How parents dictate their children’s resilience

• The higher the level of education your parents had, the more financially resilient you’re likely to be.
• If your parents were employed when you were growing up, you’re far more likely to be resilient than if they didn’t work.
• If your parents owned a property with a mortgage when you were a teenager, you’re also likely to be more resilient – and be on track with home ownership.
• But it doesn’t happen by osmosis – there are key steps to build your child’s resilience.

Figures from the HL Savings & Resilience Barometer, January 2025

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance, Hargreaves Lansdown:

“The Bank of Mum and Dad give their kids more than just a property deposit. Their financial position while their children are growing up has a profound impact on their offspring’s financial resilience later in life. Resilience echoes through the generations.

The HL Savings & Resilience Barometer shows that having parents who went to university, worked, and owned their own home while you were a child feeds through into your financial resilience today. The educational level and employment status of your dad seems to have the biggest impact, possibly because even when highly educated, if women take career breaks, it can damage their income prospects.

Money makes a difference

Growing up with parents with a higher income is always going to make it more likely that you’ll land on your feet, because social mobility moves so slowly. OECD figures show it takes an average of five generations for those born in low-income families to earn the average income.

Some of these measures are a proxy for whether or not your parents had money – like whether they were employed or not, and whether they owned a home with a mortgage or rented. So it comes as no surprise that those whose parents owned their home are far more likely to be financially resilient from all sorts of measures, from having enough cash at the end of the month (48% vs 33%) to having enough savings (75% vs 52%) or being on track for a moderate pension income (49% vs 24%).

Having parents who worked when you were growing up also makes a major difference. A working Dad means you’re more likely to have enough savings (69% vs 50%), surplus income (46% vs 34%), to be on track with home ownership (33% vs 18%) and for a moderate income in retirement (42% vs 22%).

Whether or not your mum worked has an effect, just not quite as much. It means you’re more likely to be on track with savings (69% vs 45%), surplus income (44% vs 36%), home ownership (32% vs 15%) and pensions (41% vs 17%). The difference is narrowed by the fact that in some wealthy households, only one parent needs to work.

University attendance of either parent boosts your resilience. This is partly because some were wealthier to start with, and those with more financially secure backgrounds were more likely to have chosen to go to university. However, there was far more support for university students in previous generations, so in some cases, people became the first in their family to go to university, and made a major difference to their career opportunities.

Passing it on

The echoes of financial resilience through the generations doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t just happen through inheritance either, because often younger generations can benefit significantly from support far earlier in life.

Wealthier parents are more likely to be able to afford to pass money on throughout their lifetimes. Most famously, this includes offering cash to help their children onto the property ladder, but there are so many more ways parents can help. Paying into a Junior ISA to give them a head start in adult life, investing for university costs in a stocks and shares ISA, even paying into a Junior SIPP when they’re children can all make a major difference. It doesn’t just put them on the front foot financially, it also makes goals far more attainable: knowing you will receive financial support for education makes going to university a much more realistic goal.

The impact goes beyond the money itself. It also offers an element of security, so that those whose parents are financially resilient can consider taking more risks with their career, on the grounds that if something goes awry, their parents will help pick them up.

Parents with room in their budgets were also able to provide a strong role model for saving and investing, to help instil good money habits from an early age.

They also offer role models into professional jobs – sometimes through helping put them in touch with someone in a specific field, but also by showing their kids a workable path to these roles. Those whose parents remained in education for longer are also able to offer more academic support growing up. It’s one reason why if your parents were professionals, your odds of being in a professional occupation are six times better than someone from working class origins.

When it comes to buying property, if your parents rented, you’re more likely to rent as an adult. There’s no doubt this owes a great deal to the fact that renting tends to be more common among lower earners with fewer assets, with less money available to support their children or to help them onto the property ladder.”