Investment, Saving, and Borrowing for Children: Trends by Wealth, Race, and Ethnicity, 1998–2016

Financial Assets Under Children’s Names ($)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on the Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve 2020).

Note: Means per year for families with children in the top 50 percent and bottom 50 percent on wealth distribution, with confidence intervals (shades). All dollar values are in 2016 U.S. dollars. Among all families and within ethno-racial groups, increases over time are statistically significant for families above and beyond median wealth, and are greater for families above median wealth (except among Hispanics). Differences between Blacks and Whites are statistically significant. Differences between Hispanics and Whites are statistically significant.

Education Savings ($)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on the Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve 2020).

Note: Means per year for families with children in the top 50 percent and bottom 50 percent on wealth distribution, with confidence intervals (shades). All dollar values are in 2016 U.S. dollars. When all families are analyzed, increases over time are statistically significant only for families above median wealth. These trends are driven entirely by Whites. Among Blacks, differences across the wealth distribution and over time are not statistically significant. Among Hispanics, increases over time are statistically significant, with no differences between families above and beyond median wealth. Differences between Blacks and Whites are statistically significant. Differences between Hispanics and Whites are statistically significant. In the interest of visual comparability across outcomes, we present education savings trends starting with 1998. The values for 1998 are 0 because data on education savings are collected in the SCF only since 2001 (see data and methods section).

Education Debt ($)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on the Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve 2020).

Note: Means per year for families with children in the top 50 percent and bottom 50 percent on wealth distribution, with confidence intervals (shades). All dollar values are in 2016 U.S. dollars. When all families are analyzed, increases over time are statistically significant, and they are greater for families below median wealth. These trends are driven entirely by Whites. Among Blacks and Hispanics, increases over time are statistically significant for families above and beyond median wealth, and show no statistically significant differences between the two. Differences between Blacks and Whites are not statistically significant. Differences between Hispanics and Whites are statistically significant.