Younger generations mostly richer than their parents: CBS

Younger generations in the Netherlands have generally ended up with more spending power and more wealth than their parents and grandparents did at the same age, according to national statistics office CBS.

Home ownership, however, is an exception. The generation born between 1970 and 1985 is the most likely to own a home at age of life, CBS found. The number of 25- to 35-year-olds still living at home has also risen in recent years amid the housing shortage and rise in house prices.

The youngest adults are behind on wealth, too: up to around the age of 30, millennials and Generation Z hold less than earlier generations did at the same age, as more of them stay in education longer and start earning later.

Over a full lifetime, though, younger generations appear richer. Purchasing power rose almost continuously between 1977 and 2024, so at nearly every age people had more to spend than the generations before them.

At 45, for example, people born between 1970 and 1985 had average purchasing power of €44,100 in 2024 prices – around 40% more than the baby boomers had at the same age.

Wealth has followed the same path, lifted mainly by rising house prices before falling back more recently with a rise in inflation. Millennials had the sharpest rise in their 30s of any generation.

Younger generations also spend a smaller share of their income on housing, CBS said, and are more likely to live in a flat.