Important personal money management topics such as paying for college are also not discussed as much with girls as boys.
A survey conducted by Junior Achievement USA in partnership with The Allstate Foundation has shown that there is not only a disconnect between teens and their parents when it comes to certain important finance topics such as paying for college, but that these topics are discussed more with boys than girls.
The research revealed that girls don’t envision themselves with as much earning potential as their parents.
These results came from the annual Teens & Personal Finance Survey, which The Allstate Foundation and Junior Achievement USA broadened in 2015 to bring parent data into account, for the first time. This provided a considerable amount of insight into the perspective of money management from the point of view of teens and their parents, alike. Among teens, 48 percent believe that their parents will be assisting them in paying for college. However, while that is interesting, what made this more notable was that this year’s survey showed the parents’ side, in which only 16 percent of parents of teens said that they intended to pay for college.
Harris Poll conducted the January 2015 survey on behalf of Junior Achievement USA and The Allstate Foundation.
The research involved the participation of 800 teens between the ages of 13 and 18 years old, and 801 parents of who have children within that same age group. According to Jack E. Kosakowski, the CEO and president of Junior Achievement USA (JA), “Based on this year’s findings, it is obvious that parents and teens need to have honest conversations about money management, including paying for college.”
Kosakowski went on to explain that it is important for a family to come up with a plan for a teen’s life following high school graduation. That will be different for every family and every adolescent. The survey also underscores the fact that a parent is the teacher with the greatest impact on a teen when it comes to education and development of money management skills.
Among the teens who took The Allstate Foundation and JA survey, 84 percent said that they looked to their parents to learn ways to manage their money. However, 34 percent of the parents who participated said that their parents did not talk to their children about money matters in order to “let kids be kids.”