Family wealth dictates our life choices. So is the Bank of Mum and Dad now behind so many of society’s growing inequalities?

You know the Bank of Mum and Dad when you see it: it’s your friend who seems broke, but always has a safety net, or who suddenly (but discreetly) acquires the deposit for a home. It’s those who stayed with their parents while they saved for a flat, or stuck it out in a profession they were passionate about even though the wages are chronically low. It’s those who do not need to consider the financial costs of having children. It’s those whose grandparents are covering nursery or university fees, with the Bank of Grandma and Grandad already driving an economic wedge between different cohorts in generations Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) and Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2000s).

This is the picture we know, but the Bank of Mum and Dad is not just a luxury confined to the 1% – it is also evident in families like mine. I grew up in a working-class household and was the first person in my family to get a degree, but it was the fact my parents had scrimped in the 1980s to purchase properties in London (and allowed me to crash in one throughout my 20s) that has arguably been the true source of opportunities in my life.

In recent years, we have rightly widened the conversation about privilege in society. And yet how honest are we about one of the most obvious forces shaping anyone under 45: the presence or absence of a parental safety net? The truth is that we live in an inheritocracy. If you’ve grown up in the 21st century, your opportunities are increasingly determined by your access to the Bank of Mum and Dad, rather than by what you earn or learn. The economic roots of this story go back to the 1980s, but it accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis, as private wealth soared and wage growth stalled. In the 2020s, rather than a meritocracy – where hard work pays off – we have evolved into an inheritocracy, based on family wealth.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    4·
    2 hours ago

    I’m in this picture, and I do not like it. Well, okay, it’s better than not being in this picture. When I die I’m going to give as much as possible to charity, for what it’s worth.

    This is the picture we know, but the Bank of Mum and Dad is not just a luxury confined to the 1% – it is also evident in families like mine. I grew up in a working-class household and was the first person in my family to get a degree, but it was the fact my parents had scrimped in the 1980s to purchase properties in London (and allowed me to crash in one throughout my 20s) that has arguably been the true source of opportunities in my life.

    Hate to break it to the author, but that sounds like somebody who started in the (upper?) middle class, and now is in the 5% at least. That’s properties plural, in London. C’mon, everyone with money points to someone they know that’s the next digit up so they can be just average. I find that tacky.

    Edit: Okay, I actually read the article. The author points that out themselves:

    But is this really the true story? Or have I just fed you a “working-class done good” tale, because that’s how I attempt to justify my own exceedingly privileged position? One academic investigation into the Bank of Mum and Dad found that its beneficiaries tend to frame this considerable financial support not in terms of their own individual privilege, but as evidence of their parents’ hard work and upward mobility. Whereas once parents lived vicariously through their children’s successes, now it seems their kids live vicariously through their parents’ struggles. And there lies the problem.

    I’d also like to draw attention to this bit, which really resonates:

    Young people’s frustration is so pronounced these days because this reality runs contrary to what we were told growing up. Then the message was, work hard, get a degree and you will be rewarded.

    I literally don’t know of anyone this actually worked for, at least at stage of our lives. What were the teachers smoking?