Bettina Hünteler, Theresa Nutz, Jonathan Wörn, Intergenerational family life courses and wealth accumulation in Norway, Social Forces, 2024;, soae151,
https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soae151
Study reveals how generational change and family events are associated with a person's wealth
Wealth is one of the strongest indicators of social status, acting as a key indicator of social inequality and influencing access to education, health care and professional success. In a study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the University of Cologne, GESIS and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health examined how financial wealth changes related to various generational transitions within families. The study used data from Norwegian registries and focused on people born in 1953.
The results of the study show that people who lose their parents late in life (at age 60, on average), become parents late (at age 28) and become grandparents late (at age 60) accumulate the most wealth. Childless individuals start at the bottom of the ranking (measured from the age of 40), but in the long run, they overtake those who became parents (at 23 age) and grandparents (at age 50) early, especially if those without children experience the death of their parents later in life. Early parenthood and grandparenthood are the only patterns in which wealth declines in the long term compared to the other family patterns. In addition, losing their second parent later in life (from the mid-50s onwards), is associated with relatively more wealth, regardless of whether and when people become parents or grandparents.