Great Wealth Transfer Statistics: The Numbers Behind the $124 Trillion Shift

The Great Wealth Transfer is the projected handover of trillions of dollars from older generations, chiefly Baby Boomers, to their heirs, spouses, and charities over the coming decades. It is the largest intergenerational movement of wealth ever recorded, and it is reshaping how families, advisors, and the next generation think about intergenerational wealth.

Size and Scale

• Total wealth projected to transfer in the United States through 2048: $124 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Of that total, $105 trillion is expected to flow directly to heirs (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• A further $18 trillion is expected to be donated to charity (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Cerulli's earlier projection put the figure at $84 trillion through 2045, a baseline the firm later revised upward (Cerulli Associates, 2021).

• Globally, UBS expects $83 trillion to change hands over the next 20 to 25 years (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2025).

• The global population of individuals worth more than $10 million has passed 2.3 million people, deepening the pool of wealth set to move (Knight Frank Wealth Report, 2025).

Generational Shift

• Baby Boomers and older generations account for 81% of all transfers, close to $100 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Millennials are projected to inherit $46 trillion over the next 25 years, the most of any generation (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Gen X is projected to inherit $39 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Gen Z is projected to inherit $15 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• More than half of total transfer volume, around $62 trillion, comes from high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Those high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households make up just 2% of all households (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

Women and the Next Generation

• About $54 trillion will first pass to spouses (a horizontal transfer) before eventually moving to the next generation (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• Nearly $40 trillion of those spousal transfers will go to widowed women in the Baby Boomer and older generations (Cerulli Associates, 2024).

• UBS expects $9 trillion of the global total to move horizontally between spouses, versus $74 trillion vertically between generations (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2025).

• Female-controlled assets in the United States are projected to reach $34 trillion by 2030, nearly double the prior figure (McKinsey & Company, 2024).

• That would represent about 38% of total US financial assets (McKinsey & Company, 2024).

• 80% of women who inherited from their parents faced challenges such as not knowing the extent of the wealth or facing financial surprises (UBS Own Your Worth report, 2025).

• Nearly three-quarters of women expecting a future inheritance do not feel prepared for the transition (UBS Own Your Worth report, 2025).

The Advisor and Retention Gap

• More than 70% of heirs are likely to change financial advisors after inheriting, a long-standing industry estimate (Cerulli Associates via InvestmentNews, 2024).

• Only 27% of future beneficiaries plan to keep their benefactor's wealth advisor (Cerulli Associates via CNBC, 2025).

• Among heirs who have already inherited, the share who keep the advisor drops to 20% (Cerulli Associates via CNBC, 2025).

Values vs Assets

• Just 17% of Baby Boomers say their heirs are 'very well informed' about their level of wealth (RBC Wealth Management, 2025).

• 89% of Baby Boomers agree it is important to talk about an inheritance with those who will receive it, yet only 39% have actually given their heirs guidance on their intentions (RBC Wealth Management, 2025).

• 70% of original family wealth is lost by the end of the second generation, and 90% by the end of the third (Williams Group 20-year study, 2017).

• 60% of family wealth-transfer failures trace to a breakdown of communication and trust, not to investments or taxes (Williams Group 20-year study, 2017).

• A further 25% of failures trace to heirs who were inadequately prepared (Williams Group 20-year study, 2017).

What It Means for Families

• Only 32% of Americans have an estate plan in place (Caring.com Wills and Estate Planning Study, 2025).

• Just 26% of Americans expect to leave behind a financial inheritance, even as the transfer accelerates (Northwestern Mutual Planning & Progress Study, 2024).

The pattern across the data is consistent: the assets are vast and well documented, but the context that makes them last, shared knowledge, clear intentions, and recorded values, is where families most often fall short. For a fuller picture, see our overview of the Great Wealth Transfer and our primer on what is generational wealth.