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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Have older generations overplayed their hands? | | Author(s) | Liz Emerson, Angus Hanton |
| Journal title | Working with Older People, vol 19, no 1, 2015 |
| Publisher | Emerald, 2015 |
| Pages | pp 21-24 |
| Source | www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/wwop.htm |
| Keywords | Young people ; Age groups [elderly] ; Wealth ; Social policy ; United Kingdom. |
| Annotation | There have been limited research studies comparing the incidence of wealth amongst older generations and the scale of liabilities being passed on to younger and future generations. This paper expands on the Intergenerational Foundation (IF) presentation first given at the 'Portraying Ageing: Cultural Assumptions and Practical Implications' one-day conference held at the British Library on 28 April 2014, which was co-organised with the Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA) and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Changing demographics, wealth distribution, government debt and voting patterns are examined in order to question whether current government policy should continue to protect older generations at the expense of younger and future generations. IF provides statistically robust evidence that, in spite of increasing wealth, older generations continue to be protected by government policy, while younger generations are targeted for cuts from liabilities built up, but not paid for, by previous generations. Government policy may have tipped too far in favour of older wealthier cohorts, many of whom receive automatic benefits based on reaching a certain age. Governments should consider replacing age as a proxy for need with means-testing, in order to rebalance benefits more fairly across the generations. This paper will be of value to policy-makers interested in rebalancing the interests of all generations more equitably. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150619270 A |
| Classmark | SB: BB: W7: TM2: 8 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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