To a graduate of 2020 from a graduate of 2009

Creative writing can be a tool to release anxiety, find clarity and share perspectives on difficult issues. IF supporter Josephine Robertson, a graduate of 2009, writes an empathetic letter to new graduates on intergenerational legacy and adjusting expectations. Focusing on these revised expectations, and having an empathetic listening ear between generations, may yet deliver fulfilment… Read more »

The labour market and educational experience after COVID-19

The post-COVID-19 landscape in both education and the workplace is already looking very different. Olga Triay, a 20-year-old student of International Business Economics at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, assesses the positives and negatives of this changed world from the point of view of those affected the most: young generations.

Reflections on WIFW 2020: COVID-19 edition

For a second year, the Worldwide Intergenerational Fairness Week (6–12 July 2020) has been marked by a series of blog articles from around the globe – this time focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on young people. As the world tentatively emerges, blinking, from lockdown, the international public sphere seems in agreement: this… Read more »

A Letter to Future Generations

Rebecca Freitag – Ambassador for the Stuttgart-based Foundation for the Rights for Future Generations and a former UN Youth Delegate for Sustainable Development – has asked herself this question: “How I will explain this historic, COVID-induced opportunity for a new beginning to my children and grandchildren – and how it finally turned out?” She imagines… Read more »

The scars of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is laying bare intergenerational inequities that have already deepened after the Global Financial Crisis and will be significant challenges for the post-COVID recovery, argues Lukas Sustala, Director of NEOS Lab, the Vienna-based think tank and academy of NEOS, a liberal Austrian party. In his book Zu spät zur Party (“Too late to… Read more »

How will future generations remember COVID-19 – if they remember it at all?

Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His new book explores the virtues of long-term thinking – essential for good intergenerational policy. Will the current COVID-19 pandemic be a critical landmark on the three possible paths that lead into the future?

COVID has forced Australia to re-evaluate its values

First bushfires, now COVID-19, Australia is reeling, and the young risk bearing the brunt. Sweeney Preston, a 22-year-old newsroom contributor for the FYA (Foundation for Young Australians) – as well as a comedian, cinema worker and anthropology student at the University of Melbourne – turns a critical eye on recent events, and describes how it… Read more »