The Chinese proverb “rags to rags in three generations” says that family wealth does not last for three generations. The first generation makes the money, the second spends it and the third sees none of the wealth.
One explanation could be a difference between China and the West. Historically the West relies on primogeniture where the eldest son inherits a vast majority of the fortune and other sons need to move out and build a career for themselves. Classical China OTOH would split their fortune (which for 90% of folks was land since most were farmers) between their sons. Primogeniture encourages maintaining wealth across generations through the eldest son while the latter could mean the fortune gets spread out and eventually lost within 3 generations. For example, see research by Thomas Piketty about how ppl who were rich in 16th century Italy are still absurdly rich today.
Probably less so in China given that, until recently, they had severe restrictions on the number of children per a family.
Though your point is valid it's only part of the story.
I've seen many scions from China attending western universities in a state of decadence, barely focused on their course work, all too willing to live off their parents' past efforts, while driving expensive cars and walking around in clothes and accessories worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Another element is how ambition to have your own achievement can team up with risk taking. It's usually not the humble playboy who consumes away the fortune, it's one who tries to step out of the shadow cart by inheritance by growing the fortune through a series off get-richer-quickly schemes.
No part of this is even close to correct. No, wealth is not being evenly spread, it's becoming more and more concentrated. And no, generations are not getting "ever-larger", either; birth rates are down.
This is no longer legal in many jurisdictions. Family members often have a minimum allocation of the inheritance (e.g. 25% must be equally split among all children)
Interesting, and most places it is culturally unacceptable regardless.
Yet the proverb is historical, as all proverbs are, and my response was intended to refute the dissolution of wealth, historically, by spreading it too thin.
True...ish, but i bet a percentage of them get rich by focussing on what they are good at and neglecting their families, just making piles of money available. There's probably enough kids getting 10K a month pocket money to make GPs stragetgy viable.