PEOPLE : Who Drains the Family Finances?

When Mom and Dad get on in years, so the stereotype has it, they become a major drain on their kids’ energy and checkbooks.

Not true, says University of Michigan researcher Martha S. Hill. “Parents help adult children much more than the reverse,” Hill found in her sampling of more than 6,500 families. Her aim was to quantify the amount of time and money given and taken by all adults in the sample, either within or outside the family.

Americans age 25-34 net about $500 a year from their parents, but those 65 and above average no financial support from their kids, says Hill, an associate research scientist at the university’s Institute for Social Research. She presented her study at a recent meeting of the Population Assn. of America.

Hill says she expected a “reverse flow” of time and money. Instead, she found that “more than 60% of Americans over the age of 65 do not give or receive help from anyone in the form of either time or money.” But only 30% of those age 25 to 34 are neither givers nor receivers of time and money.

Trying to explain the findings, Hill says:

“Parents do like to maintain their independence from their (adult) children and maintain position as head of the extended family.”