MODULE 5: Justice Across Ages (2)

Age groups vs. birth cohorts

• 20 year olds--you entered that group and you will leave it
• people born in 2005 -- you will never leave your birth cohort

Age group inequalities: when are they fair and just?

• adage "children are to be seen and not heard"

Birth cohort inequalities: when are they fair and just?

• age group inequalities can be temporary, since you leave your age group
• birth cohort inequalities more likely to be diachronic, since you never leave your birth cohort

Most of Justice Across Ages is about age group inequality

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Bidadanure, ch. 1.4

Ideas about birth cohort inequality

Philippe Van Parijs

intergenerational justice requires "each generation, each birth cohort, to make sure the situation of the next generation somehow measured, on a per capita basis is no worse than its own." (p. 42, quoting another author)

Luck egalitarians say: 

"our sex, social background, or ethnic origins are all instances of brute luck and should not be allowed to limit the scope of what one is able to do or have. The generation one is born into is anothe one of thesse circumstances we have no control over." (p. 42)

"the downstream generation shouldn't be worse off than the upstream generation" (p. 43)

Most other egalitarians would say

"We should have a presumption of equality when approaching inequalities between younger and older cohorts" (p. 43)

Bidadanure proposal

"I will accept a general principle of approximate equality between birth cohorts as a plausible goal of justice between overlapping generations. The principle ensures that benefits and burdens are shared over time in a way that does not make one general clearly worse off through no fault of its own." (p. 44)

"what we primarily want to ensure is that the downstream generation, which is in part at the mercy of the upstream generation, ends up at least as well off when compared to the previous generation." (p. 45)

"We should make sure that the brute luck of being born twenty years later does not significantly constrict one's opportunities, compared to what they would have been if one had been born twenty years earlier." We should show equal concern for the interests of all persons, regardless of the generation they were born in, because we all count in the same way." (p. 47)

What if your birth cohort is going to do somewhat worse...is that unfair?

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How should we think about birth cohorts?

1. Everyone born on Dec 31, 2005, at midnight
2. Everyone born on Dec 31, 2005
3. Everyone born in 2005
4. Everyone born in 1997-2012 (Generation Z)

By Cmglee - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Jean Twenge, Generations

1. based on technology, not major events
2. radios, TVs, washing machines, birth control, life-saving medicine, computers, internet, smart phones, AI
3. Gen Z: smart phones
4. Gen Z: the slow life strategy -- longer to grow up, longer to grow old

Using these concepts, Bidadanure is saying...

• Gen Z shouldn't do worse than the previous generations 
• We should prevent that from happening or remedy it if it does happen

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Let's add a little urgency to the question...

Gen Z could (this is speculative!) wind up faring somewhat worse than millennials because of ..... 

1. covid timing
2. fewer entry-level jobs because of AI
3. fewer entry-level jobs because of automation
4. climate change
5. increasing national debt, 
6. etc

Bidadanure--we should be taking stock of these worries and taking steps to prevent Gen Z from doing worse ... later in the book, more on exactly what we could do.

WORKBOOK