Implicit Family Financial Socialization and Emerging Adults’ Financial Well-Being: A Multi-Informant Approach

This study’s purpose is to investigate how implicit family financial socialization (family communication quality and family economic enmeshment) influences emerging adults’ objective and subjective financial well-being mediated by the degree to which the emerging adult child adopts their parents as financial role model. Using a multi-informant approach, structural equation model family-level analyses were conducted based on responses from mothers, fathers, and emerging adults in 160 Italian families. Results indicate that family communication quality has an indirect, positive effect on subjective financial well-being through adoption of parents as a financial role model. Family economic enmeshment has a direct, negative effect on the emerging adult’s personal income not received from their parents. A direct, positive relationship was found between adoption of parents as financial role models and economic dependence on parents.