Highbrow heritage: the effects of childhood cultural capital on wealth

Does exposure to cultural capital in childhood—in other words, having access to and familiarity with norms of highbrow culture—affect wealth accumulation later in life? We use data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) to examine the relationship between various forms of cultural capital and wealth holdings in Austria. According to structural equation models, three indicators of cultural family background—the father’s educational attainment, the number of books in the parental household, and regular attendance of cultural activities at the age of ten—are positively correlated with net wealth. While education and income are key channels through which cultural capital affects wealth, we also observe direct effects in several specifications. The results are more marked within the over-50 cohort, suggesting that cultural capital’s role in wealth accumulation might have attenuated over decades of social change and educational expansion.