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2 - Youth in Aging Societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

By
Elizabeth Fussell
Edited by
Jeylan T. Mortimer  and
Reed W. Larson
Elizabeth Fussell
Affiliation:
Tulane University
Jeylan T. Mortimer
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Reed W. Larson
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Summary

What will the future of youth in aging societies be? Some scholars view the unprecedented aging of the population in advanced industrial countries as a crisis for youth. Others look toward the reorganization of industrial society to post-industrial society and see great hope for the future, with youth playing an important role as the bearers of cutting-edge human capital. I suggest that the future of youth depends on the state of the intergenerational contract. This social contract commits adults to nurture and invest in youth and commits grown children to provide for their aged parents. This implicit agreement applies in both private families and in society at large through public welfare systems that provide, to varying degrees, support to the elderly and children. As more and more people live into old age, this arrangement potentially places a heavy burden on working-age adults and especially parents of young children, who are both contributing to pension systems, and possibly contributing to the care of their own parents, while raising their own children. The public aspect of this contract is manifested in the welfare state and labor market institutions that determine how earnings are redistributed from workers to economic dependents, and the private aspect through similar within-family exchanges.

The question I raise in this chapter is whether demographic circumstances and social arrangements in advanced industrial societies will be able to continue to support this intergenerational contract, or will the demographic shift in the age structure of the population cause the contract to break down?

Type
Chapter
Information
The Changing Adolescent Experience
Societal Trends and the Transition to Adulthood
 , pp. 18 - 51
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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