Study by government agency suggests parents’ failure to educate their kids about money may lead to reliance on ‘bank of mum and dad’ later on
A third of Hong Kong children do not know what their parents do for a living, while only a half consider money to be important, according to a study by a government agency.
Less than a third (31 per cent) keep track of their spending, virtually none of them has a clue about household expenditure and only a fifth are aware they have a bank account, the survey by the Investor Education Centre showed.
The apparent lack of financial awareness revealed by the results may go some way to explaining why so many of the city’s youngsters need to rely on the “bank of mum and dad” to buy them a property or support them even in adulthood.
But perhaps it should come as no surprise; only 45 per cent of parents said they had talked to their children about money matters.
The survey showed 33 per cent of primary-school pupils, aged six to 12, could not put a name to their parents’ profession. Only 14 per cent knew how much it costs to run a household while just 38 per cent have any insight into the cost of their own education and extracurricular activities.
The Investor Education Centre is a government agency set up in 2012 to promote financial education.
Its survey of 800 respondents – half parents, half children – aimed to find out if Hong Kong parents are teaching their children about money and financial habits.
“While many parents want their children to be financially independent, many of them have clearly not guided their children to understand how much money they pay in rent or mortgage repayments every month. Sometimes the parents themselves may also lose track of their monthly spending and that can lead to the family overspending.”
The survey results suggest most parents are unaware of their offspring’s lack of financial nous, believing they have done a great job of teaching them about money. Some 87 per cent of those surveyed considered themselves to be a good financial role model for their children.
That appears at least to be true when it comes to encouraging their children to save and shop wisely. About three quarter of the children said they had short-term saving goals or planned ahead with how to use their pocket money, while 86 per cent said they would compares prices when shopping.
A recent survey by the insurance company Sun Life found that half of young people in Hong Kong expect a financial leg-up from their parents to get onto the city’s famously expensive property ladder.
