The project

In France, wealth inequality has increased over the last few decades, as has the gender wealth gap. These trends emerge from wealth inequality in cross-section and do not document how inequalities evolve over the life course. This project builds on the opportunity provided by data from the French wealth survey, one of the few surveys in the world that measures wealth at the individual level within households. The longitudinal dimension of the survey will allow to analyze the dynamics of wealth accumulation.

The objective of the project is to study how individuals accumulate wealth over the course of their lives, by studying the impact of life events occurring at different stages of the life course: during childhood (death of a parent, parental divorce), adulthood (formation and dissolution of a partnership, birth of a child) and in old age (retirement, death of spouse). The team will investigate the impact of life events in childhood and adulthood, differentiated by socio-economic background and gender.

Use of data from the French wealth surveys (repeated cross-sections from 1986 to 2010, longitudinal data collected every three years since 2014), construction of wealth indicators at the individual level, and econometric methods for panel data.