The concentration of older households in high wealth ranks is also notable with 77% of households in the top 20 percentile aged 50 or over, while 64.8% of households in the bottom 20 percentile were under 50.
But the report also emphasizes that age alone doesn’t explain everything. Other demographic shifts including population aging, dual-earner households, and rising assortative mating (where highly educated individuals increasingly partner), also influence inequality over time.
The report says that the Survey of Financial Security (SFS) data, used throughout the analysis, is likely understating true wealth among the richest households.
It cites adjustments made by Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), which added synthetic high-net-worth estimates to the survey base. These adjustments boost the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent, in one case from 13.7% (survey) to 25.6 % (adjusted).
As the report notes, “the SFS survey appears to fall far short of capturing the underlying extreme ‘upper tail’ of the wealth distribution.” Without accurate inclusion of the very top, there’s a risk of understating both the degree and trend of wealth concentration.
