A Note From the Guest Coordinator

Abstract

Many are familiar with the financial ruin the recent recession effected: U.S. unemployment above 10%, foreclosure rates at all time highs, and multitrillion dollar investment and home equity losses. Behind the easily calculated financial costs of the recession, though, are costs that are less easily defined - the individual and family costs. For example, home foreclosures likely exacerbated stress for many families. Unemployment probably took its toll on cohabiting and married couples' relationship quality. Finally, as older individuals watched retirement savings dwindle, many may have postponed retirement - some perhaps indefinitely. These ideas are speculative, though, because despite financial issues' potential to influence family life and relationships, family scholars have studied them less than other topics. Zelizer (1994, p. 43) noted, In terms of evidence, to study money in the family is to enter largely uncharted territory. . . . We know less about money matters than about family violence or even marital sex. A decade later, DaIy (2003, p. 778) asserted, have given less attention to understanding how spending behaviors and consumer goods are the basis for the construction of meaning in the everyday experience of family life. Recent scholarship has made similar assertions (Stanley & Einhorn, 2007). These assertions are borne out when examined empirically. A review of 3,400 studies in Family Relations and the Journal of Marriage and Family from 1 980 to 2005 found only 91 articles with a main focus on finances and families; only 9 of those dealt with family relationships (Israelsen & Hatch, 2005). Thus, only 2.6% of these studies examined financial issues within the family context and only 0.2% examined how financial issues were associated with family relationships. Consequently, two research goals regarding the finance-family research gap guided this special issue. The first goal was to publish top quality papers examining how families dealt with financial difficulties. The studies we received in response were novel and timely. Two examples are a study that examined whether the recession pulled more wives into the labor force (Mattingly & Smith, 2010) and another that examined the predictors of using savings or consumer debt during a shortfall in income (Baek & DeVaney, 2010). The studies in this category provide insight into how families have dealt with (and are still dealing with) the effects of the recession. The second research goal was to more broadly stimulate scholarship regarding the association between financial issues and family relations. These broader studies showed that financial issues were associated with adult relationship quality and parent-child relationships. For example, one study demonstrated that pooling financial resources was associated with higher marital quality for wives than for husbands (Addo & Sassler, 2010). Two others explored parental influence on the financial behavior of young adult offspring (Jorgensen & Savia, 2010; Serido, Shim, Mishar, & Tang, 2010). We hope that this special issue might become one of many watershed moments where the discipline of family studies recognizes how central financial issues are to families and to family functioning. Although it already accomplished its two main goals, this issue will be even more successful if it continues to spark research on the ways that financial issues and family relationships intertwine. …