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Objective To qualitatively explore the whats and hows of financial socialization in families, as reported by emerging adults and their parents and grandparents. Background Previous research has examined the positive impact of financial socialization in families as well as the negative consequences of a lack of sufficient financial education. However, there is a need to explore the breadth of parent–child financial socialization methods and topics. Method A convenience sample of 90 emerging adults (18–30 years of age), 17 of their parents, and eight of their grandparents (N = 115) were interviewed at three diverse universities regarding what and how their parents taught them about money. Parents and grandparents were also interviewed regarding what and how they taught their children about money. Results Thematic content coding revealed three core how themes (modeling, discussion, and experiential learning) and four core what themes (financial planning, work ethic, money management, and sharing). The themes coded most often were discussion and money management. Conclusion The findings provide a starting point for gaining insight about how and what parents teach children about money but leave many questions unanswered that future research will need to address to build efficient and effective evidence‐based approaches for parental financial socialization in future generations. Implications Family life educators and others can use our findings to better understand how financial socialization occurs in families as a necessary step in ultimately improving financial socialization and increasing the financial capability and independence of emerging adults.

Feminism is rarely used as a theoretical framework for couple finance research. The purposes of the present paper are (a) to discuss couple finance research in the context of feminism to encourage more frequent and explicit use of feminism in couple finance research, (b) to present a gender and couple finances model, and (c) to test this model with longitudinal dyadic data. Using actor-partner interdependence models (APIM) and data from 327 U.S. mixed-gender couples, relational power was explored as a potential mediator between four couple financial processes (earners of money, access to money, management of money, and conflict about money) and two relationship outcomes (relationship quality and relationship stability). Results suggest that couple financial processes are associated with relationship outcomes and with joint management as well as low conflict being key longitudinally. Additionally, although power may not play a mediating role, it appears to be connected to couple financial processes and relationship outcomes concurrently. Gender differences as well as both actor and partner effects are explored. This research has implications for researchers, clinicians, and educators. For example, clinicians may want to encourage their clients to use joint bank accounts, manage their money jointly, and minimize financial conflict. Gender, and therefore power, are inseparably tied to couple finances. When both spouses are involved in financial processes, partners tend to be more empowered, and relationship quality and stability tend to be higher.

Most financial socialization research focuses on two methods of learning: modeling and discussion. The purpose of this study is to qualitatively explore experiential learning as a third potential method of financial socialization used by parents. Specifically, we explored what children learned about finances through experiential learning and why parents used experiential learning as a financial socialization method. We used a multigenerational sample of emerging adults (ages 18-30) and their parents and grandparents (N = 115). Analyses revealed three core what themes (Working Hard, Managing Money, and Spending Wisely) and three core why themes (Learning Financial Skills, Acquiring Financial Values, and Becoming Financially Independent) related to experiential learning. These findings have implications for parents, researchers, and educators. In sum, we propose that experiential learning should be regarded as a principal method of financial socialization and should be considered in theory-building, research, and pedagogy.

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