FLI, Rositsa Vartonik, financial literacy, youth, parents

“Our children really do prefer to stay with us, their parents, for a longer time. For the United States this is striking, because there children traditionally leave the family home earlier. In Bulgaria and in southern, more patriarchal countries, this is not particularly surprising. This process became more pronounced around the pandemic, when there were income problems and many people lost their jobs. It was logical for households to come together in order to survive that period.”

This was stated by Rositsa Vartonik, Director of the Financial Literacy Initiative Foundation, in an interview for Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) in connection with a study by the website Moite Pari (“My Money”) on the age at which adults start living independently. A study in the United States shows that Generation Z—young people up to the age of 26—consider it normal to be financially supported for a longer period than their parents find acceptable.

She added that the relatively large number of young people who neither study nor work is worrying, as this creates a serious challenge: these young people are absent from the labour market while relying on their parents for their livelihood.

In the programme Predi Vsichki (“Before Everyone”), Vartonik further emphasised that young people’s financial literacy is a mirror of that of their parents:

“If in a family the prevailing mindset is that parents are obliged to take care of their children for as long as they need it, then during this period children must form their own knowledge and skills related to personal finance management. This is not just about making a budget, but also about developing an understanding that we need to invest in ourselves, because we are the source of our own income. We need to learn to distinguish between what is necessary and what is an unnecessary whim. We need to learn to live within our means. Managing our money is both knowledge and behaviour.”

She also clarified that for the past two years Bulgaria has had a National Strategy for Financial Literacy, with a focus on children and young people.