Inheriting is not synonymous with a jackpot, far from it. According to the latest INSEE survey on French heritage, the amounts received during an inheritance are very different from what we imagine.
When we mention the word “heritage”, the collective imagination often runs wild. We imagine large family homes, popular second homes, well-stocked savings accounts… All for a “jackpot” capable of securing a financial future overnight. However, our vision is largely biased by Hollywood scenarios and the successions of great fortunes that make the headlines.
At a time when accessing property is increasingly difficult for a large majority of French people, this reality is largely reflected in the figures: inheriting is not synonymous with wealth, quite the contrary. The last investigation Life history and heritage from INSEE thus shows that the majority of financial transfers relate to a modest supplement rather than sufficient capital to transform daily life.
Today, for 6 out of 10 French people, the inheritance does not exceed 30,000 euros. That’s barely enough to afford a new car… or three small square meters of real estate in Paris for example. And the observation is even more striking if we zoom in further: for almost a third of French people, the sum received as an inheritance even falls below 8,000 euros, the equivalent of only a few months’ salary at the minimum wage. A sum quickly swallowed up by everyday bills or the replacement of an old household appliance.
The large inheritances that we imagine ultimately only concern a minority: only 15% of heirs receive more than 100,000 euros. Moreover, unsurprisingly, inheritance does not smooth out inequalities, it freezes them. Among the most modest 25% of households, the inheritance is less than 8,000 euros in almost one in two cases, while among the wealthiest 25%, more than 8 in 10 inheritances exceed this sum. A quarter even exceed 100,000 euros.
But above all, what the INSEE figures show is the paradox of age: it is at retirement that we inherit larger sums, and not when settling into working life, starting a family or making a first real estate purchase. In fact, we now live longer, which means that we also inherit much later. At the age when life projects abound, often in the thirties, almost half of inheritances are less than 8,000 euros. It is only from the age of 60 that the share of large inheritances, of more than 30,000 or even 100,000 euros, is the highest.
Faced with this observation, more and more French people are opting for other options in order to circumvent this order of things which no longer benefits young people starting out in life at all. Some choose donations during their lifetime, while others favor generation skipping, for example: upon retirement, they no longer need this financial boost and refuse inheritance for the benefit of their children. Family solidarity is therefore reinvented behind the scenes to transmit at the best time. A way of short-circuiting a system which, today, seems to miss the real needs of new generations.
