The dawn of a new government presents an opportunity for a fairer social contract to be forged, one which places intergenerational fairness at its core. IF volunteer, Max Whelton, investigates the three most pressing intergenerational issues that need addressing in this social contract: democratic imbalance, the housing crisis and achieving net-zero.
The breakdown of the social contract
There is a growing sentiment amongst young people that generational mobility has collapsed. Recent research has found that 60% of 18-24 year-olds believe that teenagers today will find it harder to achieve a reasonable standard of living compared to their parent’s generation. A fairer social contract, which places intergenerational issues at its centre, must be established in order to combat young voter apathy and restore young people’s faith in politics.
Democratic imbalance
There is a skew in the electoral weighting towards the “grey vote”. Research estimates that over-65s now constitute 24.5% of the electorate thanks to a combination of increasing life expectancy and sheer cohort size compared to declining birth rates of generations since. Coupled with the asymmetry of voter turnout by age, the imbalance of our electoral weighting becomes clear.
A re-weighting of the electorate must first be established in order to induce an electoral incentive for other intergenerational issues. Extending the franchise to include votes at 16 would help to redress the democratic deficit, thereby turning intergenerational issues into election-deciding issues. As evidence from Scotland demonstrates, that extension of the franchise can also help to improve the bigger issue of turn-out with a significant follow-through effect in electoral turn-out for those whose first election was at the ages of 16 or 17 years.
Achieving net-zero
The window of opportunity to mitigate the severest effects of climate change is closing. In spite of the climate emergency all around us, a common policy narrative has emerged; one that places short-term need over long-term sustainability. That rhetoric has led to the watering down of net-zero targets, despite evidence suggesting that support has largely been sustained across all social groups, even during Covid-19 and the cost of living crisis. The low-hanging fruit has been picked – it is now time to take bold steps forwards now that a new government is in place.
Many of the solutions required to meet net zero are well established, but necessitate more investment by government and more uptake by the public. In order to encourage broader adoption, the Climate Assembly 2020 report recommended that the financial burden of these policies be fairly distributed across income groups. One such example is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which has suffered from lower than expected uptake because of the high cost of upgrading thereby locking out poorer consumers. By increasing subsidies for poorer consumers, a new government can make the scheme progressive and increase voluntary uptake.
Housing
Since 2017, homes in all four UK countries have sold for more than five years’ worth of average household income, sailing far beyond the Office for National Statistics (ONS) affordability threshold. The picture also remains bleak for renters, with nearly one in four UK private renters now spending 40% or more of their income on housing – the highest proportion in Europe. Insufficient social housing construction, coupled with ongoing right-to-buy sales, have resulted in a net loss of social-rent homes almost every year since 1981, including 11,700 homes lost between 2022 and 2023 alone. The nation has simply not built enough homes to buy or rent across all tenures with the crisis experienced more by younger generations in local authorities the length and breadth of the UK.
The severity of the housing crisis necessitates building 1.5 million new homes just to keep up with current demand. It also means that difficult decisions need to be taken about which parts of the greenbelt should be built on to deliver those new homes. We also need to increase density, build more affordable, and crucially, safe, homes for truly affordable social rent and increase our overall stock of temporary housing for those who need it the most. That will all take time.
Immediate policies are needed to use our existing housing stock more efficiently, such as increasing the Rent a Room allowance and encouraging older generations to take in lodgers. We also need to reduce the appetite of those who want to use the nation’s homes as forms of investment. IF’s recent report found immediate levers can be pulled, such as: aligning unearned and earned income tax rates; replacing Council Tax with a proportional and progressive property tax; and reforming Right to Buy to prevent new-builds being sold off too soon.