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
• perating 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’

(Grand)Children / ‘The Young’

Respondents

Space, Time, Money Space, Time, Money

SOCIAL

Material and financial gifts to / from children

10 20 30 Gave property or large gift to children Received financial assistance from children 50-64 65-74 >=75

Solidarity in parent-adult child relations (Bengtson 2001)

Structural Associational Affectual Consensual Normative Functional

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

Public Private

Public Private

• 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

• f 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

• ut 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

• levan 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

• nly 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%)

• r 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,
• perationalisations 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

• n older people with expenditure on younger people:

the idea of taking from one generation in the interest

• f 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

(Intergenerational) solidarity at societal level contoured by class

Within societal solidarity, age matters in Ireland as an ‘automatic’ demarcation of deservingness. However, views

• f intergenerational solidarity within the public sphere are

also contoured by class – expressions of support for intergenerational transfers at welfare state level being stronger among low/middle SES participants. [The medical card] should be means tested...that blanket over seventies [free health care] was a magnanimous gesture...without too much thinking behind it. (...) I think you have got to look after yourself from the cradle to the grave. Martha O’Flynn, 69, high SES

Practices of IGS within families are strongly defined by class

• Social and economic resources enable

individuals to ‘contract out’ elements of intergenerational solidarity, in particular care (of both children and older family members)

• Generational observing (within families)

influences what people expect from younger /

• lder family generations – and is in interaction

with what they see at the societal level (quality and availability of State support)

“Unquestioned obligation”

I do everything, the washing, the drying, the feeding, the bathing...I have to do everything for her (...) Your family is your family. I shouldn’t be paid to look after [my grandmother] (...) when it’s your family I feel like it’s kind of your duty (...)

Stacey Kennedy, 19, low SES

[My mother] doesn’t care, but if something happened [to her] tomorrow I’d be the first there. (...) regardless of anything. A hundred percent. (...) [because] [s]he’s your mother and you’ll always only have one mother.

Kylie Quinn, 25, low SES

Stacey’s and Kylie’s views and actions embody strong moral capital -internalised social norms that obligate (grand)children to care for and support their older (grand)parents (Silverstein et al. 2012)

Solidarity and class

• Class is the central variable that, together with

gender, either ‘binds’ or ‘frees’ from extensive intra-family solidarity (time/care – we focused less on transfers of money/assets)

• The ‘generational cleavage...masks the

continued existence of the class cleavage between the wealthy and the poor’ (Kohli 2006) – furthermore these are intertwined with IGS

Intergenerational solidarity is strongly contoured by social class

• In the light of everyday practices, perceptions and

beliefs recounted by our participants (in relation to both the state and family), solidarities are strongly class-based (& gendered) – something that most current research and theorising neglect / underestimate

• Focusing on age, cohort and generation in the

absence of attention to gender and class can produce deeply misleading findings and argumentation

Conceptual model of inter-twined, class- based public and private solidarities

• Class-based resources
• Observing older family

generations

• Thinking about (but

rarely discussing) future care needs

Other family generations

• Observing younger

family generations

• Expectations and

preparations for own care needs

• Resourcing of younger

family generations

• Class-based resources

Own family generation

• Uncertainty regarding

entitlement / sustainability

• Increasing inequalities in

many welfare states

Society

Back to the Esquire (US)...

“People who want to join society will do so through an increasingly lengthy period of humiliation and struggle, and

• nly through the help of their parents. It's the dirty little

secret of every middle-class person in their mid-thirties: Everybody's parents helped them out. Who do you think is paying for all those summer internships? How many new parents do you think actually have enough money for a Bugaboo stroller, let alone a down payment on a first home? And if you don't have a mom or dad who can help with ballet lessons for the kids or family vacations, God help you. America is becoming what it was founded to reject, what it has resisted throughout its history, a patronage [ -- class!! -- ] society.”

Solidarity at welfare state level

Welfare states can...be understood in part as a kind

• f social contract between [societal] generations

that runs parallel to the intergenerational contracts within families and kin...welfare policies are to a large degree not only policies

• f...obligations between social generations....[but

also]frame the context in which intergenerational relations are embedded. Both of these kinds of contracts – the social and the family – differ across European countries. (Saraceno 2008)

General government expenditure on

• ld age, 2009

Expenditure on care for older persons, % of GDP

Ageing and societal solidarity

• In global comparison, Finland has the 6th
• ldest population
• By 2050, the proportion of the population

aged 65 and over is predicted to exceed one quarter in Finland

• ‘The sustainability gap’ for Finland is around

the EU average thanks to reform of pension policies

Pension reform in Finland

• Strengthening the link between work and pension (contributions

and benefits)

• One can avoid the effect of the life-expectancy co-efficient by

working longer

• This constitutes increased conditionality / individualisation on the
• ne hand...
• On the other hand, financial stability is corrected primarily by

changes in contributions from the employers and employees, not by pensioners

• Pension expenditure and the need to raise contributions will

therefore increase – as a result of consensus among social partners that seeks to fundamentally preserve the principle of a state-

• rchestrated pension system based on redistribution and risk

sharing – hence reinforcing the intergenerational contract at societal level

(Timonen and Kautto, forthcoming 2013)

Moral capital...and its collective incarnation (Silverstein et al 2012)

• ‘Value of values’ transmitted across generations, with

potential benefit to the transmitter (parents within families

• or older cohorts in society)
• The family is a moral economy within which parents

inculcate values of IGS – on a much larger scale, the state is a moral economy in which values of IGS are articulated

• Stacey and Kylie illustrate / embody this at individual /

family level in Ireland...

• ...Pension reforms in Finland arguably embody a collective

form of moral capital at the level of societal solidarity – has compulsory elements, and is reproduced across generations as a socially desirable structure

% who think there is a lot of tension between young and old people in their country, 2007

Conclusions

• In order to understand the complex field of

intergenerational transfers, solidarity and justice, we need to combine constructivist and positivist approaches to ‘knowing what is going on here’

• We cannot take various surveys and trust them to

give us a good ‘evidence base’ about relations between generations – a topic that is of enormous importance in the light of the uses to which it is put by powerful policy actors

Conclusions cont.

• We cannot – and shouldn’t - talk about intergenerational

solidarity without talking about class (and gender – although I have not focused on the latter in this presentation)

• Intergenerational solidarities are closely intertwined with

social locations, resources and experiences that are defined by class

• We need to bring class back onto the agenda – in research
• n intergenerational relationships, and also more broadly in

how we approach solidarities and conflict in present-day societies if we are to understand what Durkheim called the bonds which unite [people] one with another’ [original: ‘men’]

Conclusions cont.

• In addition to class, intergenerational solidarity at both

family and societal level is shaped by welfare states (possibly in ways that modulate the effect of class)

• Instead of seeing IGS as subject to erosion, we might

usefully approach it as something that has a societal incarnation – in the form of moral capital at the level of welfare state institutions

• Where moral capital is eroded at welfare state / family

level – not in the least due to growing inequality – purported intergenerational injustice becomes a tool of political rhetoric that promotes policies that in turn undermine both class- and age-based solidarities

References

Bengtson VL (2001) Beyond the nuclear family: The increasing importance of multigenerational bonds. Journal

• f Marriage and Family 63:1-16

Bourdieu P (1986) The forms of capital. In: Richardson JG (ed) Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of capital. Greenwood Press, New York, pp 241-258 Durkheim, E (1984) The division of labor in societies. New York: The Free Press [first published 1893] Eurobarometer (2012) Active ageing (Summary). Special Eurobarometer 378. European Commission. Goerres A, Tepe, M (2011) ‘The family and the welfare state: the impact of public provision for families on young people’s demand for public childcare across 21 nations’. In: Vanhuysse P, Goerres A (eds) Ageing populations in post-industrial democracies: Comparative studies of policies and politics. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon. and New York, pp 178-205 Pilcher, J (1994) ‘Mannheim’s sociology of generations: An undervalued legacy’, British Journal of Sociology 45(3): 481-95. Saraceno, C (Ed.) (2008) Families, ageing and social policy. Intergenerational solidarity in European welfare

• states. Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar.

Silverstein M, Conroy SJ, Gans D (2012) Beyond solidarity, reciprocity and altruism: moral capital as a unifying concept in intergenerational support for older people. Ageing & Society 32:1246-1262 Timonen V, Conlon C, Scharf T, Carney G (2012) Re-conceptualising intergenerational solidarity through the Grounded Theory approach. Draft paper, under review, available on request from timonenv@tcd.ie Timonen V, Kautto M (2013) ‘Sustainability of the Nordic model in the face of population ageing’, in S. Harper and K. Hamblin (eds) The International Handbook of Ageing and Public Policy. Edward Elgar.