Virpi Timonen Professor of Social Policy & Ageing Trinity - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Intergenerational solidarity and justice: Public and private constructions of fairness between generations Virpi Timonen Professor of Social Policy & Ageing Trinity College Dublin Keynote lecture at the Finnish Social Policy Association’s Annual Conference, University of Jyväskylä, 25-26 October 2012

The first purpose of the lecture: To ask some big questions • What is ‘intergenerational solidarity’? • How does intergenerational solidarity/conflict manifest itself in the private/public spheres? • ‘Intergenerational justice’ – is it an abstract concept that most people do not engage with? • If we were to develop a ‘grounded’ theory of IGS and justice, what would it look like?

...and some slightly smaller questions... • How is the notion of intergenerational solidarity/conflict deployed by policy actors and media in different post-industrial societies? • What matters for our practices of solidarity? What shapes them? • Are we, as social scientists, sometimes guilty of operating with concepts, measurements and instruments that are very poorly grounded in what matters to the people whose lives we purport to study?

The second purpose of the lecture: to theorise IGS • The intention is not to “prove” anything but rather to conceptualise and theorise IGS • On the basis of original empirical data, existing literature, observations, and some secondary data • Together, these constitute sufficient data to justify further systematic inquiry

Two meanings of ‘generations’ • Family generations – children, parents, grandparents etc. (positions in a lineage) • Societal generations – age groups whose relations are mediated by (welfare state) institutions (Pilcher, 1994) • ‘Mannheimian’ generations with shared identity – too messy in most cases

What ‘goes on’ between generations? • Transfers - time, money, housing, practical assistance • Solidarity / conflict – sentiments, attitudes and actions engendered by intergenerational co-existence and interaction • Justice - Is the balance of the transfers between generations ‘fair’?

TRANSFERS (Grand)Parents/ ’The Old’ Space, Space, Time, Respondents Time, Money Money (Grand)Children / ‘The Young’

SOCIAL Material and financial gifts to / from children 50-64 65-74 >=75 30 20 10 0 Gave property or Received financial large gift to assistance from children children

Solidarity in parent-adult child relations (Bengtson 2001) Structural Functional Associational Normative Affectual Consensual

Public and private solidarities: zero-sum / mutually reinforcing (crowd-out/crowd-in) Public Private Private Public

• How do the abstract concepts of ‘solidarity’ and ‘justice’ between generations manifest themselves at societal and individual levels? - Media portrayals - Ordinary citizens’ accounts

The UK: How the Baby-Boomers Stole Their Children’s Future

Reader comments on guardian.co.uk “Look at them, laughing and having a cup of tea.” “They benefited from the lower life expectancy of their parents and were able to get inheritances and not lose valuable earning power being carers for frail people.”

The US: The Greedy Geezers (‘ahneet papparaiset’) The War Against Youth Esquire, 26 March 2012 The recession didn't gut the prospects of American young people. The Baby Boomers took care of that. http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412#ixzz28iAGuA6b Greedy geezers? That's a myth By Amitai Etzioni , Special to CNN, August 22, 2012 “Elementary fairness says that people who worked all their lives and saved a considerable share of their earnings…should be allowed to live out their remaining years in reasonable comfort (…) far from spending it all on a big going out party during their retired years - which they surely are entitled to and could do – they give trillions of dollars to the young in gifts.” http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/22/opinion/etzioni-myth-of-greedy-geezers/index.html

Finland: Sukupolvisopimus Contract between Generations – also has connotations of ‘agreement’ – reached through negotiation, consensus ” Toisen maailmansodan jälkeisen yhteiskunnan merkittävin sosiaalinen innovaatio tuntuu olevan lapsilta lainaaminen – ilman heidän suostumustaan. Perintö näyttääkin lähemmässä tarkastelussa olevan perintä. ”

Fraction of the 527 comments in response to an article in Taloussanomat 2011 Minusta on hävytöntä ja edesvastuutonta tulla hyppimään silmille ja kertoa, että minä en ole ansainnut eläkettäni. Menkää pennut töihin ja lopettakaa urputtaminen. 60-luvulla... ei ollut edes leipäjonoja, josta olisi saanut ruokaa...ei ollut mäkkäriä eikä donitseja. Suuret ikäluokat paapoivat jälkikasvunsa kiittämättömiksi, ilmaiset päivähoidot, koulutukset, hyvät ruoat, leikkikalut, harrastukset, kaikkea mitä tekniikalla ja rahalla sai. Kiittämättömyys on maailman palkka. Ette kuitenkaan pääse eroon kunniavelastanne, nimittäin velvollisuudestanne huolehtia ikääntyvistä vanhemmistanne. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Isäni sai vakituisen työnsä kansakoulupapereilla vain kävelemällä tehtaan portista sisään. Tämä päivä on paljon mustempi...mahdollisuudet kohtuulliseen taloudelliseen turvallisuuteen ja pitkän tähtäimen suunnitteluun ovat huomattavasti harvemmalla kuin ennen. http://www.taloussanomat.fi/ihmiset/2011/05/30/jattivedatys-nain-suuret-ikaluokat-hyotyivat/20117579/139?offset=340#commentsHere

Eurobarometer (2012) ‘The majority of Europeans (71%) are aware of the fact that the population is ageing, but this is a concern for only 42% of them.’ (proportion of the ‘very concerned’ ranges from 3% in Sweden to 21% in Greece) ‘Most Europeans consider that older people play a major role in society and especially within their families (82%), in politics (71%), in the local community (70%) or in the economy (67%). ‘On average, Europeans believe that people start being considered as old just before 64 years, and are no longer considered young from the age of 41.8 years.’

Beyond the neat academic definitions... • Intergenerational solidarity/conflict emerges as a complex concept that is open to many definitions and (ab)uses • Is increasingly widely used in important political debates – witness current US presidential race • Seems to engage people – sells books & magazines, gets them to write impassioned comments on websites • Is a powerful construct that shapes public opinion & resource allocation

‘Opening up’ the notion of IGS • Put aside existing concepts, operationalisations and measurements of IGS • Adopt the Grounded Theory approach because it holds the promise - at least in principle - of discovering something that we as researchers and theorists are insufficiently attuned and perhaps even blind to

Changing Generations • Theorise IGS in Ireland / contemporary post- industrial societies on the basis of experiences and practices among people of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds • Inter-institutional collaboration between Trinity College Dublin (PI Virpi Timonen, Research Fellow Catherine Conlon) and National University of Ireland, Galway (PI Thomas Scharf, Research Fellow Gemma Carney)

100 in-depth interviews

Research approach Allow research participants to recount their perceptions and experiences of the give and take between themselves, family (social network) members and society at large  When not forced to make choices between ‘more’ or ‘less’ resources for ‘the young’ or ‘the old’, what will people say about the give and take between generations, and what does that tell us about IGS?

Strong (old) age-based societal solidarity Participants see no need to juxtapose public expenditure on older people with expenditure on younger people: the idea of taking from one generation in the interest of another barely features Pitting generations / age groups against each other in survey research can force choices that are not ‘real’ – but rather artificial constructs The ‘socially constructed nexus between the family and the welfare state’, evinces ‘motives of reciprocal exchange between generations rather than pure age- based self-interest’ (Goerres and Tepe 2011)

The locus of conflict / lack of solidarity ...lies completely outside the intergenerational sphere. Instead, critique is directed at two very different groups: (1) politicians and (highly paid) public sector workers (2) recipients of some means-tested welfare benefits Conflict and perceived unfairness / injustice at societal level are inter-sector and ‘inter-class’, not inter-generational