Young adults can't cope without their parents' money
The days when young adults were expected to leave home and stand on their own two feet are over. Nowadays, adult children are asking for more financial help than ever. A new study has revealed that parental financial support is up a fifth in just two years.
The study, by Lloyds Bank, discovered that in 2015 alone, parents gave an astonishing £30.65 billion to their adult children. Even more alarmingly this financial assistance isn't for just one-off things like the deposit on a house purchase or help with a wedding: more and more of it is for everyday expenses.
The increase was driven partly by a rise in rent payments paid by parents. This rose from £2.4 billion two years ago - to £4.1 billion this year. There was also a spike in help to buy cars - which has risen to £4.08 billion. Other areas that have seen big rises in parental support are help with day-to-day shopping (up 7% in a year) and help buying appliances (up 10% in that time).
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Grandparents don't get off lightly either, as they are handing over around £6 billion a year to their adult grandchildren. In total, the average grown up child received £763 a year from their parents and a combined total of £916 from parents and grandparents added together.
Is this right?
Parents don't seem to mind helping out. Some 68% said they didn't feel their children could achieve success in life without help from their parents, and 74% of them felt parental support will get increasingly important as time goes on.
There will be those who think this is odd, and that by the time they are adults they ought to be able to do what countless generations before them managed to do - and look after themselves.
However, the researchers point out that young people face the kinds of costs that previous generations didn't - particularly when it comes to housing.
Help buying a house and assistance with rent payments are the two biggest components of financial support from parents. This reflects the horrible position younger people are in, where house prices have risen way out of their reach, and private rental costs are escalating almost as quickly. Housing is far less affordable than for previous generations, so comparing young people now with those who have gone before them is not fair.
The researchers also found that rather than 'cash-point parenthood', this financial assistance is increasingly coming with rules. Now a third of parents demand a say in how their children spend the money they give them.
The question is whether this is a positive development - allowing parents to encourage their children to adopt sound financial management - or whether it's a sign that young adults are now stuck between the rock of not being able to afford anywhere to live, and the hard place of taking the cash and having to do as they are told.
