This report considers the savings products parents set up for their children.
As the costs of living faced by teenagers and young adults increase, so many parents are looking at ways to build up a nest egg for their children at an early age. The financial pressures faced by younger adults today – high university tuition fees, rising cost of housing and motoring – are pressurising increasing numbers of parents to encourage their children to get into the savings habit early on.
More generally, opening a savings account for the first time often introduces a child to the financial world and helps foster a savings culture among children. However, with current rates of return on savings accounts low, is there any incentive to save and, if not, what will this do to future generations of prospective savers?
Almost 30 questions were asked in total, covering the following topics:
- The number of children parents have
- The child’s ownership of children’s savings products
- Why parents have set up such products for their children
- Why parents have not set up such accounts for their children
- The number of savings schemes owned
- Which companies provide the savings products
- The rating of providers by parents
- Why parents choose a specific provider or a specific savings product
- What changes parents would like to see providers make
- The information sources used before taking out a savings product
- Parental satisfaction with children’s savings products and how optimal are the choices made
- Parental attitudes towards savings and towards children’s savings accounts in particular
- The use of adults’ savings products as a savings vehicle for children
- Awareness of savings products among adults whose children do not have them
- Factors that might drive non-users to take out these accounts
- Who deposits money into children’s accounts, at what time and how much.
Methodology
For this report, YouGov SixthSense commissioned a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,042 parents in GB aged 18+.
