Children’s self-control and family savings for education: An empirical examination from China

•Family savings for children are positively associated with children’s self-control.•The savings and self-control link is persistent across analyses with different savings measures.•Asset-building policy for children has potential to promote children’s psychological development. Individual life success depends critically on one’s development and mastery of self-control during childhood, and thus, it is important to understand the sources and development of children’s self-control. We create a sample of children aged 10–15 (N = 2,182) using data from a nationally representative survey in China and examine the relationship between children’s self-control and family savings for children’s future education. Analyses include children’s, mothers’, and families’ characteristics as control variables. The results suggest that family savings for children are positively and significantly associated with children’s self-control scores. The effect size of family savings on children’s self-control is modest yet meaningful. The study highlights the significance in terms of policy and practice of asset building for children; asset building for children could be a potential policy tool to promote child development.