Your new book, Inheritocracy, explores ‘how parental support is the real economic story of the twenty-first century.’ Can we start by talking about what has driven this shift? Is it purely down to the widening gulf between earnings and cost of property or are other factors at play?

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We are living in an economy that prioritizes wealth over wages. Wages have stalled and the big expensive items, particularly housing, have gone up. 

Millennials entered adulthood at a time when three things became cheap: eating out, technology and travel. Things we love doing! At the same time, other things became more expensive: housing - both renting and buying, education and childcare. Who did affluent Millennials rely on to do those things? Their parents. The ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ has always been there, but it's really accelerated in recent years because of the economy we’ve been living in since the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, we’ve been living in this economy that favours old over young. 

Everyone talks about the intergenerational unfairness of ‘Boomers versus Millennials’ and how impossible it is to be young and buy a house. But the real story, which I uncover in the book, is that there has been a transference of wealth. That wealth has trickled down, maybe not in the economy, but within families. When we talk about the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’, we assume it means people who have had help from parents to get a house deposit. Actually, now it means rental support; mortgage repayment. Lots of people have parents as their landlords. 

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How does this feed into other areas of life, such as education and career progression?

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Increasingly, in tertiary education, tuition fees are going up. Essentially, what you have is a higher education market which is ever more reliant on parents coughing up the upfront costs of going to university. 

For poor students, they've worked harder and they’ve graduated with more debt. Those that can rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad, some of them will graduate with no debt at all. Some have their rent paid. Some have the ability to apply to places like Bristol or London, which are now no-go areas for poor students with poorer parents. This is really impacting education. 

And obviously, those that have help from their parents and graduate with no debt are so advantaged, not just in their educational experience, but over a lifetime. Fees can be subject to a high interest rate, and now we’re talking about a 40 year loan. 

Then you have the Bank of Mum and Dad impacting relationships. I interviewed people who, for example, were marrying into another Bank of Mum and Dad. It used to be the case that graduates married graduates, but now you are increasingly seeing that people marry another person of equal inheritance; equal wealth.

There's a really interesting dynamic where money has become more and more important in relationships. And actually, parents and in-laws have become more and more important in relationships. There are so many ways in which the Bank of Mum and Dad permeates millennial lives. 

It's not about what you earn anymore. It's your access to the Bank of Mum and Dad that's defining opportunity and the ability to get any kind of financial security. Essentially as Millenials, we were told we lived in a meritocracy. Get to university and that pathway into professional, middle class life will be guaranteed. Well, that, fundamentally, is really problematic. I would argue that for even younger millennials, the price of a degree has gone up and the value of that degree has gone down. This is about uncovering that narrative we were sold as a generation, which is, let's get as many of you to university as possible. Actually the truth is, there's a declining value on that qualification.

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Do you think social media and the fact that we see such idealised (and often dishonest) projections of other people’s lives is fuelling the divide? 

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We’re all living in this horrible social media race. It's an airbrushed life that doesn't reveal the economic mechanisms behind the pictures. You don’t know how much they’re getting paid, how much support they have and how much of it is fake. 

We’re all peering into each other's lanes, and I think it's exacerbated this milestone culture. Of course, this has always been there for women, because we have a ticking clock of biology and a ticking clock of historic currency and beauty. I think it would be naive to say that that's not there. There are all sorts of horrible pressures that hit you at 35. I’m that person who reached 35 and didn't have children, wasn't married, and was seeing everyone around me doing these things. 

It’s really important to recognise that the people that are winning on that milestone culture, invariably, most of the time are being catapulted into traditional adulthood by their parents. Wages can't buy you a house in Zone One. It’s all about Historic wealth.

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Why are we all so uncomfortable talking about money, particularly when it comes to acknowledging family privilege? 

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It’s a social taboo. We don't like talking about it with our friends - there will be an uncomfortable silence when someone says, ‘I've got a deposit for a flat.’  

There’s a whole chapter in the book about being in your 20s: about being broke, about identity and that weird solidarity you have at that point in your life. But the truth is that some of you are broke and some of you are poor, the definition of ‘broke’ is that there's a safety net. The definition of poverty is there isn’t one. 

In your 30s, that's when it really hits because you suddenly realize that all the people you were having fun with in your 20s then leap into buying a house; babies; financial security. I think that's when it becomes most apparent in your friendship group. 

We’re also really bad at talking about it with our parents. I see a lot of my friends who are economically infantilised by their parents - for example, I did a fascinating interview for the book with a woman who had a joint account with her mother, not her partner. 

So you've got this really interesting dichotomy where women, with the decline of the male breadwinner, are more financially reliant on their parents than their male partners. 

This infantilizes the offspring; too much parental support is essentially a really bad idea. 

Another interview for the book was with a man who was supported by his parents in his 20s and spent eight years trying to be an actor whilst living in an apartment owned by his mum. He basically achieved nothing and his whole summary to me was, ‘I really wish someone had grabbed me by the neck and said, you're not getting any more.’

We’re bad at talking about this within families, we’re bad at talking about it within friendship groups. I think as a society at large, we talk about the cost of housing, but we don't talk about the fact that 51 percent of baby boomers have got more than two spare bedrooms. So many of them are only staying in that big house so that the kids can come home for Christmas. Why are the kids having to come home for Christmas? Because they're living in shoe boxes so they can’t host themselves. 

You also need to look at a childcare system that is reliant on grandparents, who are now in their 70s, because their daughters had kids in their 30s. As part of my research for the book, I interviewed a grandmother who had actually moved away from her family because she couldn't cope with the amount of childcare that was expected of her. 

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What are your predictions for the next generation? Will generational wealth continue to hold the key to so many opportunities, or will a new form of currency overtake it? 

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If you speak to a financial advisor, they will tell you that for tax reasons, the most efficient way to get rid of your wealth and avoid inheritance tax is to either give it to your wife or give it to your grandchildren. 

So we’re seeing parents paying tertiary education fees, private school fees… essentially giving up pensions for their kids and their grandkids. By paying nursery fees, that wealth is already starting to go to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. This is a generational problem that will continue to impact how we live for a very long time.