Introduction

Every human being comes into the world alone, and ultimately leaves it with equal singularity. Were it not for collective notions such as citizenship, we would experience life only as individuals, living in a Hobbesian ‘State of Nature’, in ‘continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ (Hobbes, 1994 [1640]). Early political organisation was based on the realisation that rampant individualism is an ineffective means of survival for the human species (Bates, 2003). The implication of this admission is that some degree of individual sovereignty must be surrendered if humans are to achieve enough peace and security to pursue a social life, an agreement identified as the ‘social contract’ (Hobbes, 1994 [1640]). By the end of the 20th century, in the global North, peace and security were based on a shared welfare state, where each individual contributes some of his or her own personal resources to be guaranteed health, security and freedom (Powell, 2009). The social contract eventually evolved into the establishment of state-funded welfare states that provide income support and health and social care, which are provided on the basis of social citizenship. The welfare state was, at least in part, responsible for advances in public health that have extended life expectancy by a decade over the last 50 years in the 28 states of the European Union (EU) (Eurostat, 2011). Paradoxically, it is the success of the welfare state in providing enough social security to contribute to longevity that now places pressure on the social contract which underpins that same system.

In this chapter, I examine some of the implications of demographic ageing for social citizenship. There are inevitable policy implications of human evolution away from the ‘nasty, brutish and short’ life of early humans. What are the implications of demographic change for the model of collective provision of welfare? Will having more older people mean that resources must be redistributed between age groups? Will the existing social contract have to be renegotiated? If we accept that the existing social contract is based on a set of taken-for-granted life-course transitions – from childhood to work, and from work to retirement – then renegotiating this contract will be complex and require strong, positive intergenerational relations.