Currently, the barrier to entry has never been lower, and the access to information has never been better. I don't see either of those things changing any time soon.
Of course, even with that, basic financial literacy with younger generations seems to be at an all time low. The finger pointing on that could go in many directions.
Strongly doubt the xennials will be as rich in twenty five years as 70 year olds are now.
Xennials have benefitted from the same forces that made the boomers rich. They're not young adults.
Xennials were at prime house buying age when houses were really cheap after the 2008 housing crash.
If you bought at exactly the right second of the crash, houses were where they were at the peak of the late 80s bubble.
It's young adults that are getting screwed. Xennials are no longer young adults.
P.S. I bought my first house in 2001 at the age of 28. In hindsight I got super lucky and timed it perfectly. I bought it the month I paid off my student loans, which took me ~4 years of accelerated payments.
1) Not enough young people can contribute to make social security payments to the elderly, across most of the developed world. A typical pension in Belgium is almost comparable to a typical young person’s salary.
2) At a young age, the previous 2–3 generations could afford social mobility levers, i.e. a house and car.
Note that I’m not commenting on the management, investment strategy, returns, or sustainability of social security (point 1).
“Across the vast majority of space-time”, the elderly also somewhat contributed to the tribal/community needs, trained their replacements, cared for grandchildren, and so on. Oh, and everyone was poor, so the range in standard of living was reasonably tight.
That’s an incredibly new, and probably temporary, phenomenon.
Across the vast majority of space-time the non-working elderly are poorer than their still working children and rely on them.
As late as the Greatest Generation senior discounts weren’t a sick joke.