The Inheritance Trap

Anyone under 40 is caught in the Inheritance Economy; where opportunity is defined not by what you learn or earn, but by what you inherit. Family wealth is keeping families together but widening social equality in the process and this is only going to intensify. Today's millennials are at the epicentre of a great wealth transfer. Over the next three decades roughly GBP5.5 trillion of family money and assets will be passed down the generations, altering the financial and social dynamics of the country. Forget the generation gap; the real fault line within generations is now between those who can rely on family financial support, and those that can't. How is this extraordinary movement of familial wealth shaping the lives of those who give, and those who hope to receive? How will this slow-motion financial revolution shape the lives of those who won't benefit from it? The inheritance economy is a story of winners and losers, but it's also a story of huge social change, economic realignment and political controversy. Centred on families' stories that illustrate the economic dilemma in Britain, taking in interviews with leading historians, economists, sociologists and politicians along the way, Inheritance Trap is a fresh and compelling exploration of our recent past and a future that will be shaped - for better or worse - by the largest transference of wealth in human history. A timely and important survey of a burning issue of our time. Forget intergenerational unfairness, we're already living in something more pervasive; an inheritance economy which is restricting opportunity, forcing families together and pulling society apart.