(Bloomberg Business) — The investment industry has an age discrimination problem, and millennials and Generation X are bearing the brunt of it. Only 30 percent of financial advisers are actively looking for clients under age 40, according to a survey of 500 advisers by the research firm Corporate Insight. 

Advisers prefer older clients for a simple reason: Most advisers get paid based on a percentage of the assets they manage. And typical households in their late 60s and early 70s are far richer than their children and grandchildren, with net worths that are five times that of a median 35- to 44-year-old household. These older baby boomers own 22 times more in assets than those under age 35, Federal Reserve data show.

Even if millennials and members of Generation X can find an adviser who will talk to them, they may well be better off on their own. If you have only $10,000—the median net worth of those under 35— it makes little sense to pay someone $300 an hour to manage it.