Among adults, it is evident from the political debate as well as from surveys and experimental studies that there is considerable disagreement about what constitutes a fair distribution and that fairness views affect their behavior. This paper reports the results from an experiment designed to study how such views develop from middle childhood until early adulthood. In the experiment the children were asked to distribute income in a dictator game where the income had first been produced in a real effort task, and then in a dictator game with a multiplier effect. The main findings are that there is no change in the weight attached to moral considerations in this period, but that there is a dramatic change in what the children view to be fair. Three quarters of the youngest children are strict egalitarians, but this share is reduced to one quarter among the oldest children. This reduction corresponds to an increase in the the share of meritocrats.