Peer-reviewed article
Perception of financial well-being as a factor of physical and mental health of adolescents
Shaigerova L, Shilko R, Almazova O ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how adolescents' perception of their family's financial situation relates to their physical and mental health. The research involved 506 Russian teenagers aged 14-18 who reported on their family's financial status and their own physical health, stress levels, and happiness. Adolescents who perceived their family's financial situation more positively reported better physical health, and the effect differed by gender: boys who felt financially secure reported greater happiness, while girls showed reduced stress when they perceived worsening finances. The findings suggest that how young people perceive family finances matters for their well-being, though the psychological effects vary between boys and girls.
Key points
- Perception of family financial situation was directly correlated with adolescents' self-assessed physical health (r=0.316, p<0.001) for both boys and girls
- Assessment of changes in financial situation over three years was also linked to physical health self-assessment (r=0.217, p<0.001)
- In boys, better-perceived financial situation was associated with feeling happy (r=0.189, p=0.005)
- In girls, perception of worsening finances showed an inverse relationship with stress experience (r=-0.242, p<0.001)
- No overall relationship was found between financial perception and stress or happiness for the entire sample combined
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional correlational study based on self-report measures, so it cannot establish causation or rule out reverse causation or confounding variables. The study does not specify the country or region beyond Russian context, nor does it include measures of actual financial hardship, only adolescents' perceptions.
Abstract
Introduction The familial financial situation and its perception can be an important factor in the subjective well-being of adolescents, affecting their physical health and psychological state. Objectives To identify the correlation between the perception of the familial financial situation, the physical health and various aspects of the psychological state of adolescents were self-assessed. Methods The study involved 506 adolescents (217 males and 289 females) aged 14 to 18 years (M=16.46; SD=1.07). We analyzed the relationship between participants’ assessment of their family’s financial situation, its changes over the past three years, and the adolescents’ self-report on their physical health, stress experiences, and feelings of happiness. Results Perception of the financial situation (r=0.316;p<0.001) and assessment of its changes (r=0.217;p<0.001) are directly related to the self-assessment of physical health for the entire sample, as well as separately for boys and girls. For the entire sample, there were no links between the perception of the financial situation and the experience of stress and happiness. However, the study of relationships with gender as an independent variable showed that in boys, the financial situation score is associated with feeling happy (r=0.189;p=0.005), and in girls, an inverse relationship was found between the perception of a worsening financial situation and the experience of stress (r=-0.242;p<0.001). Conclusions The perception of the financial situation by adolescents affects the self-assessment of physical health by both boys and girls, but affects different aspects of the psychological state, depending on gender. The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, with the grant 15-18-00109.