Intergenerational Model of Financial Satisfaction and Parent-Child Financial Relationship

Abstract

The study examined an intergenerational model of financial socialization and its outcomes that connects parents’ and their children’s self-perceived financial learning outcomes to satisfaction with financial management and parent-child financial relationships. The conceptual model was based on models of financial socialization processes contributing to healthy financial development of emerging adult students (Shim et al., 2010; Sirsch et al., 2020), but extended the links across two generations within the same family. Considering perspectives of both generations in a single model, it was tested in a sample of 482 pairs of Slovenian first-year university students and one of their parents. Structural equation modeling revealed that parental healthy financial learning outcomes (knowledge, behavioral control, behavior) shaped their children’s positive financial development (financial learning outcomes and satisfaction) and promoted the parents’ satisfaction with financial management. In turn, both the students’ and the parents’ financial management satisfaction positively predicted a joint measure of satisfaction with parent-child financial relationship. Similar links of financial learning outcomes to satisfaction with financial management and parent-child financial relationships were observed for both generations, even though parents and their children were financially socialized under different socioeconomic conditions.