The effect of socio-economic factors on parental financial support from the perspectives of the givers and the receivers

The labour market and the welfare state have been the main institutions responsible for economic welfare in the Nordic countries, whereas the family's role has been mostly complementary. However, this may be changing as the welfare state's role weakens due to cost-containment goals. Based on data sets covering two generations, this study shows that well educated parents in particular are supporting their adult children financially especially while they are studying. Overall, the results suggest that the interaction between the parents' socio-economic position and parental financial backing is stronger than previous studies have indicated. This could lead to diminishing egalitarianism in education alongside class reproduction even in the Nordic welfare states. The results are based on questionnaire data obtained from families across two generations: baby boomers and their adult children. The former data set comprised 1,115 randomly selected Finns born in 1945–1950, and the latter consisted of 1,435 adult children. Merged data was obtained from 911 adult children who were identifiable as offspring of specific parents from the baby boomers' data set. Multinomial logistic regression was used in the analysis.