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ageing populations, baby-boomers, care, care and support, discourses of ageing, family, grandchildren, health, housing, inequality, inheritance, intergenerational conflict, intergenerational transfers, labour market, long term care, old age, poverty, providers of care, public finance, sustainability, welfare system, young
Two interesting things happened today. The Office for National Statistics published data showing that we now have, for the first time in history, over a million over 65s in paid work, almost 10% of the over 65 population of the UK. At the same time, the Bishop of London, in a widely publicised speech, lambasted the baby-boomers for over-consuming welfare resources, more than their fair share, and greedily snatching all the resources from younger age groups.
This is an ill-considered, divisive and irresponsible debate. It is so disappointing that a man with the power and resources of the Bishop of London stokes up intergenerational tension with such a narrow and unsubstantiated view of lifecourse & welfare.
First, although you hear the phrase ‘baby-boomers’ and this is increasingly publicly associated with how they stole our future, you never see any considered analysis of who these alleged people are. Almost all baby-boomers are under state pension age, all millions of them. They are aged about 48 to 68. They are in the main not pensioners, who, despite widespread poverty and vulnerability, low state pensions and decreasing assets, punished for having saved according to government policy by quantitative easing, close to zero interest rates on their savings, and many struggling to make ends meet, are often represented in the media by a picture of Lord Sugar and an unrepresentative mansion in the South East of England. Instead of discussing poverty and inequality in housing, assets and income among our older people, this kind of nonsense rhetoric about baby-boomers fuels a vision of all pensioners as rich, all everyone else as poor, and a mythical cohort of “baby-boomers” (of no real age) who “have it all”. Putting aside these so-called baby-boomers, about a quarter of pensioners own no property at all, with about 20 per cent in the social housing sector, and about 5 per cent in the often appalling conditions of private rented property. A quarter of all privately owned homes and nearly 40 per cent of all rented homes are officially classified as ‘non-decent’, and these will be disproportionately occupied by older people. Geographical variation in the value of housing equity is enormous with almost all housing wealth held in London and the South East of England. It is important also to understand the political and social history of housing. People don’t own housing because they are greedy, they own housing because of purposively directed government policy over many decades that made it so, and whether their house is now worth a lot or very little is an accident of geography. About a quarter to a third of pensioners live below even the government’s low-drawn threshold for means tested benefits, failing for many complex reasons to claim the means tested benefits that the government considers they are entitled to, to maintain a bare minimum standard of healthy living.
Second, the societal contribution of those over 65 (need I repeat that these are not baby-boomers?) is never properly considered or even vaguely acknowledged in these debates. As paid and unpaid workers, in the labour market, as self-employed business owners, as carers of self, spouses, parents and grandparents, many with complex comorbidities, as carers of returning adult children and grandchildren, as providers of financial, emotional and physical resources including housing, time and money. Research over decades has shown repeatedly that older generations are net providers of resources within families, they provide more to their families than their families provide to them. That is even without considering the role of inheritance in wealthier families, perhaps the most financially socially divisive cultural practice of all.
Third, when we move to the public sphere, the debate is again ill-informed. It is again very well established in research that most health costs are associated with the years before death, and pretty much the two years before death, irrespective of age. Every person can only die once. The reason we see older people disproportionately represented in our hospitals and GP surgeries is because younger people are now so healthy. Indeed, whether ageing populations cause health care costs to increase per se is a matter of intense and unresolved debate. There are many other pressures on health care costs, including new equipment, new treatment and changing cultures of healthcare. Growth in health care costs is much greater for younger age groups than for old.
Are pensioners “over-consuming” pensions? Our state pension is among the worst in the Global North, and while many pensioners live in official poverty, millions more live just above the official poverty line. Under the Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s, pensioner poverty became so severe that improving the financial lives of older people was a policy priority for the incoming Labour government in 1997. Pensioners share in the nation that they helped to build, the economic growth that resulted from their efforts, not to mention their former and continuing contributions to taxation, national insurance, economies of household and care, and the labour economy for all of their working lives – often longer and more stable than contemporary life courses, with far riskier and detrimental working conditions that for many have impacted on long term health. Some fought in Wars, some rebuilt Britain after the War, with increasing productivity in economic life. They had children, so important to population stability and economic growth, and cared for them.
Looking at a State budget at a static moment in time and seeing how resources are allocated is a fundamentally flawed approach. These are our parents and grandparents, embedded in couples, in families, in communities and society, with lifelong histories of interaction with the State, going back to the day they were born. Those who are young and middle aged will one day be old, and this will be true for them too.
We need to ask a different question. What purpose is being served by dishing up the rhetoric of intergenerational conflict day after day? By introducing social policies that deliberately set young against old, by formally creating age divisions, brutally penalising young people in housing and welfare, and then telling them its all the fault of the old? The answer is that social citizenship is being eroded in the 21st Century for people of all ages, inequalities are widening, and it is all happening behind the smokescreen of intergenerational conflict. Masterfully done.
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gerontologyuk said:
Reblogged this on gerontologyuk.
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Pauline Cutting said:
I agree with most but see no point in arguing with people who are ignorant of the issues we seniors face. They will not learn until they experience for themselves the problems facing rising inflation, dissolving capital, rising heating bills, (colder when older) derisive interest rates on savings, etc
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gerontologyuk said:
Very grateful to Dr. Lynne Livsey @lynnelqr for our discussions over some years of the ideas in this blog, and from whom I have borrowed the occasional turn of phrase!
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sayps said:
Reblogueó esto en Envejecer, una nueva etapa.
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lynnelqr said:
Well done Debbie for voicing a counter-discourse to the dominant representation of population ageing as a major threat to civilisation in the UK. It is certainly true that claims of intergenerational conflict are being mobilised with some ferocity in political and media discourse in the UK at present (and from a variety of policy interest groups as well as the medical profession, think-tanks and even senior figures in the Anglican Church! ). Of course, history tells us that these are not new claims. Indeed, critical gerontology had a lot to say about the use of apocalyptic demography scenarios to promote ageism, age divisions and ageist social policies in the 1980s and 1990s.
It is evident that the ‘Greedy Baby Boomer’ discourse is gaining purchase in contemporary talk and text (especially when framed in the language of austerity and used to justify welfare retrenchment). Therefore, perhaps it is time for a renewal of our commitment to critical gerontology in the public sphere. We need to use every channel we can (including social media) to challenge and question the interests being served in promoting age divisions in this way and the long-term societal consequences.
Time to get writing to the press and push for some critical gerontologists onto Question Time and the Today Programme methinks!
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Martin said:
While Dr Charteris was preparing for life in Trinity College Cambridge, I was in the fortunate position of leaving a brutal Secondary Modern so that I could get a job (45 hours/week) in a warehouse. I managed to get a mortgage when I was about 30 and buy a collection of second hand furniture to go into my house. About 10 years later I could afford my second holiday abroad. From about this point I gradually increased my mortgage payments and pension savings. This has meant that holidays abroad have been rare (less than half a dozen in all). I am now retired on a small pension and have some savings left. What is it about those on the left (and now the Church) who seem to want to put about the myth that I have been greedy?
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jay ginn said:
Well said. But why does this claim of ‘greedy old geezers’ keep re-appearing, despite effective refutation by critical gerontologists? Because it suits the agenda of certain interest groups. The most recent ‘front’ for these is the Intergenerational Foundation. Presenting boomers and pensioners as grabbing an unfair share of state resources from the young provides a rationale for reducing state pensions and LA budgets that pay for social care while promoting instead private pensions and private social care arrangements. Who gains from that? The provider companies and the City (or Wall St, since similar tactics were used by Americans for Generational Equity some years ago to justify cutting Social Security and advancing private pensions in the US). Who loses? We all do, but especially women and the low paid.
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Deb said:
DP, thank you for this considered response. I had an identical reaction to the ill chosen sentiments. At 62 and a boomer himself, I am not quite sure what he was expecting to achieve by fanning the fires of inter-generational conflict . I thought his collective misuse of the boomer cohort was irresponsible. Given longevity expectations, the 78M American and 17M British boomers are in a unique position to make positive changes to the way we choose to age going forward, let them!
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Alan Hatton-Yeo said:
Hi, really support this and share your concern about the Bishop of London’s comments. Are you okay for us to promote this blog through our intergenerational networks. It will generate a lot of interest,
Alan
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gerontologyuk said:
Of course Alan, please do. And thank you.
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Dinah said:
As I have said before in other fora, there seems to be an organised attempt to try to blame baby boomers (whoever they may be!) for a situation existing now which has been caused by successive governments (as well as world economic problems and other factors beyond our control). My children (aged 28-32, and all in work) cannot afford to buy their own homes, because of house prices in the SE of England and the ridiculously conservative lending policies of banks and building societies these days. One son pays about £600 a month in rent: he could be paying that in mortgage, but no bank/building society will lend him enough money. I could and would help him with a deposit, but even that won’t help to reach the dizzy heights of the price of a one-bedroom flat in London. Yet the likes of David Willetts and now – God help us! no joke intended – the bishop of London, are trying to blame us for a situation absolutely not of our making, and which those of us who aren’t multi-millionaires are powerless to change. Why don’t such people come up with ideas for how we ‘baby boomers’ actually could help our children in practical terms? – more schemes e.g. for parents to provide guarantees, for mortgages in joint parent/ younger person names, more ‘affordable’ (whatever that means) housing for younger people even if they’re not ‘key workers’, etc. etc. If, instead of complaining and finger-pointing, such people helped to dream up creative and practical methods of changing the situation, they might actually help instead of fanning the flames of so counterproductive a conflict.
Actually in my experience, most younger people don’t blame my generation at all – they realise it’s their parents, who mostly try to help as much as they can – so perhaps the flames are not so readily fanned as one might fear and these demagogues might hope.
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veronikaw said:
Totally agree, as a child of baby boomer parents, who are both still in full-time/ part-time work and by no means ‘rich’ (and both had to pay their way through University), it would have never occurred to me (or any of my friends) to blame my parents’ generation for our current financial crisis. To be honest, it’s what politicians have always done, blame someone else for problems that are the consequence of complex causes, whether it’s immigrants, so called unruly youth or now the ‘greedy’ baby boomers, the rhetoric is always the same… it’s convenient excuse for not having to have a serious and honest discussion of why we are in the situation we are in and what we can do to improve things.
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Mervyn Eastman said:
I totally agree, and thank you for starting this discussion. As an early Boomer (b.1949) I am tired of being ” demonized” through ill informed, ill considered and ii judged comments. Each generation learns from the previous. The benefits of free education, NHS, employment opportunities, work pensions etc etc came from Generation One ( b 1905 to 1924 ). The writings of the likes of David Willetts, Ed Howker & Malik,Francis Beckett have, together with recent political commentators fuelled a conflict.
The ageing agenda is probably today more divisive, more negative and more fractured than ever.
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Hilary Burrage said:
It’s reassuring to find that one is not alone on this matter.
As one of the first cohort to reach university (all <5% of us!) I do worry about the failure to reality check before some people who should know better pursue this agenda. Or, just maybe, their early / midlife experience wasn't the same as that of me and most of my 'baby boomer' friends from an inner-city school in B'ham?
Whatever, I believe there is now a substantively political objective behind much of this positioning…. it makes people of different ages fall out with each other, rather than coming to the conclusion jointly that their political leaders could if they wished – which they don't – try to produce jobs for everyone who wants one, rather than cutting jobs (and therefore general well-being) all round under the guise of 'austerity' and the underlying political motive of diminishing the state.
Hilary [ http://hilaryburrage.com/tag/age/ ]
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chris said:
IF are a registered charity: http://www.if.org.uk/archives/category/research/page/
specialises in centralises opinions.
Other media puts out some misleading comments and the true information is just as easy to source:
UK debt to GDP is not as high now as it was at the end of WW2: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_debt
More is spent on in work welfare to below pension age than any other previous generation i.e below pension age are depleting the funds designed for those who could not work through age (after 40 – 50 years contributing taxes with minimal amounts being taken out). The inwork benefits are made up to support housing, in some cases the new booming industry of landlordship following buy to let, child care and tax credit and income support uplifting the incomes (corporate welfare). Then additional investments in education, leisure facilities, parks, entertainment etc is spent on below retirement age but from different budgets. If the total amount spent from all of the budgets was compared, a very much larger amount is apportioned out to below pension age
The cost to buy housing is cheaper now than in previous decades as opposed to the sell price (15% decades ago and 2-3% now) http://www.bsa.org.uk/docs/statisticspdfs/interestrates.pdf
Building the landlordship industry was deliberate, originally to protect first time buyers being caught with huge negative equity problems experienced by previous generations
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:dYmJKj8gcZYJ:www.bshf.org/scripting/getpublication.cfm?thePubID%3D46C4A5EA-15C5-F4C0-99C662FE48B048B9+distribution+of+housing+stock+in+the+uk&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiSLMgdb_oaqNLIyRHnZH8ACBDdtYGNUd6Tp78a25IHtAJDGj3-AOJgqeGPiSSKobJZrI_K6p8x7jke8STQA_IaKgZiK3dP6WXs0Y5Rh6duaWI4BNfJyKzpY6T84Y0BqhuR7kbl&sig=AHIEtbTcpjpJjWY4Onuh43v1WFHbaddvkQ
*it is the higher deposits of 5-10% that is prohibitive to first time buyers although many of the maligned boomers are down sizing to fund gifted deposits and tuition fees. Not something their parents could dream of doing recovering from the traumas and austerity during and after WW2
The claim on some media that boomers benefitted from mortgage relief is untrue : only some on the higher tax threshold benefitted
Tuition fees were not free for all students for the boomers. In the period up to the mid seventies under half a million attended as opposed to the current 2 million per year now that attend. Then as now, some were helped but only after means testing
the lifestyle review compared to the generational fairness charts found in some media is interesting:http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ghs/general-lifestyle-survey/2011/rpt-40-years.html
and of the 7 million 16-24 year olds, 4 million live singly, 2 million of those are singled parents. Such high numbers being able to live singly/independently is unprecedented. Previous generations would have rented a room in a house if they lived away from home: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-and-quick-statistics-for-wards-and-output-areas-in-england-and-wales/sty-how-people-are-living-in-england-and-wales.html
None of the differences are begrudged, however, the older generations and history is not being represented correctly in some media.
the young should be offered apprenticeships in lieu of university places where the subjects are over subscribed to what industry can provide. The young can buy houses as a lower cost to buy than the boomer decade but they are prevented from doing so with high deposits. If some groups in other media wish the newer generations to be treated fairly they should provide correct information and constructive solutions that can sustain their children. The first of the post-boomers reached age 50 last year and for some, will be entitled to early retirement. the first tranche of the surviving boomers have gone beyond life expectancy in age where those at the other end are only just reaching retirement and working beyond it… thereby contributing in taxes without family welfare benefits
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chris said:
definition of a baby boomer: A baby boomer is anyone born between 1946 and 1960… which would make them 57-67 now as of with a life expectancy of 72–75 years old unless they worked in a heavy industry or polluted city/town in which case the forecast was not to reach retirement for a percentage
The best was forward to truly help the young is to promote trade overseas generating an income, accept that the post boomers will live very much longer and design technologies for them living independently: robot, service industries to supporting care at home, building appropriate housing for them to move to designed not to isolate but create self supporting communities and thereby freeing up family homes and making homes affordable to buy ie lower deposits
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