Abstract

Economic and cultural changes occurring during the last decades at a global level have prolonged the transition to adulthood. Consequently, parents of emerging adults (i.e., individuals aged 18-29) are nowadays called to live with their children longer and to financially support them. The current study aims to systematically review the psychological literature that has been published about parental financial support as well as financial independence of emerging adult children. Searching in PsycINFO database, we found 172 peer-review records that named the selected keywords in their abstract. Of those, 46 publications were reviewed for the current study. We coded each study to map this literature in terms of prevalence, research methods, constructs, sample, data collection, as well as variables other than financial support or independence involved in the study. Findings suggest that the interest of the scientific community in these constructs has emerged in the last decade, but the increasing trend is not consistent. Conducted studies are often quantitative and adopt convenient samples that are mainly constituted by female students and workers. Across the reviewed studies we found an alarming lack of consistency in terms of theoretical frameworks, definitions of constructs, labels used to refer to them, and operationalization of variables. Recommendations for future studies were provided in relation to theory, context, and methodology.