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Younger generations in the Netherlands are, for the most part, better off than the generations before them were at the same age, with more spending power and greater wealth. That is the central finding of new analysis by the national statistics office CBS, though it comes with some important qualifications.
The generations, and the headline finding
CBS divides the population into birth generations: the “silent generation” (born before 1945), the baby boomers (1945 to 1955), generation X (1955 to 1970), the “pragmaten” or pragmatists (1970 to 1985), the millennials (1985 to 2000) and generation Z (2000 to 2015). By comparing each generation at the same age, it can track how living standards have shifted over time.
The overall trend shows steady progress, as spending power, what a household can actually afford after inflation, rose across the decades from 1977 to 2024. It is higher at almost every age for younger generations than it was for older ones. At the age of 45, for example, the pragmaten generation has nearly one and a half times the spending power the baby boomers had at 45.
Why the boomers fell behind
The pattern over a lifetime is roughly similar for each generation: spending power rises until around the age of 55, then declines. But some generations were knocked off course. The baby boomers saw their spending power fall back when they were in their twenties and thirties, partly because of the deep economic recession of the early 1980s, and partly because women in that generation often worked less or stopped working altogether once they had children, which lowered household income. Younger generations were less affected: their spending power kept growing through their thirties, most strongly for the millennials.
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Wealth, and the house-price effect
The same broadly upward story holds for wealth, the value of what people own, such as savings and property, minus their debts. At almost every age, younger generations have a higher median wealth than earlier ones did, because wealth generally rose between 1993 and 2024, above all in the years from 2014 to 2022 as house prices climbed. After that it fell back somewhat, mainly because of high inflation.
The housing boom propelled the trend a lot. The growth in wealth that millennials experienced in their thirties was far stronger than that of older generations at the same age, as rising property values lifted those who had managed to buy. The silent generation, by contrast, has the lowest wealth at every age, which CBS links to the lower rate of home ownership in that generation.
Two catches
For all the optimism, the report contains two important caveats.
The first is that the youngest adults are the exception to the rule. Up to about the age of 25, and in terms of wealth up to around 30, the generations born from 1985 onwards, younger millennials and Gen Z, actually have less than their predecessors did at the same age. Partly because young people now spend longer in education before entering the workforce, so they begin building income and wealth later.
The second is that home ownership does not always follow the wealth trend. Owning a home is not necessarily more common among younger generations. In fact, it is the pragmaten, born between 1970 and 1985, who are most likely to own their home at every age. Given how central buying a house has become to building wealth in the Netherlands, and how difficult it is now for young people to get onto the property ladder in an overheated market, that distinction must be treated with caution.