--- title: Proof That's It's Really Hard to Become Rich Without Wealthy Parents description: More proof that the rich get richer, even over hundreds and hundreds of years authors: - name: Denver Nicks url: https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 60 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Pets - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://x.com/DenverNicks - https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932 former_staff: true published: '2016-05-31T21:52:14.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T02:07:18.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - Economic Mobility - Economics - Income Inequality - Italy - pubdesk - Wealth word_count: 274 canonical: https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Cosimo I de'Medici](https://img.money.com/2016/05/cosimo-de-medici-inherited-wealth.jpg?crop=0px%2C242px%2C3543px%2C1993px&quality=85) *Cosimo I de'Medici (1519-1574), the first Great Duke of Tuscany, leading from 1537 to 1574, during the last years of the Renaissance.* It’s no surprise that having wealthy parents means a person is more likely to be wealthy themselves, but according [new research](http://voxeu.org/article/what-s-your-surname-intergenerational-mobility-over-six-centuries) the effect holds true for far longer than is commonly believed. Try half a millennium. A study of intergenerational mobility conducted by Italian economists Guglielmo Barone and Sauro Mocetti and published by the U.K.-based Centre for Economic Policy Research looked at the family names of the wealthiest people in Florence going back to the year 1427. (For context, that was just 10 years after the Battle of Agincourt, a few years before Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and around the time the Medici family rose to power.) Comparing tax records in 1427 to records from 2011, researchers discovered that “the top earners among the current taxpayers were found to have already been at the top of the socioeconomic ladder six centuries ago.” All the more remarkable, the authors point out, when you consider the political, economic, and social upheavals that have rocked the country during that long period of time. It is [well established](https://money.com/income-inequality-titanic/) that economic advantages—and disadvantages—are [passed](https://money.com/income-inquality-democrats-republicans/) from one generation to the next, but this study points to much longer lasting effects of income inequality on economic mobility. Nor is it the first report to use old records to measure economic mobility—a U.K. study [recently found](http://qz.com/301150/this-is-the-proof-that-the-1-have-been-running-the-show-for-800-years/) that family status in England remained largely unchanged from 1170 to 2012, more than 800 years later, reports Quartz. On the upside, the study authors note that, while the evidence points to substantial economic immobility on the whole, mobility in 2011 was much improved from 1427, when Florence was a "quasi-immobile society." ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Wealth Management", "item": "https://money.com/wealth-management/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Proof That's It's Really Hard to Become Rich Without Wealthy Parents" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/", "name": "Proof That's It's Really Hard to Become Rich Without Wealthy Parents", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-05-31T21:52:14.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T02:07:18.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Proof That's It's Really Hard to Become Rich Without Wealthy Parents", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/05/cosimo-de-medici-inherited-wealth.jpg?crop=0px%2C242px%2C3543px%2C1993px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "Cosimo-de-Medici" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Denver Nicks", "url": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/denver-nicks/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2012/09/09_1165862081.jpg?quality=85&w=640&h=640&crop=1", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/DenverNicks", "https://plus.google.com/105122198911201917932" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-05-31T21:52:14.000Z", "description": "More proof that the rich get richer, even over hundreds and hundreds of years", "abstract": "More proof that the rich get richer, even over hundreds and hundreds of years", "@id": "https://money.com/get-rich-wealthy-parents/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-17T02:07:18.000Z", "wordCount": 274, "keywords": [ "Economic Mobility", "Economics", "Income Inequality", "Italy", "pubdesk", "Wealth" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Personal finance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Wealth management", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_management" ] } ] } ] } ```