Inheritances, gifts and the distribution of wealth

In wave 6, the ELSA survey included recall questions on the lifetime receipt of inheritances and substantial gifts (defined as those worth over £1,000 in today’s money). This means that, for the first time, we have data on the lifetime receipt of inheritances and gifts, alongside detailed wealth statistics, for a large sample of today’s cohorts of older individuals. In this chapter, we use this new ELSA data to document the pattern of inheritances and gifts received by today’s cohorts of older individuals and the impact these transfers may have had on the distribution of wealth for these cohorts.