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LGBTQ Emerging Adults and their Parents: The Significance of Financial Precarity

Sat, August 11, 2:30 to 4:10pm, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 4, Franklin Hall 3

Abstract

Financial precarity during emerging adulthood can be mitigated by parental support. Yet, for LGBTQ emerging adults, the parent-child tie may not protect against financial trouble. Using 2015-2017 data from LGBTQ individuals in Ohio, this study explores how being LGBTQ matters for the material and financial relationship between parents and emerging adult children. Merging research on emerging adulthood, financial precarity, parent-child ties, and sexuality, our findings provide two main contributions to the literature. First, our preliminary findings show children’s coming out to family as non-heterosexual or non-cisgender has far-reaching repercussions for LGBTQ individuals’ short- and long-term experiences, depending on the class position of the family as well as the level of acceptance and support individuals receive. Second, parental rejection and struggles about children’s sexual identity did not necessarily preclude parents from helping their children financially. This study provides new insight into how sexuality shapes both parent-child dynamics as well as the effect of sexuality and parental financial help on experiences of LGBTQ financial precarity.

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