Report

The Demographics of Wealth 2015, Essay No. 3: Age, Birth Year and Wealth

Abstract: This essay documents significant differences in financial choices and financial outcomes across the life cycle (that is, at different stages of life) and across birth-year cohorts (that is, comparing different groups of people who were born at about the same time). Like race-, ethnicity- and education-related disparities, the age- and birth year-related differences described here have existed at least since 1989, when our data begin. We show that gaps in several financial behaviors and financial outcomes related to age and year of birth have grown larger in recent years.

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Part of Series: Community Development Publications and Reports

Publication Date: 2015-07

Pages: 33 pages

Note: The Demographics of Wealth is a series of essays written by the staff of the Center for Household Financial Stability (2013-2021). The essays are based on the staff’s analysis of over a quarter-century’s worth of data collected by the Federal Reserve through its Survey of Consumer Finances. The results of the survey provide the most comprehensive picture of American families’ balance sheets and financial behavior over time. The series confirms the conventional wisdom that more education is associated with more income and wealth. But the essays also show that inherited demographic characteristics—your race or ethnicity, your age and birth year, and even your parents’ level of education—profoundly shape the economic and financial opportunities you have and the outcomes you achieve.