinks, 2018. "Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1893-1907, July.
    5. Ning Tang, 2017. "Like Father Like Son: How Does Parents' Financial Behavior Affect Their Children's Financial Behavior?," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 284-311, July.
    6. Elena Gouskova & Ngina Chiteji & Frank Stafford, 2010. "Pension Participation: Do Parents Transmit Time Preference?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 138-150, June.
    7. John Beshears & James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2009. "The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 167-195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hershey, D.A. & Henkens, C.J.I.M. & van Dalen, H.P., 2010. "Aging and financial planning for retirement : Interdisciplinary influences viewed through a cross-cultural lens," Other publications TiSEM b4f94fc9-8a77-44d1-9baa-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Webley, Paul & Nyhus, Ellen K., 2006. "Parents' influence on children's future orientation and saving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 140-164, February.
    10. Brown, Sarah & Taylor, Karl, 2016. "Early influences on saving behaviour: Analysis of British panel data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-14.
    11. Lynne Borden & Sun-A Lee & Joyce Serido & Dawn Collins, 2008. "Changing College Students’ Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior through Seminar Participation," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 23-40, March.
    12. Paul Gerrans & Douglas A. Hershey, 2017. "Financial Adviser Anxiety, Financial Literacy, and Financial Advice Seeking," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 54-90, March.
    13. Hanson, Thomas A. & Olson, Peter M., 2018. "Financial literacy and family communication patterns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 64-71.
    14. Ashley B. LeBaron & E. Jeffrey Hill & Christina M. Rosa & Travis J. Spencer & Loren D. Marks & Joshua T. Powell, 2018. "I Wish: Multigenerational Regrets and Reflections on Teaching Children About Money," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 220-232, June.
    15. Jeffrey R. Brown, 2009. "Comment on "The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States"," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 195-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gallego-Losada, Rocío & Montero-Navarro, Antonio & Rodríguez-Sánchez, José-Luis & González-Torres, Thais, 2022. "Retirement planning and financial literacy, at the crossroads. A bibliometric analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    2. Ashley Larsen Gibby & Logan Pettit & E. Jeffrey Hill & Jeremy Yorgason & Erin Kramer Holmes, 2021. "Implicit and Explicit Childhood Financial Socialization: Protective Factors for Marital Financial Disagreements," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 225-236, June.
    3. Panu Kalmi, 2018. "The Effects of Financial Education: Evidence from Finnish Lower Secondary Schools," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 47(2-3), pages 353-386, July.
    4. Ashley B. LeBaron & Heather H. Kelley, 2021. "Financial Socialization: A Decade in Review," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 195-206, July.
    5. Gerrans, Paul & Moulang, Carly & Feng, Jun & Strydom, Maria, 2018. "Individual and peer effects in retirement savings investment choices," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 150-165.
    6. Boglárka Zsótér, 2018. "The Aspects Of Financial Culture Among Young Adults," Ekonomske ideje i praksa, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, issue 30, pages 51-71, September.
    7. Clark, Robert L. & Hanson, Emma & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2016. "Lessons for public pensions from Utah's move to pension choice," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 285-310, July.
    8. Keane, M.P. & Thorp, S., 2016. "Complex Decision Making," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 661-709, Elsevier.
    9. Robert L. Clark & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2020. "Target Date Defaults in a Public Sector Retirement Saving Plan," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 1133-1149, January.
    10. Travis P. Mountain & Namhoon Kim & Joyce Serido & Soyeon Shim, 2021. "Does Type of Financial Learning Matter for Young Adults’ Objective Financial Knowledge and Financial Behaviors? A Longitudinal and Mediation Analysis," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 113-132, March.
    11. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    12. Margaret Miller & Julia Reichelstein & Christian Salas & Bilal Zia, 2015. "Can You Help Someone Become Financially Capable? A Meta-Analysis of the Literature," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 30(2), pages 220-246.
    13. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    14. Bomi Nomlala, 2021. "Financial Socialisation of Accounting Students in South Africa," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 01-15, April.
    15. van Dalen, Hendrik Peter & Henkens, Kene, 2018. "Do people really want freedom of choice? : Assessing preferences of pension holders," Other publications TiSEM 448e8a93-9ded-401f-9da0-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Thomas A. Hanson, 2022. "Family Communication, Privacy Orientation, & Financial Literacy: A Survey of U.S. College Students," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-13, November.
    17. Sarah Brown & Pulak Ghosh & Bhuvanesh Pareek & Karl Taylor, 2017. "Financial Hardship and Saving Behaviour: Bayesian Analysis of British Panel Data," Working Papers 2017011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    18. Silverman, Dan & Slemrod, Joel & Uler, Neslihan, 2014. "Distinguishing the role of authority “in” and authority “to”," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 32-42.
    19. Robert A. Pollak, 2016. "Marriage Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 22309, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Hazel Bateman & Christine Eckert & Fedor Iskhakov & Jordan Louviere & Stephen Satchell & Susan Thorp, 2017. "Default and naive diversification heuristics in annuity choice," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(1), pages 32-57, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:41:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10834-019-09643-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.