Mr. Jim Callaghanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what official statistics are available concerning the distribution of wealth in relation to age of the population.
§ Mr. RidleyNo official estimates are available of the size distribution of total personal wealth within age groups. Figures for 1972 relating to the part of personal marketable wealth that is identified by the estate multiplier method, were published in the February 1975 issue of "Statistical News". However, estimates of the average amounts of all wealth held by various age groups, cross-classified by sex and marital status, were included in an article prepared for the seventeenth conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, held in August 1981. These related both to total personal marketable wealth and to total wealth including pension rights, and were for the year 1977. The association proposes to publish this article in "Review of Income and Wealth" but the exact date is not yet known.