Here's the study on that:

https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/77/4/78...

>> Across a generation’s life course, early-life advantages are magnified through disparate occupational and social trajectories that lead to wide late-life disparities in financial and health resources, in a process first termed by Crystal and Shea as one of “cumulative advantage and disadvantage” (CAD; Crystal, 1982, 1986, 2020; Crystal et al., 1992, 2017; Crystal & Shea, 1990b; Dannefer, 1987, 1988). Dannefer (1987) described the trend of increasing inequality over the life course as the “Matthew effect,” applying a biblical dictum first used by Merton (1968), stating that “to he who has much, more is given, and to he who has little, even that is taken.” This ongoing process has also been described as an “obdurate tendency” for increasing inequality over the life course (Dannefer, 2020).