Edward Jones Chief: Eldest Daughters Hold Up the Family Economy

Roughly $124 trillion in U.S. wealth will change hands by 2048, and Edward Jones managing partner Penny Pennington says eldest daughters will carry much of the load of managing it.

Pennington, who leads the financial services giant and is herself an eldest daughter, calls it "the elder daughter phenomenon." She described it in an interview with Fortune.

"The elder daughter phenomenon has to do with caregiving, and often has to do with becoming the executor on an estate," Pennington said. "Making decisions that extend across this family for more members of the family."

What is driving the eldest daughter phenomenon?

The Great Wealth Transfer is the backdrop. Pennington pointed to the roughly $100 trillion expected to move from older Americans to younger generations, calling the transfer not just an investment event but a family event.

Research firm Cerulli Associates puts the figure even higher. Its report estimates that roughly $124 trillion will transfer to heirs and charities between 2024 and 2048:

• About $105 trillion goes to heirs
• $18 trillion goes to charity
• Women receive roughly $40 trillion in spousal transfers
• Younger women receive roughly $47 trillion

"Eventually, most of the wealth owned by older generations in the U.S. will be either donated or passed down to Gen X or Millennial heirs," Chayce Horton, senior analyst at Cerulli Associates, said in the report. "With $85 trillion to be passed down to these generations collectively, providers that can establish relationships with, and adequately address the needs of, these younger investors will be well positioned for success."

For wealth managers, that math defines the next two decades of client relationships.

Who is the family's real CFO?

Pennington said women already do most of the logistical work of family finances before they end up making the investment decisions too.

A 2024 Edward Jones survey conducted with Morning Consult found that two-thirds of American women describe themselves as their family's "chief financial officer," according to Pennington. Yet she sees a persistent disconnect: women handle the everyday financial responsibilities while men make many of the household's investment decisions.

"The job involves an entire family, sometimes multigeneration," Pennington said. "The job is logistical, but it's also emotional."

She suggested the CFO label undersells the role. "Chief fulfillment officers" would be closer to what many women actually do, she said.

Pennington also called on men to share the burden.

"I do hope that in heterosexual couples the men step up a bit and take some of the burden off the women for shouldering all of this in the family," she said.

Do daughters really carry more of the caregiving?

The data backs her up. A 2014 study published in the American Sociological Review found that daughters provide more care than sons to elderly parents, and that daughters' caregiving responds more to their own and their parents' attributes.

"Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother," said Angelina Grigoryeva, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University who conducted the study. "This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters."

The economic cost falls hardest on women. A U.S. Department of Labor analysis estimated that mothers born between 1981 and 1985 who provide unpaid care to children and adults face an average of $295,000 in employment-related costs over their lifetimes.

The scale of unpaid care keeps growing. According to the 2026 AARP Public Policy Institute report, 59 million Americans caring for adults in 2024 provided about 49.5 billion hours of care. Valued at an average hourly rate of $20.41, that work was worth about $1.01 trillion.

What does this mean for financial services?

Pennington's argument reframes the industry's biggest looming challenge. As tens of trillions of dollars move through families over the next two decades, the people organizing estates, coordinating caregiving and making multigenerational decisions will increasingly be firstborn women.

Firms that recognize who actually holds the family ledger — and what that role costs them — stand a better chance of keeping those assets when the transfer arrives.