Helping your adult children financially could end up hurting their career - here's how

david nganga

May 9, 2018 4:08 PM

Parents, you are doing more harm than good to your children by letting them live at home for free

Children who receive financial aid from their parents could end up having successful careers, depending on the type of support provided.

According to a report by a sociology scholar, when parents give their children money, especially college graduates, they end up having greater professional success.

However, when they receive financial assistance in other ways, say, living at their parents' home for free, the opposite is true.

“Children whose families can afford to provide direct support do very well. Other families offer the only support they can afford, by offering their kids a place to live. But this appears to adversely affect career outcomes," said Anna Manzoni, associate professor of sociology at North Carolina State University.

Manzoni looked at data of more than 7,500 adults between 18 and 28 years old from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which tracks job status.

Social inequality

College graduates who received money from their parents did especially well professionally, while college graduates who lived at home did especially poorly.

“This highlights one way that social inequality is carried forward across generations,” Manzoni said in a statement.

Jared Buckley, a business strategist focused on millennials argues that young adults living at home create a culture of dependency. He also notes that such people are less willing or able to move to cities where the job market is thriving.

“Moving out develops character and soft skills you cannot learn while under your parents roof."

However,not all millenials living at home are doing so to avoid paying their own rent.

Some live with their parents to get a head start on saving for a home or building a nest egg and, in other cases, they’re the ones helping their parents pay the bills.

david nganga