Always be my baby: Russians surround their children with love and support regardless of age

According to a Sberbank life insurance study, parents in Russia have started supporting their adult children more often: 45% compared to 40% a year earlier. From early childhood, Russians want their children to be healthy, surrounded by love and care, and have access to quality education. The children then pay it back: over 60% help their parents and elderly relatives financially.

The survey posed the following question: If you have adult children, do you support them materially? Forty-five percent of respondents stated that they do so regularly. Mothers provide financial support more often than fathers: 49% compared to 41%. Parents from Moscow (79%), Makhachkala (71%), and Astrakhan (61%) fret over their children's material prosperity most of all.

The respondents were asked about their wishes as parents. Ninety-one percent said that the most important thing for them is to make sure their children are surrounded by love and care. The next most popular answers were good health (83%) and quality education (82%). All sociodemographic groups followed this pattern. For men and young people under 30, quality education was second after love and care. Respondents without a higher education also shared this opinion.

One-third of respondents indicated that they regularly save money for their children's future. One out of four mothers and one out of five fathers systematically save money for their children. Thirty-two percent of parents between 18-30 and 28% between 30-40 regularly save for their children. Well-off Russians are the most active savers: 55% among respondents who can purchase a car but not an apartment and 89% among those who can buy an apartment or new house.

Parents who save for their children's future put away 7,960 RUB on average per month. Residents of St. Petersburg (RUB 14,100), Moscow (RUB 13,400), and Krasnoyarsk (RUB 10,000) earmark the largest sums for these purposes. The savings are to be spent on education (66%), housing (52%), and wellness treatments and sports (44%). One out of ten respondents in this group stated that they are saving money to move somewhere their child will have better prospects.

This level of care is met with gratitude on the part of the children: 67% of Russians indicated that they provide material support to their parents and elderly relatives. Men help more actively than women: 83% compared to 52%. People under 30 (91%), between 30-40 (77%), people with a higher education (70%), and those who did not complete higher education (73%) add to the older generation's budget most often. Children from Makhachkala (84%), Kazan, and Rostov-on-Don (81% each) are the most caring.

Based on the survey results, both parents and children started supporting their adult children and older relatives, respectively, this year. It appears that this phenomenon was prompted by the year of coronavirus, with its sense of uncertainty and high number of people infected who required both financial assistance and non-material support. I presume that zoomers (18-24) and millennials (25-40) will be more financially independent upon reaching maturity than the current older generation. Our client base already indicates growing interest on the part of these generations in topics related to personal finances, investments, and savings.

In 2021, zoomers invested eight times more funds in Sber Asset Management investment instruments. In a year, the number of Gen Z investors increased threefold, while the number of millennial investors increased fourfold. The average amount of investment life insurance contracts concluded by zoomers rose by 30% to RUB 850,000. Young people are not only investing higher sums and more often, they are also saving more: one out of four savings life insurance policies was taken out by a millennial. Millennials are looking to save RUB 927,000 on average. Representatives of Gens Z and Y mind their pensions more actively: e.g., this year, zoomers started opening individual pension plans with Sber NPF three times more often than before.

Natalya Alymova

Senior Vice President, Head of Wealth Management, Sberbank

The study was carried out in June 2021 in 37 Russian cities with a population of over 500,000 based on a sample representative of the cities' sociodemographic population.

Appendix 1. Proportion of city residents providing material support to their adult children

Astrakhan	61%
Barnaul	52%
Vladivostok	43%
Volgograd	52%
Voronezh	48%
Yekaterinburg	41%
Izhevsk	41%
Irkutsk	45%
Kazan	40%
Kemerovo	47%
Kirov	43%
Krasnodar	45%
Krasnoyarsk	40%
Lipetsk	53%
Makhachkala	71%
Moscow	79%
Naberezhnye Chelny	45%
Nizhny Novgorod	49%
Novgorod	47%
Novosibirsk	46%
Omsk	57%
Orenburg	51%
Penza	54%
Perm	35%
Rostov-on-Don	43%
Ryazan	53%
Samara	39%
Saint Petersburg	31%
Saratov	54%
Tolyatti	45%
Tomsk	40%
Tyumen	40%
Ulyanovsk	54%
Ufa	42%
Khabarovsk	42%
Chelyabinsk	46%
Yaroslav	41%

Appendix 2. Monthly amount saved by residents of Russian cities for their children's future, thousand RUB

Astrakhan	4.0
Barnaul	4.2
Vladivostok	7.0
Volgograd	6.4
Voronezh	9.4
Yekaterinburg	9.0
Izhevsk	3.4
Irkutsk	6.8
Kazan	8.2
Kemerovo	5.2
Kirov	5.0
Krasnodar	9.3
Krasnoyarsk	10.0
Lipetsk	7.3
Makhachkala	9.4
Moscow	13.4
Naberezhnye Chelny	5.5
Nizhny Novgorod	8.8
Novgorod	4.6
Novosibirsk	5.0
Omsk	3.9
Orenburg	5.5
Penza	8.1
Perm	5.1
Rostov-on-Don	9.2
Ryazan	9.0
Samara	9.6
Saint Petersburg	14.1
Saratov	5.7
Tolyatti	7.2
Tomsk	4.2
Tyumen	8.0
Ulyanovsk	6.6
Ufa	6.2
Khabarovsk	5.2
Chelyabinsk	7.4
Yaroslav	7.2

Appendix 3. Proportion of city residents providing material support to parents and elderly relatives

Astrakhan	72%
Barnaul	51%
Vladivostok	56%
Volgograd	72%
Voronezh	68%
Yekaterinburg	73%
Izhevsk	75%
Irkutsk	55%
Kazan	81%
Kemerovo	62%
Kirov	74%
Krasnodar	73%
Krasnoyarsk	55%
Lipetsk	72%
Makhachkala	84%
Moscow	75%
Naberezhnye Chelny	79%
Nizhny Novgorod	74%
Novgorod	53%
Novosibirsk	52%
Omsk	52%
Orenburg	74%
Penza	72%
Perm	74%
Rostov-on-Don	81%
Ryazan	73%
Samara	73%
Saint Petersburg	70%
Saratov	70%
Tolyatti	71%
Tomsk	63%
Tyumen	68%
Ulyanovsk	72%
Ufa	78%
Khabarovsk	49%
Chelyabinsk	72%
Yaroslav	69%