This research report by Intergenerational Foundation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The Rise of Gerontocracy? Addressing the intergenerational democratic deficit
This research report by Intergenerational Foundation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Talking to young people I know it seems that many have disenfranchised themselves by having no interest in politics and the belief that voting is pointless. I have always been a political activist and my message is get off your backsides and start getting involved in politics. if you don’t someone else will make all the decisions for you.
I think the aims of this site are sound, but I worry that the focus on inter-generational issues, misses the key fact of the huge number of older citizens who will also be severly limited in their standard of living, going forward.
Your pensions paper points out the vast divide between people with Final Salary pensions and Money Purchase and also the miniscule average pensions of typical private sector pensioners. I therefore believe that to suggest that the older generation have no common democratic cause with the young is likely to inflame passions in a misguided way : There is much more to be gained by the disenfranchised pensioner poor joining forces with the disenfranchised young, to tackle the fundamental issue – over-generous provision for a significant minority of pensioner rich
As a 55 year old, I can see clear evidence already of people in similar jobs with similar levels of responsibility, but who will have widely differing standards of living and/or have the ability to retire at widely differing ages. THE PROBLEM IS ALREADY HERE
So it is misplaced to suggest that a unified ‘Gerontrocacy’ acting against the interests of the young. The REAL issue of providing winter fuel allowance to wealthy pensioners is important, but pales into insignificance against huge guaranteed pensions that a significant minority of current pensioners enjoy. These are pillaging public finances and private pension schemes alike.
The answer is to punitively tax higher pension incomes – say above £25k, to recover some of this money to help alleviate the pressure on us all. (see my posting about the pensions paper)
Thanks for your comments Steve. I agree absolutely that the disenfranchised pensioner poor should be given more help but in terms of intergenerational fairness this is a debate that should take place intra-generationally ie within their own generational cohort. Is it not morally indefensible to take benefits you don’t need whilst others your own age are suffering?
With regard to a Gerontocracy – our research into local and parish councillors shows this to be the case. The older people get the more opposed to new building they become. 40% of local councillors are over 65 years of age whilst only 5% of these councillors are under 35 years of age. That’s because of pay, times of meetings, pressure from full-time work commitments. If we want more young people engaged we need to remove the barriers that prevent them from being involved.
Liz
I agree that access to democratic institutions is a big issue, and also affects busy 50-something’s like me who would love to have the time to get in involved, but see that most local councils are dominated by old f–T’s with too much time on their hands. I notice the subject of compulsory voting is being discussed again , after the police commissioner debacle – maybe something radical like that is needed to shake up the status quo.
It is obviously immoral for wealthy pensioners to take universal benefits. Why don’t you campaign to get the ageing celebs like Alan Sugar to donate their winter fuel allowance to Shelter. Although symbolic, I think it would’ve great to recruit some high profile oldies to your cause. Given the public interest in encouraging young ‘apprentices’ he might just see this as a good move