A Note From the Guest Coordinator

• Author: Jeffrey Dew
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00606.x
• Published date: 01 October 2010
• Date: 01 October 2010

JEFFREY DEW Utah State University

A Note From the Guest Coordinator

Many are familiar with the financial ruin

the recent recession effected: U.S. unemploy-

ment above 10%, foreclosure rates at all

time highs, and multitrillion dollar invest-

ment and home equity losses. Behind the

easily calculated financial costs of the reces-

sion, though, are costs that are less easily

defined—the individual and family costs. For

example, home foreclosures likely exacerbated

stress for many families. Unemployment prob-

ably took its toll on cohabiting and married

couples’ relationship quality. Finally, as older

individuals watched retirement savings dwin-

dle, 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, Daly (2003,

p. 778) asserted, ‘‘we 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 exam-

ined empirically. A review of 3,400 studies

in Family Relations and the Journal of Mar-

riage and Family from 1980 to 2005 found only

Departmentof Family, C onsumer, and Human Development,

Utah State University, UMC 2705, Logan, UT 84322

(jeff.dew@usu.edu).

91 articles with a main focus on finances and

families; only 9 of those dealt with family rela-

tionships (Israelsen & Hatch, 2005). Thus, only

2.6% of these studies examined financial issues

within the family context and only 0.2% exam-

ined how financial issues were associated with

family relationships.

Consequently, two research goals regarding

the finance-family research gap guided this spe-

cial issue. The first goal was to publish top qual-

ity 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 relation-

ship 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 & Savla, 2010;

Serido, Shim, Mishar, & Tang, 2010).

We hope that this special issue might become

one of many watershed moments where the dis-

cipline of family studies recognizes how central

financial issues are to families and to family

functioning. Although it already accomplished

Family Relations 59 (October 2010): 341 – 342 341

DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00606.x