Parenting Never Really Ends

Perth, Sept 8: New research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) confirms what a lot of Australian parents have long suspected but rarely said out loud: the job doesn’t end at 18, or even 25. It just changes shape — from school fees to house deposits, from pocket money to rent-free granny flats, sometimes stretching on for decades after the kids have technically left home.
The AIFS snapshot, Intergenerational Wealth Transfers in Contemporary Australia, released this month, pulls together more than 280 studies and datasets to explore how these transfers of wealth and resources between generations can shape housing, education, employment and financial security outcomes throughout life — and why the timing of that support can matter as much as its value.
Whether it’s helping with a house deposit, providing a place to live while studying or saving, caring for grandchildren, or leaving an inheritance, families support one another in many ways. While this support can help people navigate hardship, pursue opportunities and build long-term financial security, not all families have the same capacity to offer that support.

The money doesn’t stop at 18 — it just gets bigger

According to survey data cited in the report, 71% of Australian grandparents over 50 say they actively support their adult children or grandchildren — 51% through direct financial transfers, 52% through regular child care. The average reported cost of that support is $3,066 a year, funded through retirement savings, delayed retirement, or simply spending less on themselves.
It isn’t only grandparents. Research drawn on by AIFS found that more than half of Australian parents surveyed had provided some form of housing-related help to an adult child — a financial gift, rent-free accommodation, a loan, or standing as a guarantor on a mortgage. Four in ten young Australians surveyed by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute said they now simply expect family help to get into the property market, suggesting the “Bank of Mum and Dad” has quietly shifted from a favour to an assumption.

The timing works against the people who need it most

One of the more counterintuitive findings buried in the data is about when the money actually shows up. Financial gifts from parents are most common among 15–24 year-olds — but they’re small, averaging under $3,000 for that age group. Inheritances, by contrast, are far larger — averaging $212,096 — but they land overwhelmingly on people aged 55 and over, according to Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey data cited in the report.
In other words: the big money tends to arrive after the major decisions of a lifetime — buying a home, having children, building a career — have already been made. It can’t change those decisions. It can only cushion whatever position the recipient is already in.
Dr Jody Hughes, Families and Society Theme Head at AIFS, said this highlights the growing role of family wealth transfers in shaping opportunities across people’s lives.
“It’s not only what families are able to provide, but when that support arrives, that can shape people’s options – whether that’s completing study, securing stable housing or getting through a difficult period financially,” Dr Hughes said.
The review found that the timing of support can be just as important as the amount transferred. While inheritances tend to be larger, they are often received after major housing, education and family decisions have already been made. Earlier financial support may be smaller in value but can play a critical role in helping people access opportunities and build financial security.
However, access to family resources is not evenly distributed, meaning these transfers can both reduce hardship and reinforce broader patterns of social inequality.
“Family support can provide an important safety net, helping people pursue education, build careers, establish homes and navigate periods of uncertainty,” Dr Hughes said.
“But not all families have the same capacity to provide assistance. Understanding who can access these forms of support, and who misses out, is important for understanding broader patterns of wellbeing, financial security and inequality both between and within generations.”

Family wealth doesn’t just help — it compounds existing advantage

Perhaps the least comfortable finding in the report is this: family financial support doesn’t necessarily flow to whoever needs it most. Analysis of HILDA data found that adult children from higher socio-economic backgrounds receive more transfers, and larger ones, than children from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The Productivity Commission’s own 2024 research is blunter still, describing wealth as “stickier” than income — meaning where a person sits in the wealth ladder is far less likely to shift over their lifetime than where they sit on the income ladder.
Family transfers, the report argues, are one of the key mechanisms behind that stickiness. They don’t simply help families manage hardship — they can just as easily widen the gap between families who have resources to give and families who don’t, entrenching advantage across generations rather than levelling it out.

And when it goes wrong, it can go badly wrong

The review also examines how changing family structures, cultural expectations, family relationships and legal arrangements can influence how wealth is transferred and understood within families. It highlights that informal arrangements — family loans, gifts, shared housing or assets-for-care agreements — can create uncertainty or risk when expectations are unclear, relationships change, or older family members provide support beyond their means.
The report also has a harder edge. Citing the National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, it notes that adult children are the most commonly identified group engaging in financial abuse of older Australians, and that more than a third of financial abuse cases involved someone already in an intergenerational relationship with the victim. So-called “assets for care” arrangements — where an older person hands over property or savings in exchange for a promise of care or accommodation — remain rare (just 3% of older Australians report having one), but the report flags them as a genuine risk when the arrangement breaks down and the older person is left without the asset or the promised support.

What we still don’t know

AIFS is candid about the limits of the evidence. The review identifies significant evidence gaps, including the need for a better understanding of informal and in-kind support — such as rent-free accommodation, co-residence and care arrangements — and the long-term impacts of transfers on both those who receive support and those who provide it. There’s also almost no research on how superannuation death benefits or family trusts move wealth between generations — two of the more tax-advantaged transfer mechanisms in the country remain largely unstudied.
What the evidence does make clear is that intergenerational wealth transfer isn’t simply a private family matter, playing out quietly at kitchen tables. It’s a mechanism shaping who gets ahead in Australia and who doesn’t — one birthday, one house deposit, one inheritance at a time.