Bank of Mum and Dad bails out people into their forties

ONE in 10 people in their 40s are receiving regular financial support from their parents, a think-tank has said.

The Social Market Foundation also found that almost a quarter of all adults received financial support from family members last year.

While it is commonly thought that the Bank of Mum and Dad is called upon to help people on to the property ladder, just 7 per cent of people who were given financial support from a family member in the past year used it to buy a home.

In total, the research found that 27 per cent of people with grown-up children are providing them with ongoing financial help, in many cases into their 30s, 40s and 50s.

The report also found that families depend on £53billion of inter-generational support just to get by. That is the equivalent of £4,202 a year per person.

Instead of getting on to the property ladder, the most common reason for providing financial support was to help family members meet the daily cost of living – around 23 per cent.

The next most common reason was using the money to help pay bills, such as gas and electricity.

Research also found that transfers of money up the ages were not uncommon. One in 10 of those aged 60-plus provide their own parents with regular financial support.

Nigel Keohane, research director at the Small Market Foundation, said: “This research shows that, for the most part, financial help from parents isn’t about well-off families passing wealth down the generations. It’s about people helping adult children and others, some of them in their 40s and above, just to get by. Many people just couldn’t live day-to-day without support from the ‘family bank’.”

The study also revealed that 38 per cent of recipients say they cannot cope without cash help from their family.