Dr Eliza Filby
Author
The commonality when they describe their story and their help from their parents was not the opportunity that they had had but how hard their parents had worked.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So now people will defer to their parents’ working class roots rather than their middle class status.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So, good afternoon everybody. For those that don’t know me, I am Rachel Tudor, I’m a trainee here at Mishcon in the Corporate Tax Department. Um, thanks everybody for joining today. Um, Dr Eliza Filby is a contemporary historian and generation, uh, of generational change. She advises organisations around the world through Marula, her research practice exploring shifts in work, wealth and values. Eliza writes for The Times on money and wealth and for City AM on the future of work. She also hosts the podcast, It’s All Relative. She published her first book, God and Mrs Thatcher: The Battle for Britain’s Soul in 2015 and published Inheritocracy: It’s Time to talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad in September 2024 which went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller. So Eliza, thank you very much for joining us here today.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Pleasure, pleasure.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Um, so one of the first things that really struck me when I was reading Inheritocracy is just how much it really related to my life and to my friends, to my family, whether that’s my cousins who are relying on their, you know, their parents for help with childcare or a friend of mine that’s mysteriously bought a house all of a sudden, um, or, you know, some of my friends that are still living with their parents. For those people that haven’t read the book in the room, can you summarise what Inheritocracy is?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yes. So it’s a kind of made up word that is deliberately provocative and the theory behind it is this idea of we’re creating society where increasingly it’s not what you earn because wages don’t buy us what they bought our parents. It’s not what you learn because a return on the investment of education is declining. It’s whether you have access to the bank of mum and dad that is determining whether you have certain opportunities or not and I wanted to call it that because I wanted people to reflect on this, this force in society that to a large degree is benign, right? The family, um, it’s about helping one’s loved ones and supporting ones loved ones. But it’s also actually become such a powerful economic force that it’s really shaping our society and it’s the complete opposite of what potentially we think we live in, which is a meritocracy.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah. So can you explain for those people in the room, um, what the means for intergenerational and intragenerational differences. Because I’m sure I’m not alone in being the person around the table that is saying to my parents, oh you had it way easier than I did.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
But it’s not just about that anymore. It’s also about the differences between me and my friends or me and my peers, so.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah, I mean I think the first thing to say is that it’s a memoir, right? It’s an embarrassing, um, memoir where I was just kind of determined to talk about how my parents had helped me because there’s no way that I could write a book about the bank of mum and dad and not admit that I was a product of the bank of mum and dad, right? So, and the root of it was actually this desire to open up the conversation because a lot of friendship groups, certainly a lot of families and actually a lot of politicians don’t talk about it. You know, I, I, several people in the book, there’s, there’s, it’s not just my story, it’s lots of different people that, whose story is told. Some have help from, had help from the bank of mum and dad, others haven’t. But one consistent thread was how no one wanted to talk about openly and how, I remember one woman I interviewed said to me, you know, I don’t want rich friends, I don’t want nepo babies as friends because I know that I would just take such sort of umbrage at the fact that I’ve had to work really hard to get where I am and perhaps some of my friends, um, that were nepo babies wouldn’t. And she was really harsh but also incredibly honest and I think one of the things that I wanted to spark with this book was this conversation of how this has come about. And the central thesis of the book is actually the baby boomers are the exception. We’ve been trying to sort of chase sort of in, if you like, what that they had and they had access to three things, we haven’t essentially. Anyone under the age of 45 has not had access to the same rising wages. Has not had access to the same level of affordable housing and has not had access to the same decent pensions. And those are three things that the baby boomers have had, not all okay. It’s important to not over generalise but the previous generation before them didn’t have either. So they are a weird kind of anomaly. Now Gen X, the generation after them, who’s potentially your parents maybe as well. Have had it but saw a closing door on pensions. Saw a massive economic fall out after the 2008 financial crisis and had slightly higher house prices. But they too have had this, this economic windfall. And so what’s happened really since the 1980s is this massive build up of wealth, unparalleled. Completely unprecedented build up of wealth in the older generations and it’s in property, obviously increasing asset prices. It’s in pensions, okay half of the boomer’s wealth is in pensions, not, not just in property. And what’s happened is, is that you now have 1 in 5 baby boomers in the UK is a millionaire, right? So this huge disproportionate amount of wealth in that, in that generation. And then, after 2008 this generation called the millennials and Gen Z, you know, enter the workplace where wages basically stagnate, right? Not in law. Law and private equity by the way are the two professions that have kept a pace with house prices but still it’s, it’s very, it’s still very expensive to be young, right, particularly in London. And what happened post-2008 to the economy is with quantitative easing, you know, what happens when you have quantitative easing is the asset prices rise, rise, rise, rise, rise. And also you had certain other things become more expensive as well. Education becomes ever more expensive as we know. The price of that degree went up and as more and more of us got degrees, the value of that degree goes down, right? So the return on that investment and now it’s a 40 year graduate tax. It’s not a loan, it’s a tax, right. And also childcare became ever more expensive. So this weird kind of evolution happened that as house prices, as education, as childcare. Big ticket items in life became more and more expensive, you’ve suddenly got this rise of the bank of mum and dad because young people were reliant on their parents to either stay at home so they could build deposit, help with a deposit, help with rents, help with tuition fees, help with the cost of education, now help with childcare. And those that did not have that parental support were quite often frozen out of the housing market, potentially frozen out of the rental market, particularly in London, find that they spent more each month on their childcare costs than their mortgage if they have one and also have a debt, educational debt if they made it to university, for life. So it’s this huge intergenerational disparity between very wealthy older and struggling young but then within the young, the ones that are making it or frankly, managing it I should say, are the ones that have the dependency of mum and dad. And when we wrote the book we did some brilliant polling asking people, you know, um, do you think we live in an Inheritocracy and 63% of under 45s said, yes we do. 40% of over 45s, said we do. So there’s also like older generations don’t quite understand what’s happened.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
I can’t say how many parents this book has been bought for, right? Look mum, it’s been really shit while I’ve been young, like compared to you, your youth. And I think there is that kind of…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…it, it’s, it’s like we haven’t quite understood what’s happened. The markets become dysfunctional, the State has retracted, the family have stepped up. And the divide is between those that have that, that can be a safety net and a leap and those that don’t.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So what does that mean for education because I’m definitely not alone in, you know, parents saying, you need to work hard at school, you need to get good grades, you need to make sure you go to good university. Not for value of education in and of itself but also so you can go far in life and you can achieve what you want to achieve. What does inheritocracy mean for education and for social mobility?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm, mm. I think we grew up in, I mean, I’m a lot older than you. So let’s say we grew up in the same era. Um, I think the 80s and 90s when I was at school was very about get to university, get to university, and particularly girls, you know, for a long time the education system undervalued, undermined women. And then, phew, we beat, we started to beat the guys and in the 1990s, women started to outnumber men at university and that has been the story ever since, right. In the educational race, women have won, well and truly. Even now, increasingly in stem subjects where traditionally they haven’t. But the key, the key thing is that we believe that we lived in a meritocracy and this idea also that education meant opportunity. So if I was diligent and conscientious and I was the first person in my family to get a degree. So I was very much indoctrinated in this idea of get to university be, you know, do that thing. I went to university and never left, right? I did a BA, MA, PhD. I really was on the educational track, right? I really did believe it and I, and this is where the book is like wholly personal because I realised that I could do all the education, literally there was to be done, and by my early 30s, I was a university lecturer on £12,000 a year with a part-time cleaning job and no security in my job, no money in my job and still dependent, very fortunately, for a London base because my mum had bought a five bedroom house in Tooting for 28 grand. And let me stay in it and it was a building site but she let me stay in it. So basically I was only able to do a PhD, because of my mum and dad. I was only able to afford to live in London, because of my mum and dad, I was still going round there stealing toilet roll and eating Sunday dinner. Like, I was like, hang on a minute, like I’ve done all this education stuff and it literally, literally has lead me not down the path of financial, well I should have become a lawyer obviously, but I didn’t and, but I, it was this sort or reckoning of, oh hang on a minute there’s, there’s a really important thing happening here which is education is important. We know that we have a sink or swim education culture in this country where you either sink or swim and for those that sink there’s not a lot, there’s not a lot. It’s changing a bit but not really.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Not enough. Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Like the T, T levels and all of that and the apprentices in this country have been completely obliterated. But even for those that succeed in the education system, the cost of it they have to carry unlike any other previous generation but not just the cost of the tuition fee, but like the cost of university accommodation has increased by 18% since 2020. Like, even have, doing the degree…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
That’s dreadful.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…is now such a burden, not only on the individual but increasingly on the parents. So the cost of the education is forcing, I think, Gen Z to have a different conversation than millennials did. When I was at university we were all having a good time, you know, not really thinking about money certainly, not really thinking about the debt. Tuition fees were £1,000 a year, right? I’m that old. By the time I was teaching at university, they’d gone to £9,000 a year and cust, and students were seeing themselves as customers. And I got out of higher education before the lockdown Covid, which really changed the conversation because they were like, this is basically crap YouTube. Why am I paying £9,000 for this. So there, that conversation was even more intensified…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…where they’re like, what’s the return on this investment? Because this is going to saddle me with a 50k debt for the rest of the next four years.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Oh and the rest, I think last time I checked I was on like 68 grand of, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah. And that’s if you, you know, if you do a Masters it’s even more profound.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So, so the conversations around education has evolved. Now you’ve seen different choices of degree. So more stem subjects, fewer English or, or foreign language degrees for example. I think that might change now with AI, you know, it was, you know seven years ago it was all like, be a coder that’s a secure job. It’s not anymore. Um, so I think also you’ve got the rise of self-education and mutes and the ability to learn outside of the university education system.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Sometimes for free. So I think the conversation is now progressing in a way that it’s not like get a degree you’re on a path. It’s why are we saddling 21 year olds with debt for life that’s not actually going to provide them with an education or a qualification for life. For a working life that potentially will have to be like up until your mid-70s.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, and so the conversation is, in the age of AI, we’re going to have to stay agile, we’re going to keep learning, we’re going to have to outpace AI frankly and is that education that we got at 21really going to facilitate that? And so I think that, that’s where we, we’re not there yet.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
But one of the interesting stats in the book which is a poll that was conducted on millennial parents, you know, so asking them about their kids who are not at university yet of course and just 12% of millennial parents think their kids should go to university.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
That’s really low.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
It’s really low.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Really low yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Why? Is it because they think their kids are not bright enough? No. It’s because they don’t, they’re not having done that track convinced by it for the next generation that they are now, you know, raising. And so I think the conversation will move quite quickly around, around the financial model, around the academic model. It’s crazy how much ChatGPT is forcing this because most education now is basically done on ChatGPT. Um, so I think even since I’ve written the book, it’s not just inheritocracy that’s influencing the conversation around education. It’s also the fact that learning is learning by rote stuff that basically now comes…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
It’s gone out the window.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So this change in conversation as someone who’s at the very early stages of, you know, their career. What does this mean for the future of work?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm. I think and I write and think a lot about this, um, and for anyone interested I wrote a substack called Career Advice for my 7 year old. Um, I think the first certainty is you’re looking at a much longer working life and that’s not because we’re all much poorer than our parents but I think we, we want to work longer, right? I think you’re definitely looking at a multi-stage career, um, in which you’re not going to have one career. Gen Z it’s been estimated will have around seven different careers, you know.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Seven feels really high.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Seven feels really high.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Probably in law, you know, fewer.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Pick the right law.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
If I think about my mum, she worked for the same company her entire life. So she, she changed kind of roles in that company but she worked for the same. We know that model’s dead. And then if, if I look at, you know, um, people that are sort of 15 years ahead of me. Most of them have had the same career. That model’s gone, you know, I’m 45 and I’ve, I’ve had three distinct phases in my career that are very different.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Very different. Um, and, and I think that is becoming the norm. I think it’s important to say, that is a privilege as well. You know, one of the things that bank of mum and dad has financed a lot is career changes.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, quarter life crisis.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Actually study or, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, my, my sister went from working in TV to being a midwife, that was, you know, funded basically by mum and dad.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
I think my brother’s thinking about a career change and he’ll be moving back to Birmingham and move, live with my mum, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah, and I think when I say, bank rolled by mum and dad, I don’t mean like your mum and dad is giving your brother a load of cash, it’s just that my sister was able to…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…be a midwife student and live at home. You know, so, so I think, um, I think multi-stage careers, I think we’re going to have to self-educate more, um, and pay for our ed, our upskilling more because companies don’t pay to, for you to change your career. They actively want you to stay in the same career. Um, and even when you’re in that career they very rarely, unless you’re sort of leader signposted, you’re not invested in at all. And I think that’s, I think the State isn’t going to pay for you to change your career either because it’s not even going to pay for you to get out of the education system. In fact you’ve got to pay it.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So, so I think one of the things that will typify Gen Z's careers is that you’re going to start paying, really investing in your self-education and you already see this. I mean, I, you know, I can’t count the number of times I sit on the tube and look over at someone else’s phone and they’re learning. They’re not watching, you know, Married at First Sight, like I am. They’re, you know, they are on, you know, learning to code or whatever. Probably not code that doesn’t quite, prompt, they’re learning to prompt.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So, so I think there’s that self-taught, self-educated, self-enhancement I think is going to be huge and I think also, um, we’re going to have to really manage our careers with our caring responsibilities and I’m not talking just about kids here, I’m talking about aging parents and there’s a whole chapter in the book about this but I’ve become ever more sort of evangelical about this. Is that we’re living in an aging society with fewer younger people, smaller families but also living longer with illnesses and our parents, looking after our parents is going to be probably taking up a bigger chunk of our life than looking after kids.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
But not only a bigger chunk of our life but also potentially a bigger chunk of our money because social care is phenomenally expensive, um, my grandma was in social care for a while and that cost I think upwards of, you know, two grand a week. I mean we were really lucky that it was a great care home.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
But it was really very expensive so this inheritocracy or this inheritance that we’re sort of thinking about or might, might get. Is that a guarantee?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
No. So really interesting. So, so when you look at the data, you know, um, for not 80% of millennials think they’re getting an inheritance, right? That’s wild to me, right? Um, and in fact there was one interview that I did with a woman in the book. She was a lawyer and she said, I’m not contributing to a pension because at the moment there’s just so many outgoings and I can’t afford to but I know that my father-in-law when he, he kicks the bucket, there’s going to be loads of cash there. And I was like, wow that’s shows tremendous faith in your marriage, number one. But also like, that inheritance coming through. Because there’s no guarantee. And so one of the things that the book tries to document is, is that actually most people will not get cash when your parent’s die. It’s, it’s the way our inheritance laws work, as I’m sure you know, is that you’re taxed on it unless you give it earlier. And if you give it earlier, preferably before 7 years. It’s a gift. And what’s happened over the last really, really from the 80s but really focussed in the 2010s when this threat, this concept of the bank of mum and dad was starting to be labelled, was that parents realised their kids at 30 needed the money, right, to buy a house. It was tax efficient to gift money and not wait when they die. So unlike America where most people give money at the point of death. Here we give money at probably the point of need and for tax efficient reasons.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So if you look at the rates of inheritance tax, they’re like 6% of estates paying inheritance tax and it’s mostly bad financial planning, right? So just 6% and we know the super rich do Trusts and all sorts of fabulous things so they don’t pay anything. So, so it’s really in, sort of, important to get our head around is the bank of mum and dad isn’t inheritance quite often. It’s gifting and we know that money compounds. The earlier you get it, the better, right? So one of the things that, um, I had a great conversation with Oregha Uwagba who wrote a really good book about money. I don’t know if, she’s a really good writer and she said to me, the thing is, is my friends that got this gift in their 20s that were able to buy a flat and then compound and buy a house and then buy a bigger house and then by the time they hit their 40s, they don’t need, they don’t need anymore. They’ve, they’ve had the, the early gift, the early investment and it compounded with interest. And it’s the ones that have to wait potentially for any sort of money that actually…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Miss out.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…are disadvantaged and you think, you’re disadvantaged? You’re inheriting money. But actually there was a disadvantage of getting that later. There’s all sorts of layers of, of nuance…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…when we’re talking about inheritance and when people are, are, are, you know, sort of getting money from their parents but certainly the later you get it. The average millennial will inherit around 60, 60 to 63. Gen Z, more likely 68 because as people live longer, that inheritance at the point of death will be later.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Author
And so it won’t go on you, it’ll go on your kids or maybe even your grandkids, you know.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Do you think this is changing the rela, like our relationship with our parents then? Or the kind of stages of life we have as well?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm. Yeah so there, there’s a whole chapter in the book about how basically I was able to rely on my parents for a London base and therefore I didn’t grow up for a long time. And I had a great time. I had a wild time in my 20s and early 30s. Didn’t really think about adult responsibility at all. Indulged in this PhD that took me three years and then another three years to write a book and again, I hit my mid-30s and I remember my dad sitting me down and saying, I think you’d better think about your future. Which was really embarrassing because I didn’t want to and also he hadn’t. I mean, he was the sort of rather bohemian sort of, you know, uh, wanderer all his life. Um, and I, I did remember thinking, I’ve managed to have this indulgent, freedom driven, uh, fun, kidulthood that a lot of my friends who didn’t have a London base. They all got really serious jobs, really early, like I did not. And, or some of them were looking after their parents, you know, sending money home. You know, and, and I didn’t have any of that responsibility. Now the moment I really woke up was when my dad got terminally ill and that care reversal process.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Inevitably had to happen and you know, he said to me quite brutally, you know, I’m going to make this quick and he said, I don’t want you, you girls – because I’m one of three – spending all your time looking after me. And, you know, we did, we all took off, I took off six months of work, my other sister, she’s a doctor thankfully, that was hugely helpful and beneficial. My other sister, you know, we all had to rally round and look after my father. And it was really horrific and at the same time I had a, a, um, a young son and that duality of basically being confronted by life and death was like, okay, right, now I’m the giver and the carer rather than just the receiver.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, and then during, um, half way through the Pandemic my mum moved in with us, after my father had died and, you know, it coincided with me hitting 40 and it was like, oh shit, like was like another wakeup call of, of I am parenting my parents now.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And it’s interesting because I think we, particularly women, um, if you look at what’s happened over the last 25 years, is we’ve never had so much freedom. We’ve never had so much freedom. Women, young women now are out earning young men in the major cities across the world. We’re out educating men. We are more likely to leave home before sons, you know, when we talk about the bank of mum and dad or the hotel of mum and dad. Boys, sons, get more than daughters, right? But I think women leave the home earlier because they know that at some point they are going to have to be the care, you know, a carer.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, in whatever capacity they chose to. But we’ve had tremendous freedom and I think that the wake-up call for me was I no longer have that freedom. I have responsibility of care. Now there’s all sorts of injustice and inequality, um, involved in that, of course there is. But I, I interviewed this woman, um, from Mumbai called Alina, um, in the book and she said to me, she said, I can’t even believe you’re writing a book about inheritocracy…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…or the bank of mum and dad. Like why is this even thing. Because you know, in, in Asian culture, you know, she was saying, you know, it, it’s expected. My father was saving for my wedding from the when I was born, my parents funded my education…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…of course they did, you know, they bought us our first flat and our in-laws combined, you know, of course but then in four years’ time I’m going back to India and I’m going to look after my, not just my mother and father, but my in-laws as well and we’re all going to be living in a big multi-generational household and that’s just how it’s expected. And I think one of the problems in the West is that, that comes as a massive shock.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, and particularly for women that have had a lot of freedom and I think motherhood, certainly came as a massive shock to me. Um, what do you mean there’s no maternity leave or infrastructure or child carers, you know, basically wiping out my wages. What is this? I’ve been, you know, bought, you know, groomed on girl power and all sorts of gender equality narrative that don’t actually work in the real world.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Damn. And it’s the same with elder care.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, and, and I think that’s, um, there’s lots of bigger conversations we can have about that but I think I wanted to not just talk about the money flowing down the family tree but the fact that the care is going to flow upwards and it can’t just be daughters, it has to be sons as well.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And actually one of the positive stories in the book is I interviewed a lot of young men looking after elderly parents and there is signs that sons are beginning to do a lot more on the care front of the elderly than, than as much as daughters.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So is inheritocracy and the kind of changing shift in culture really shaping gender roles as well then? Would you say?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, yeah, I mean I think, I think there’s a point to the sort of gender imbalance, the gender pay gap when it comes to inheritance. Sons get more. Um, I think…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Also that women own a lot more wealth because they tend to outlive their, their husbands on the whole.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yes, yes, yes and I think there is, one of the things that’s happening is, is it’s not just that, um, it’s not just the bank of mum and dad because quite frequently, you know, more often than not, dad dies before mum.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And so it becomes actually grandma becomes this incredibly important economic force in the family. Um, and now you’re getting not just the bank of mum and dad, the bank of grandma and granddad.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, you know around 28% of grandmas and grandparents have funded first time buyers in this country so you getting, this is generational now, you’re getting the Inheritocracy playout in, in multiple, across multiple generations.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
My friend’s just put down a deposit from her grandma so again it really speaks so yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
See, see, and I think, um, if, if the patriarch dies you get the gender transfer of wealth before it goes down the family tree.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And you know, it happened within my family. My father died. My parents have been very savvy, um, when it came to property in the 80s, um, and my mum inherited it all and it was really interesting because although she had been a female breadwinner, she’d always made joint financial decisions with my father and then she became this like, you know, Mummy Dollar Bucks, you know, she was like, okay, I have all the financial power, I’ve never had that before. Right who needs a house? I mean she was, you know, and, and, and actually she gave too much away.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, and, and so it was like this really weird, uh, kind of dynamic where suddenly we were looking after mum in terms of her doctor appointments and, and where she was going to live and all of this kind of stuff but she was the economic powerhouse of the family. Um, and that’s now becoming increasingly common. I mean, I did a, a big report on, on wealthy widows and I remember I interviewed one woman and she was like, it’s great, like literally I’ve, I up until the age of sort of 73 I’ve never paid a bill in my life and she’d been a wayward sort of, you know, um, model in the 60s and met her husband in the Caribbean and, you know, he’d paid for everything and she’d suddenly found herself with all this money and all these problems because when she kind of lifted the veil on, or her bank did rather on all her husband’s finances, she found debts and, and all sorts of complications, all sorts of stuff she had no idea about but also she was like, I bought a house he would have hated. I went on holidays he would never have come on. She was like, I am living my best life and, and I think there’s, that’s a really interesting dynamic for a generation of women who had never had financial empowerment.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm, mm. And you, you’ve touched on this a little bit but I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about whether Inheritocracy is the UKs issue or whether this is something we’re seeing more worldwide?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Oh it’s completely worldwide and, um, for those that have the time and, and the, uh, and the patience, do read Thomas Briccetti’s Capital because really that’s the, the intellectual sort of, um, brick of, of, of, of analysis and data and work that, that really I think points to this idea of the rise of the Inheritocracy. We are seeing the biggest transference of wealth in human history and there’s always been inheritance, there’s nothing new about the concept of, you know, the rich have always, have, have always kind of, you know, passed their money down. But what’s specific about this is the economics of being young have never been more expensive. And that’s the same in America. It’s increasingly now true in China, it’s increasingly true, um, certainly, um, in different parts of the world. But also you’ve got that generational disparity with that concentration of wealth in the older generations. It’s slightly different in China, it’s, it’s more Gen X rather than baby boomers. It’s slightly different in the US where you have higher wages, um, slightly more affordable housing but not in the cities. You know, they’re national nuances and differences but we are seeing an increasing importance of that in her, inheritance being the definer of opportunity globally for the young.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Sure.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
I’m quite conscious that, you know, we’re both white self-defined middle class women.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Um, is this something or is inheritocracy a very different thing for other communities and other cultures in the UK or is it, you know, something that is very specific to, you know, upper and middle classes?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
It’s a really good question because I would say up until the point my father died, I never would have said I was middle class, right? Which is odd because obviously with three degrees there’s a certain degree of…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…entry into the middle. I grew up in a very working class, culturally working class household. Um, my grandfather won our house in a card game and put the deeds to the house in my grandmother’s name so she couldn’t, uh, he couldn’t bet them again.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Smart man.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, yeah. And, and as I say, I was the first person to, in my family, to go, to get a degree and, you know, what is critical in this weirdly is if I’d, if you’d have asked me fifteen years ago, you know, where, and I’d be, I’d say I was culturally working class. Whatever that means. And you do get this. There’s a brilliant academic survey that analysed people that were first time buyers who’d had help from mum and dad.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm hmm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And the commonality when they describe their story and their help from their parents was not the opportunity that they had had, but how hard their parents had worked.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So now people will defer to their parents working class roots rather than their middle class status.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Oh it’s definitely something I’m guilty of as well, 100%.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah, yeah. So actually class, it’s, it’s not I think easy enough to say, particularly because the Thatcher period in this country was determined by a lot of working class people getting on the housing ladder. It’s not easy to say, oh it’s all middle class people that have inheritance or gifts.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Because actually it’s not. There’s a lot of working class like families that have assets that have passed that, passed that down. So there’s a big discussion in that, in the book about class but obviously it’s most predominantly in middle class, um, families and it’s interesting if, on our data that we, um, that we were asking people, um, uh, do, do you think, uh, you are reliant on the bank of mum and dad? And do you think we live in a Inheritocracy? In all of these conversations the one demographic that didn’t want to admit publicly to their friends that they were reliant on the bank of mum and dad were men in London, earning over £100,000. And that’s I think quite ex, you know, obvious as to why that is, is that perception of I should be able to self-fund my family. I should be, you know, I’ve on paper made it.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
When in actual fact they can only live in wherever they are living because they’ve got parental help. Um, but to your point around sort of, um, diversity…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
… and how important that is because I think one of the things I wanted to, to demonstrate in the book was the breadth of attitudes and experiences. So if you look at the hotel of mum and dad for example, where is it most common? In the Bangladeshi community, right?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Where it’s a social expectation if you like almost but part also economic constraints.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
That you live at home for a lot longer of your, of your early adulthood. If you look at, for example, which demographic is most, um, open around talking about money inheritance. It’s in the African community.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Where they have culturally a very different kind of, um, expectations and openness around talking about money. Where is it least talked about? White British communities. So, so I think there’s the cultural, there’s differences around culture but then there’s also the economic disadvantage of being first of second generation immigrant.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, um, and I think that’s really something that I tease out in the book where, um, you know, in many instances if you have an economy where the State is withdrawn, the markets dysfunctional but the family step up, quite often that economic dynamic favours kind of first or second generation immigrant communities.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
That are more family centric because they are economically and quite often culturally, forced to be that entrenched, if, if you understand what I’m saying?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
So, so when I was speaking to Oregha Uwagba, she was saying, you know, everyone assumes that, you know, my family is socially mobile because I’m, you know, um, second generation immigrant from Nigeria. But she was like, actually both my parents are university educated. They experienced downwards social mobility when they came to the UK. We lived in Peckham but I got a scholarship to a private school and then I went to Oxford and, you know, firmly entered the literati of, of the English middle class. And she was like this is where the nuance of these conversations are really important. And I would take that even a step further and say, every family is different, right? I mean, I spoke to a guy in the book who both mother and father were alcoholics. He, um, you know, came out as a gay man, um, to them in his teens and got kicked out, um, of the house. He returned when his father, when his mother became, was terminally ill and looked after her.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And when his mother died, she had a life insurance policy that she had basically got out and, and basically stipulated that her husband wasn’t to have any of it and it was just for the kids. And so he inherited a large amount of money. But a large amount of money that came with huge complications, emotionally.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
It wasn’t as simple as, I’m quid’s in, you know, and it never is. And there was countless stories in the book where whether you’re a product of a divorce, or a blended family, you know, families are about control quite often. About emotional complexity, difficulty, however happy your family is, when you kind of, you know, rivalry between siblings. It can be incredibly messy which is why inheritance disputes are up.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, um, and, and why it’s not as easy as saying, you’re a nepo baby. I mean look at the Beckham's.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yes.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Look at the Beckham’s and the Peltz. I mean, I’m fascinated by that dynamic because clearly, you know, the Peltz are far richer than the Beckham’s and he’s chosen, you know, the Peltz and, and it just sort of indicates I think, a broader point is that actually quite often a gift from your parents doesn’t come unconditionally.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
No there’s strings attached.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
There’s strings attached.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And I think that one of the really interesting indicators of that is the number of millennials that are living near, and nearer, their parents, quite often the maternal parents. But it’s like, here’s the deposit for a house but you’re living within two miles of where we are.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, or here’s…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah, one of my friends they bought a flat I think three doors down or something.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So they could be nice and close.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah, yeah. Here’s a deposit for a house, but that spare room’s mine.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know it, it’s all very conditional. Again, fair you could argue but, you know, let’s not confuse the language here. Is a gift unconditional? I am not sure it is. So I think, I think I wanted to just kind of looping back on your actual question is, yes I’m, I’m not just white female and yes, middle class. I’m also from London like this is not just a London story but it has, London has a unique story because of the house, housing market. But I talked to people all around the UK because I wanted to, and from all different backgrounds and actually experiences. There’s a guy in there that has, did have a gift from his parents but his parents charged him interest and he had to pay the gift back. I speak to a, a woman who had a joint bank account with her mother because they manage property together but not a joint bank account with her partner, because she was a product of divorce and wanted financial independence from a man but financial dependence with her mum. So, you know, it’s the range is, is, is what fascinated me because I could selfishly write a book that was trying to explain my life story but also like, wildly fascinated by how other families were having these, how these dynamics were playing up.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So if each family is different. How or what policies can be put in place or how do you sort of change the social inequality that’s being created? If each situation is so unique? What would you like to see?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Brilliant. So you’ve highlighted the major flaw of the book. Thank you. Um, and I think the major flaw of the book is I, the question is, is the one I don’t answer which is, what are we going to do about all this?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yes.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Um, and I don’t answer it. I dodged it. I dodged it because it’s really complicated and, um, I had a deadline. But I think, um, the point I wanted to, to highlighted was we need to talk about this. This is the hidden force that is playing out in your friendship groups, in your family, on your street, in your workplaces. Let’s see the hidden force and why it’s come about. The next stage is, what can we do about this?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Is reforming inheritance tax really going to work? Um, no. No I don’t think it’s going to solve the major issue. Is building more houses going to work? No because what politician is going to build enough houses that values on homes depreciate?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, no, and also no-one’s going to vote for a party that basically depreciates homes, you know. Um, is, is, um, taxing wealth not work going to work? Not entirely but it’s a start. I think it’s really important that we realise even last week, the degree to which wages are taxed unlike wealth and that’s a generational, um, divide. Of course it is for obvious reasons. Um, but all of these things combined, it’s not just one policy. I had Gary Stevenson. Does everyone know who Gary Stevenson is? Yeah. Come to tea, he came to tea at my house. It’s going to be on Channel 4 next year. Uh, and, and we talked about the wealth tax and he’s very sort of, sort of very committed to this idea that the solution is taxing the, those worth over 10, 10 million pounds. Now it’s important to recognise that on that basis he’s on a very core fact of there are too many ultra-high net worth individuals in his view. Um, he’s right. The biggest growth spurge in the last 30 years has been in the ultra-high net worth bracket, right? And what’s happened to the middle class is that it’s declined in times of the proportion of, of GDP, um, household wealth sorry, not GDP. Um, so you’re getting a squeeze on the middle class. Just like you’ve had a squeeze really from the 1980s on the working class, right? They don’t own as much. Their, their share of the house, um, national wealth is, is shrinking. Um, but the key thing is, is his solution is, is tax, tax the wealthy, tax the wealthy. Now I don’t think that’s big enough. I don’t think it’s ambitious enough. I don’t think that’s actually going to solve the issue. It’s a really great click bait campaign.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
But ultimately we, as a country, and just to localise it within the UK for a moment. We, we are running a, you know, national debt that is costing us, you know, billions a year just to even service the debt and, and so, we have to work out as a country, you know, what is it that we’re prepared to tolerate? Are we prepared to tolerate getting rid of the triple lock? Are we prepared to tolerate no tax, stamp duty for pensioners so that they downsize? 50% of baby boomers live in houses with two spare rooms that are maybe occupied at Christmas. You know, what are we prepared to tolerate is I think the conversation we need to be having.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And how do we make it in an aging society where who votes are the older demographics and therefore who are the policies in this country serving?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
The older demographics.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
The older demographics.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And that’s only going to increase because we’re an aging society in which we’re having fewer children and the demographics are ever going to be more skewed towards the older demographic. So how do we make it more affordable to be young and actually therefore make inheritance matter less? Is the bigger question. Rather than let’s tweak this inheritance tax policy here, let’s put a tax on this and da da da. I think, you know, reforming Council Tax, I mean, you know, all of this, all the things. Making an education system that doesn’t, you know, force you into this one kind of avenue and make you think it’s the only thing you should focus your life on…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…for the first 20 years of your life. It’s madness. We’ve created an exam system in which you cannot fail. It’s no wonder we’re all suffering from burn out by the age of 30. Because we’re pushed into this sausage factory that we can’t fail at because then it’s like, the end. So it, it’s like all the things, is what I would say.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
It is, it’s like and I liken it to the conversation that Britain had in the 1940s, in the aftermath of peace, after the Second World War is, what is this country capable of funding and what does it want to concentrate on and then it was the NHS, and then it was, you know, uh, a universalised education system and etcetera, etcetera.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So before I open up the floor.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Um, I just have a very selfish question which as a millennial, and millennial’s famously love brunch. Where is your favourite brunch place in Tooting?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Oh gosh, um, oh god, so the Antelope Pub is really good.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Yep. I’ve been there.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Do you, do you live in Tooting?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
No, my brother used to live in Tooting.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Okay, the Antelope.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
I’m a fan of the Green Monkey, is my…
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Green Monkey, where’s that?
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Just by Tooting Beck.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Okay, yep, yep. Um, I would say anywhere in Tooting Market is really good. There’s a new Italian restaurant that’s opposite the organic…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
I’ll have to try.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…wine. We have to be so chi chi now. But the gentrification of Tooting is, is something that I was, I saw, um, happen and again it was one of those places that no one wanted to live and, you know, was full of, you know, really not cool gentrified places for brunch, um, and the local pub, the Antelope used to have a collection tin for the IRA at the end of the night. It was a very different place, um, and I saw with that gentrification, critically my parents’ assets appreciate and me, unable to afford to live in the place I grew up.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm, yeah.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
But now I love going there for brunch.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Okay so happy to open up the floor to questions because I am sure that other people want to come in on it. So.
Audience
Um, I’ve seen your posts on social media talking about the inheritocracy and, um, Rory Sullivan’s comments on your book. How do you find the social media personality side of being an author and a historian in 2025.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Great question. I mean I’m, I think, um, it’s a work in progress. I mean I am such a geriatric millennial, I’m sort of like, a bit shocked and paused when I put the camera to my face. Um, I, I think, um, it’s not a question I’ve ever been asked so thank you for asking it because I don’t think I’ve got an answer. I, I think when you are writing a book, the best thing you can do is shut off the entire world and work out what it is that you want to say and I did that for eight months while I wrote this book. Luckily I had a team pushing out things at the same time. But in the last eighteen months I’ve been out there promoting the book, retelling the book, you know, to an exhausting level and I love seeing people respond to it. I love getting the comments, rude or otherwise. Um, I love hearing what people think about it. What they disagree, you know, all of that and actually as an author, that’s surely the whole point. And I love the fact that social media gives me that immediacy and gives me that, kind of, feedback loop. Um, I, I think one of the things that I struggle with and we’re trying to do something about this right now on YouTube is longer form contents. Um, because I find doing a one minute thirty video the most frustrating thing ever. Um, I love substack because it’s the most sort of creator led platform I think. You know, there’s no word limit, you can literally just write about anything. You know, some of it flies, some of it doesn’t, um, so I love substack. I have a problem with TikTok because they’re just, it’s so random. The comments on TikTok are just so random. None of them make sense a lot of the time. Um, Instagram I find is a really nice community and I get a lot of interesting, sometimes repeat sort of comments from the same people, um, giving me feedback. Um, I, I think that it’s a real gift, um, to be able to share your work in a way that we can these days and I think, I spent, uh, god, years in academic training and actually one of the things that I’m trying to do is untrain myself in all of those habits because it doesn’t make for good communication and good storytelling. So one of the things that I’m, bear with me if you do follow me on Instagram, is I’m trying to learn how to be better at kind of creating content that people respond to but, um, that’s sort of a bit of a journey for me because I’m, I grew up in the academic sort of, everything’s discourse, you know, talking a language that actually people find alien. So, so I’m quite excited about learning and being a student of that really.
Mishcon Online
I’m going to take a question from online because it came in quite early. So, um, it’s an anonymous question. Um, when you say, we know that model is dead in relation to working at one company for life. Why is that? Is it people want more, the offering at companies is different and at law firms we do see people who work at one firm for life. What’s the difference?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
I think that’s a great question. I think, I think actually law is probably one of the exceptions where people will stay at a firm or will stay in a career for life. Uh, partly because of the financial rewards, they get used to the money. Um, but I think generally that it is a, there’s also variety, there’s also progress, there’s also, you know, a path to mastery. I think, um, I do think though that the move, you know, what happens when you’re, you are raised on the algorithm is that you are very, you know, self-centred. You know, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, I’m just saying that, you’ve ever picked up anyone else’s phone? It’s an alien world, like nothing makes sense, like, and, and, and it speaks to the fact that we have all become very individualistic and a real, have a real sense of our own, not just our self-importance but our journey through life. And this is something I’m quite fascinated by is that, you know, so much of being young in the 21st century is about realising of the self. This is my identity, this is, you know, whatever it is, my gender identity, my sexual identity, my workplace identity, my cultural identity. Whatever it is, is is, is so much of, of life now, is about going on that journey and having multiple chapters…
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
…you know. Eras, that’s Taylor. So I think we are in a cultural moment where people see their life in eras.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
Mm.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
And, and I think that’s really exciting and I think it’s really empowering. I think it’s a ball ache for companies, right? Because how do you give people eras in their career? You probably can but you need to sort of make the, the, the journey much more sort of less rigid than it currently is.
Mishcon Online
Another question from online. Pan Kaj Kapour, he says, very interesting session thank you. Is there a view you would have on those with non-inherited pathways who have been successful?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Mm, yeah. This is, this is one of the questions I wanted to answer in the book, is who’s made it, quote unquote, you know that’s all relative, um, without the bank of mum and dad. It’s mostly those not in a big city, particularly not in London, um, even not actually in the South East. Um, those particularly, um, and I’m going to say it, men who did stem subjects, um, and found a good employer. That was the commonality. Um, and also were in dual income, not single income households. So we know that 70% of millennials are in dual income households. You need frankly, two incomes to create the kind of wealth that one income made thirty years ago. Um, but that obviously is complicated if you have children or elderly parents to look after. But that was, that was the thread with, so they didn’t live in London or the South East, they didn’t do humanity subjects, much to my dismay, and, and there was another factor as well. Um, they had multiple streams of income. And, and one of the, I’ve just started writing for The Times and the first, um, article was on Gen Z and investment culture and one of the big ticks that you, ticks upwards that you’ve seen in the last five years is young people investing because what they are essentially realising is that you cannot live by wages alone and you certainly can’t build wealth by wages along. You potentially can’t even build property wealth, um, by wages alone. So that, that’s quite interesting as well, is that, that sort of really sort of financial savviness around money was also another thing that was synonymous with, with those that didn’t have the bank of mum and dad.
Audience
Thank you, that was, that was a really great talk. I think when I first saw the title of the book, the words that came to my mind was actually hypocrisy which…
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Love that.
Audience
Love, love a word play. Um, but I, my, just to explain a bit about me, I think it is relevant for my question. So, um, I’m a millennial, younger end, boomer parents, 60s. Grandad pushing 100. So I just was really interested in what you said about the kind of generation before the boomers and I think they’re called the silent generation. Um, and kind of how that links to this sort of protection of, of wealth in potentially that, the boomer generation and I’m not a boomer so I don’t want to speak for them but, um, I just, I’m just interested for your thoughts really where there’s this potential sense of responsibility up with and downwards and, and sort of how that then plays into, I need a house with four bedrooms and maybe that’s why I should hold to it?
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Yeah, I mean I think that’s right and, and we were doing a session before this one actually with, with, um, seniors in the business and one of the things that was clear was there was a lot of people in that room nodding when I said, there’s, there’s an emergence in midlife of the squeeze, the squeeze generation between those that have elderly parents to look after and kids. And when I say kids, quite often young adult children still living at home. And so you have seen an uptick rise of multi-generational households, grannexes for example. Um, that sort of is, um, rising in the US and the UK. But declining interestingly in China and India where, you know, traditionally it was expected, socially expected. Um, I think it’s become economically sensible. Um, it’s also become, you know, sensible in terms of care because quite often the grandma would look after the kids and then frankly also the kids and the parents then look after grandma. Um, I, I think it’s how we used to live, you know, also there’s a sort of, um, weird return when, um, to how, how we used to live, um, when we talk about multi-generational households. I, I, the, um, what’s interesting to me is that squeeze disproportionately impacting women in midlife who may be facing, you know, the menopause, may be facing, you know, um, career challenges, struggles and that squeeze of looking after adult children and funding, um, and doing elder care is, is really, really, really challenging, challenging. Um, and particularly challenging during Covid and if you look at all the data, who was the most burnt out during Covid, it wasn’t Gen Z, it was Gen X women. Um, and millennial will have that squeeze as well if you have kids, you know, just beware it’s coming. Um, and I am sort of living it now, um, I had it with, when my father was ill and now I have it with my mum, you know, my sisters and I have this WhatsApp group where it’s mostly, I’m worried about mum, what’s mum doing, what’s mum doing about her health, what’s mum doing about her knee, what, you know, you know. It’s, it’s, we’ve actually renamed the group, you know, worrying about mum. Because it’s all we talk about. So, so it’s, it’s, it is that squeeze where it may be an ever more extended part of your life as well. Because one of the things that is, as I said earlier, we’re living longer but we’re living longer with illnesses to manage and that could be, you know, a hip operation that you have to manage but it also could be Alzheimer’s and those things are really complex, require a lot of care and a lot of attention. My grandmother was 76 when she died and she just literally just dropped dead of a heart attack. She wasn’t ill, she just dropped dead. And now, you know, my mum is pushing 80 and has had multiple illnesses that we’ve had to help with her, you know, get her through and I think that’s just the natural consequence of how we’re living differently. Um, I should say, anyone in this room that is under the age of 22, you have a 50/50 chance of living to a 100. So, you know, like your grandma, that, that’s a long life, that’s a long life. You’ll probably, you know, inherit around 68, pay off your student debt around 63, you know, buy your first house probably at 40.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
So much to look forward to.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
You know, this, this is like, and then you’ve got like maybe 30 years where you, the, the aim really should be to be as healthy and as independent as you possibly can. But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a really fascinating area for sure.
Rachel Tudor
Trainee Solicitor
And on that welcome thought, I am afraid that’s all we’ve got time for. Um, so thank you Eliza and thank you everybody in the room for coming and for everybody online as well.
Dr Eliza Filby
Author
Thank you.
[applause]