Within-Family Inequalities of Inheritance and the Transmission of Social Status from Generation to Generation in Contemporary France

Based on statistical and ethnographic French data, this communication will examine intergenerational transmission inequalities according to sex and sibship birth order, beginning with an analysis of inheritance transfers from one generation to another in contemporary France. To understand these disparities we shall combine the statistical analysis of the INSEE “Household Wealth Survey” (2013-2014) and the study of a monograph of a French family.

Statistical analysis shows that later-born siblings prove to be the favoured recipients of early financial transfers. But first-born sons access to better educational and work achievements. This increases their income expectations and predestines them to receive the family property, albeit belatedly. Only children, whether male or female, receive both these different resources. Ethnographic interviews and observations show that plans for social mobility including academic success are specifically invested in first-born sons. The intergenerational transmission of between-family inequalities is based on within-family inequalities. Inequality in terms of inheritance reflects specific positions in social reproduction strategies, as revealed by the unequal educational and work achievements of boys and girls, and first-born and later-born siblings.

The analysis of inheritance transfers from generation to generation thus reveals the differentiated treatment of children in the same sibship, above all when it comes to the passing on of cultural capital. Despite changes in the role of inheritance in social stratification, all ressources – including cultural capital – which can be passed on to reproduce or improve social status remains a “rival” good that is shared between brothers and sisters in a more or less inequal fashion.