80% of the 300 richest people inherited their wealth from their parents.
- That’s the findings of a study by KOF, the Economic Research Centre at the ETH in Zurich, reported by the SonntagsZeitung.
Furthermore, only 8% of the 300 richest Swiss people earned their fortune themselves.
A small minority became millionaires through marriage.
The study also revealed that 90% of the super-rich are men.
Another study, cited by the NZZ am Sonntag, shows a large gap in the social distribution of inheritances. Three-quarters of heirs do not receive more than CHF 100,000 per inheritance, according to a survey by Marius Bruelhart, professor at the University of Lausanne.
Only 1.5% of inheritances exceed CHF 1 million. 0.015% exceeds CHF 5 million.