Boomer bank of Australia is bank of choice for youngsters
The so-called boomer bank in Australia has 1.2 million parents looking after 18-24 year olds living at home and 57% of those parents provide some form of financial assistance to those youngsters.
Demographer Bernard Salt said it has become “a badge of honour among the nation’s 50-something parents as they look to one-up their friends with how much they help their children with rent assistance, car repayments, and the payment of food and bills.
“It’s the best bank in Australia. Which bank offers no interest? Which bank gives loans without anything expected in return?”
He was commenting on new Australian Bureau of Statistics figures which stated that common parental support for children 18 to 24 years included money to pay bills or debt (30%), money to help pay rent and housing costs (21%), money for food (19%), and money for paying for educational expenses (15%).
Mr Salt said that even this range of parental assistance was “just a warm-up for the big hit when Gen-Y comes back from London at age 29 after discovering themselves. They’ll say I want to stay near you but I can’t afford a house – can you help me? And the answer might well be yes”.
However, the Gen-Y’s day of reckoning would come at the next recession, which Bernard Salt believes could be a decade or less away.
“By then baby boomer parents will be retired and no longer in a position in help and Generation-Y will have no experience on how to budget for a household.”
