Inheritances and Inequality across and within Generations
By Andrew Hood & Robert Joyce Today’s elderly have much more wealth to bequeath than their predecessors, primarily as the result of rising homeownership rates and rising house prices. At the same time, today’s young adults will find it harder to accumulate wealth of their own than previous generations did, due to the sharp fall in homeownership, the dramatic decline of defined benefit pensions in the private sector and the stagnation in household incomes. Together, these trends mean inherited wealth is...