Parental attitudes to pocket money/allowances for children

Three hundred British parents completed a long questionnaire on their attit udes to, and behaviour concerning, pocket-money allowances for their childr en. This study focused, through multiple regressions, on the demographic an d psychographic predictors of specific attitudes. As has been established i n previous studies, results indicated that most parents (88.4%) were in fav our of pocket-money schemes; they should begin around 6 years-old (6.65 yrs ); there is a near-linear relationship between child's age and amount recei ved; that saving should be encouraged but that borrowing and lending from o ther children discouraged. They clearly approved of the establishment of cl ear rules around pocket money (when received, what to do when it ran out). Attitude statements were factor analysed to produce clear interpretable fac tors. These factor scores plus the answers to specific questions served as the dependent variable in a series of regressions which has four sets of in dependent variables pertaining to individual participants: demographic vari ables (sex, age, education, income); beliefs (religious and political); "mo ney-pathology" score; and a measure of "money smarts" (parental allowance s tyle) that assessed appropriate money-related behaviours. Political beliefs , parental "money pathology" and "money smarts" (which is a measure of pare ntal authority with respect to allowances) were related to attitudes to chi ld socialisation rather than actual (self-reported) behaviours. Results are discussed in terms of parental socialisation styles. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.