The earnings gap between men with richer parents and their counterparts from less well-off backgrounds is widening.
This is according to an August 2017 working paper (pdf) by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
IFS recognises evidence of a significant relationship between parents’ income and sons’ earnings in the UK, and that this relationship has strengthened over time.
The paper extends this by exploring a broader measure of net family income as an outcome, and finds that:
- Men from poorer backgrounds are twice as likely to be out of work as those from richer backgrounds
- Those from rich backgrounds paid more than twice as much in income tax and National Insurance as those from poor backgrounds in the year 2012
- More than one-in-three men aged 42 from the poorest fifth of families did not live with a partner in 2012, compared with only one-in-seven men from high income backgrounds.