16 July 2020

The Bank of Mum and Dad as young adult's social insurance

New evidence from CEBI researchers, referred to in the Economist, shows that, when short of cash, many young adults turn to their parents. 

Italian adults living at their parent’s; Londoners boosting their entry to the housing market through financial support from the bank of Mum and Dad; Parents being big lenders in America. Societies with a less generous social insurance than the Danish are known for financial support from parents to their children. But until now we have had no evidence of the level of financial support from friends and family in Denmark where the inequality is low thanks to income support.

In a new paper Niels Johannesen, Asger Lau Andersen and Adam Sheridan at CEBI  combined customer data from Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender, with government records about where these customers live, work, went to school, and earn.
With the resulting data, Niels, Asger, and Adam tried to understand how much young Danes, aged 20 to 39, are supported financially by their friends and family. Parents are by far the biggest backers, the results show.

You can read about how much young Danes are supported financially in the article in the Economist here.

And in the CEBI working paper " Bailing out the kids: New Evidence on informal insurance from one billion bank transfers” here.