Executive Summary
Research from the Infra4NextGen project finds broad public recognition across Europe that wealth and inheritance shape people’s chances in life, even though there is little consensus on whether – or how – these inequalities should be addressed.
The data has been collected from the CRONOS-3 panel survey across 11 European countries, comparing attitudes between younger and older respondents. It focuses on whether wealth is seen as an advantage in life, the perceived importance of inheritance, and support for wealth and inheritance taxes as policy tools to reduce inequality.
The report was written by Susan Banducci (University of Birmingham), Dániel Bremer and István György Tóth (Tárki Social Research Institute).
The data found that younger Europeans are generally more likely than older Europeans to see having wealthy parents as important for getting ahead in life, a pattern the authors link to concerns about living costs and constrained upward mobility for the younger generation.
In addition, younger respondents tend to rate inheritance as somewhat more important to accumulating wealth than older respondents do. However, there is widespread opposition to an inheritance tax across all 11 countries, with women, those likely to receive an inheritance, and right-wing party supporters the least supportive, while those over 35, the highly educated, and those who have already received an inheritance are relatively more supportive.
By contrast, a wealth tax attracts considerably more support than an inheritance tax across Europe, particularly among under-35s, although opposition to a wealth tax tends to rise among those who consider themselves wealthy. Finally, the authors suggest that policymakers may need to more clearly communicate that wealth taxes are aimed at the very wealthy, rather than high earners more broadly, in order to build public support.
