Abstract
Guided by the knowledge-behavior-opportunity approach to financial capability (Xiao et al., 2022), our study explored whether financial dependence on parents and/or the belief that parents will rescue them from debt moderated the relationship between usage of alternative financial services and financial anxiety among emerging adults, primarily college students. Data came from responses from 209 students taking a financial assessment survey pre- and post-test as part of a Consumer Economics course taught at a public university in the Southeastern United States. We found that both financial dependence and beliefs of parental rescue were related negatively to financial anxiety in separate models. Beliefs of parental rescue also moderated this relationship. However, when combined in the same model, only beliefs of parental rescue remained negatively related to financial anxiety. Implications are discussed.
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Data Availability
Data used in the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notes
According to IHL data (Rankins, 2022), the percentage of female (81%) and African American (34%) students represented in the current study vastly exceeds the university averages from 2019 to 2021 (female students: range: 49.9 − 51.2%; African American students: range: 16.7 − 17.5%). The percentage of White students (63%) in the current study is also lower than the university averages from 2019 to 2021 (range: 71.6 − 72.6%). In-state residency (69%) in the current study is slightly higher than the university averages from 2019 to 2021 (64.0 − 64.7%). This sampling will be discussed in the Limitations.
Neither author is currently at the institution, where this data was originally collected. As such, internal data about student diversity within the major, where this course was housed, is no longer available to us. According to 2020–2021 data from CollegeFactual.com (2024), 88.5% of graduates from this major were female, with 59.6% being White and 34.6% being African American. As such, the current percentages of female (81%) and White (63%) students are lower than these reported averages, while the current percentage of African American (34%) students is similar.
Equal variance assumed (Green & Salkind, 2005).
Equal variance not assumed (Green & Salkind, 2005).
The third semester of data collection occurred in Spring 2020. Students completed the pre-test as part of an in-person class prior to the COVID lockdown. These same students completed the post-test under an asynchronous course format following the COVID lockdown. The only variable of interest impacted by this change in format is Financial Anxiety at post-test. However, the change in financial anxiety from pre-test to post-test in Spring 2020 was not statistically significant, so we included this entire class of students in the pre-COVID grouping.
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Wheeler, B.E., Brooks, C. Financial Safety Nets or Rescue Fantasies? A Moderating View of the Relationship between Usage of Alternative Financial Services and Financial Anxiety among College Students. J Fam Econ Iss (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-024-09961-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-024-09961-z