I am writing an article to post here to be called “Generation by generation – are things getting better or worse?” Obviously this needs to take into account what is happening about “intergenerational fairness”. But what does that term mean?
I started with “Intergenerational Fairness Index – Measuring Changes in Intergenerational Fairness in the United Kingdom” from the Intergenerational Foundation, since its title matched what I wanted. But it actually demonstrates what not to do!
I’ve written a commentary (below) on that document in order to discuss what “intergenerational fairness” means and how to measure it.
Summary of commentary on “Intergenerational Fairness Index”
The document (26 June 2012) is available as both a PDF and a Word document at 2012 Intergenerational Fairness Index. I’ll call it “the IF Index” for brevity, although that is really the name of the Index that it documents.
1. The IF Index doesn’t define “generation” or “young”, and certainly isn’t consistent in their use. It says “It has not been possible to define the young in the same way across the sets of data which are available but we do not believe that the differences would materially affect our results”. Yet it variously uses data for “students achieving … grades at GCSE”; “students in Higher Education”; “those aged 20 to 29 (22 to 29 from …)”; “those aged under 25″; “those aged 25 to 34″; “the UK workforce”; “those aged under 60″. All of those people are important, but they comprise different generations which are sometimes in conflict with one-another. All they really have in common is that they are not retired pensioners. And if the IF Index is intended to be “anti-pensioner” or “anti-baby-boomer”, that may be the point!
2. The IF Index doesn’t attempt to define “intergenerational fairness”. Since there isn’t a consensus about what that means, it is hard to validate whether it really is measuring it and whether it being consistent. Presumably the term is related to Intergenerational equity, but the IF Index doesn’t explicitly use that as its scope: some of its topics are not about “relationships between children, youth, adults and seniors, particularly in terms of treatment and interactions”. It isn’t automatically “intergenerationally unfair” for one generation to have different characteristics from another. (The shorter life expectancy of earlier generations isn’t “intergenerationally unfair”). It becomes “unfair” when undesirable differences arise because of “treatment and interactions”, especially undue transfers of resources. There needs to be an element of cause and effect. (So the the shorter life expectancy of earlier generations would be “intergenerationally unfair” if it were caused by undue power of later generations, which it isn’t).
3. The IF Index doesn’t attempt for any measure to define what is the “fair” value. It takes the value at 2000 as a base, then anything that it judges to be a worsening from that position for its favoured groups registers as unfairness. There are at least 2 problems with that method: the level in 2000 may have been unfair the other way and the changes may actually be increasing “intergenerational fairness”; and demographic and other changes may be changing the “fair” value over time.
4. Some of the topics that the IF Index discusses appear simply to be observations about society, and nothing to do with generations or fairness. They may or may not be interesting, but they appear (given the lack of definition) to have no place in a document about “intergenerational fairness”. No justification has been provided for including them in the overall measure, or even in the IF Index document itself. There is no evidence that the young people concerned were consulted about their own views of what measures are important and/or of what they consider to be fair.
5. There is no demonstration that the numeric values of the individual measures have equal significance. For example, a 1% change on one measure may have as much practical impact on young people as a 10% change in another. Therefore the validity of simply adding up the Component Measures hasn’t been demonstrated, and is almost certainly wrong.
Commentary on “Intergenerational Fairness Index”
1. Unemployment
Purpose: To assess levels of unemployment amongst younger people compared to the UK average.
(a) What would be fair? (All unemployment is undesirable. But if it exists, different ages are more prone to it than others. For example, older people also struggle to get satisfactory jobs. How should we judge different levels across different generations?)
2. Housing
Measure A – Affordability
Purpose: To assess levels of affordability of UK housing amongst younger people.
No particular comment. (We need more houses, and that would drive the prices down by the law of supply and demand).
Measure B – Housing Costs
Purpose: To assess the proportion of disposable income which is spent on housing costs.
(a) The measure say: “The ratio expresses housing costs as a proportion of disposable income”. What has this got to do with “intergenerational fairness”? Or indeed to do with age? It would be an interesting number if it brought age into the formula, but it doesn’t. It appears to be simply an observation about society.
Measure C – Housebuilding
Purpose: To provide a measure of levels of housebuilding in relation to the need for new homes.
(a) That sounds like an important topic. But what has it got to do with “intergenerational fairness”? If we simply want one group of people to have opportunities that are available to another group, that is good. The current state is unsatisfactory, unacceptable, wrong, etc. But not “intergenerationally unfair”. It isn’t the result of one generation not playing by the rules, or impeding another. It isn’t about “relationships between children, youth, adults and seniors, particularly in terms of treatment and interactions“. (Just as the shorter life expectancy of earlier generations isn’t “intergenerationally unfair” because it isn’t the result of one generation not playing by the rules). Some things are “happenstance” and may be regretted by all generations. (This illustrates the importance of defining “intergenerational fairness”! Without that definition, it is impossible to determine whether this paragraph trumps the assumptions of the IF Index).
(b) The measure says: “The ratio expresses the numbers of houses built as a proportion of the number of households. A decrease indicates a reduction in intergenerational fairness”. What on earth have the number of households got to do with anything? Surely what matters is the number of houses built as a proportion of the family units that want houses but haven’t got them? If all family units that wanted houses had them, we could stop building – but that would register in the IF Index as “a decrease” and hence be “a reduction in intergenerational fairness”! It is a formula that doesn’t match the problem to be solved.
(c) The consensus is that we need lots more houses. I agree.
3. Pensions
This is a hot topic so it is worth reminding ourselves of the “intergenerational contract” that determines the relationships between those who pay and those who receive (diagram from “Intergenerational resource transfers – summary“):
Measure A – State Pension Costs
Purpose: To assess the changing cost of the state pension in relation to the size of the UK workforce. The measure of the UK workforce is used as it will be those who are currently in that force who will be paying for its costs.
(a) The measure says: “The ratio divides the total cost of the state pension by the numbers in the UK workforce”. This is an interesting number, but what is a “fair” ratio? How should a “fair ratio” be calculated? Without knowing that, it is impossible to determine the fairness of any trends – obviously there are some ratios that are perfectly fair, even generous, given the pensioners’ prior contributions to the “intergenerational contract”. (And to be pedantic: many people who are not in the workforce also pay taxes; some pay more tax than they receive as state pension).
(b) The broad (but not full) agreement is that the state pension age is currently too low to compensate for: increased average age at end of full-time education; increased life expectancy of each generation; reduced birth rate over the generations. I agree. The increases being introduced are “too little, too late”. (But what do young people themselves think of this?)
Measure B – Unfunded Public Sector Pension Costs
Purpose: To assess the changing cost of unfunded public sector pensions in relation to the size of the UK workforce.
No particular comment.
4. Government Debt
Purpose: To assess level of public debt per employed person.
(a) To put this topic into perspective (I was born in 1947!):
(b) Why “per employed person”? Potentially everyone can benefit from government borrowing, and everyone can be adversely impacted by national debt. It isn’t obvious how great the impact will be – it is nonsense to say that “children are born broke“! (Most people would find it hard to identify what impact the national debt has on their lives). Important questions include “how much interest is paid on the debt”, which in effect is a leakage of tax-payers’ money, and “how much does the size of the national debt constrain the policies of government”, (by internal or external forces), which could be policies relevant to any or all generations.
(c) The deficit is probably a more important measure than the debt. It is a measure of whether the government is in or out of control and making things worse for future generations. This may be what the IF Index is trying to measure by showing the trend of percentage changes of national debt, in which case perhaps it should not duplicate the work of deficit-watchers but just quote the deficit. I agree with the principle of deficit reduction as a precursor to debt reduction.
5. Participation in Democracy
Measure A – Age of Councillors
Purpose: To assess the age of Councillors (excluding Town and Parish Councillors) as a guide as to the ages of those who make significant decisions about the places in which we live.
(a) What is a fair age? As the population ages, what should we expect the average ages of councillors to do?
(b) Perhaps a better measure would be the distribution of ages of councillors (and MPs, etc). It would probably be wrong to have just young ones. Perhaps we need a measure of how representative they are.
Measure B – Voting
Purpose: To compare levels of participation in voting at General Elections amongst younger people with the population average.
(a) Why is it relevant here? If they don’t vote, it is a self-inflicted injury! Or perhaps they are satisfied with the way things are going and don’t feel the need to participate in the democratic processes freely available to them? Has anyone asked them?
6. Health
Purpose: “To compare usage of selected medical services amongst younger people (for purposes of this measurement, those aged under 60)”.
(a) Why is “usage of selected medical services” relevant? If you ask young people what improvements they want for their health, will they say “we want more usage of selected medical services”? Wouldn’t we all like “better health without much usage of medical services”? For example, single inoculations against cancer, obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, to reduce lots of “usage” later?
(b) What are the real measures of the health of young people, and how are these changing? Have they been asked? Surely “life expectancy” is important, and this is rising generation by generation. And whatever kills me may have a cure by the time later generations get it. Why aren’t those being measured?
(c) What is the “fair” ratio between usage by people under 60 and those aged 60 and over? The IF Index plots the drop of the ratio from about 60% in 2000 to about 53% in 2010. But what if the “fair” ratio is 50%? Then this drop is increasing the “intergenerational fairness”! Why should anyone think the “fair” ratio is unchanging, when the population is aging? The IF Index provides no justification whatsoever to claim that the reduction is “unfair”! It may be “fair”.
7. Income
Purpose: To compare median income levels amongst the young to the population average (amongst those in employment).
(a) What is a fair ratio? The measure says: “Comparing the median income levels of the young (20 to 29 (22 to 29 from 2008 onwards)) to the population average”. What has the ratio typically been generations ago? (Wouldn’t it be a demotivating world if there were no rewards for gaining knowledge and experience over your career? We must have a difference!)
8. Environmental Impact
This is such a limited description of this major topic that it would be better to refer to external sources.
Measure A – UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Purpose: To describe the environmental impact of UK energy consumption.
(a) That is too naive as a measure of the environmental impact of UK energy consumption. Why not just leave the purpose as “to describe the UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions”?
Measure B – CO2 in the Atmosphere
Purpose: To describe the impact of climate change.
(a) That measure says nothing whatsoever about the impact of climate change! Why not merge it with Measure A?
9. Education
Measure A – Level of Spend on Education
Purpose: To describe spend on education over time.
No particular comment.
Measure B – Tuition Fees (Higher Education)
Purpose: To describe the costs of tuition fees for students in Higher Education (excluding Scotland).
(a) There is a measure missing here: the proportion of people who become students in Higher Education. (It has grown from about 5% when I left school to about 35% now).
Measure C – GCSE Pass Rate
Purpose: To assess educational performance over time.
(a) The measure says: “Proportion of students achieving 5 or more A* to C equivalent pass grades at GCSE in England. An increase indicates an improvement in intergenerational fairness”. What has this to do with “fairness”, “generations”, “intergenerational”, or “intergenerational fairness”? This is scraping the bottom of the barrel! (What is the view of the young people themselves?)
Conclusion
(Since writing this article I have written “A checklist for Intergenerational Unfairness” to help authors and analysts ensure that they really are talking about “intergenerational unfairness” and not something else.)
I don’t disagree with the principle of “intergenerational fairness”, and I don’t disagree with everything in the IF Index. But parts of it are not to do with generations, parts are not to do with unfairness, and parts of it don’t measure what their “purpose” identifies.
A credible explicit definition of “intergenerational fairness” is needed in order to determine what subjects are in scope and which are not. It would also ensure that measures were actually related to “intergenerational fairness”!
It isn’t valid simply to assume that any apparently adverse change from the 2000 value of a measure denotes “unfairness”. First it is necessary to determine a fair value for the measure concerned, or at least a direction where the fair value lies. Changes towards the fair value are improvements in fairness, changes away from it are increases in unfairness.
It isn’t automatically “intergenerationally unfair” for one generation to have different characteristics from another. It becomes “unfair” when undesirable differences arise because of “treatment and interactions” among children, youth, adults and seniors, especially undue transfers of resources.
The measures in the IF Index look like a set of “pet subjects” of all the people involved, matched against known available data whether or not it is the required data. There is no evidence that young people themselves were consulted about what is being published on their behalf!
Below is a diagram from “Intergenerational resource transfers – summary“. It shows 2 stages not discussed in the IF Index: “Have children” and “Die”. Certainly “Have children”, which is a major trigger for intergenerational resource transfers, should be included.
pregabalin online buy – buy pregabalin sale order lyrica 75mg for sale
clomiphene drug – clomiphene 50mg for sale buy cetirizine 10mg pill
desloratadine online – purchase triamcinolone order aristocort for sale
misoprostol order – synthroid 100mcg usa cheap levothyroxine online
order sildenafil for sale – sildenafil 25mg buy gabapentin 600mg online
cialis 20mg cost – oral tadalafil cenforce 100mg for sale
purchase diltiazem pill – order diltiazem generic acyclovir 800mg drug
atarax without prescription – buy crestor 10mg online cheap purchase crestor for sale
order zetia 10mg for sale – buy citalopram online celexa pill
buy viagra 100mg – order cyclobenzaprine sale flexeril order online
viagra overnight delivery – tadalafil ca cialis 5mg drug
buy toradol without prescription – buy baclofen 25mg generic purchase lioresal sale
gloperba price – order inderal without prescription strattera tablet
sildenafil 50mg pills – buy methotrexate pill buy plavix pills
viagra 100mg pills – order methotrexate online cheap order plavix without prescription
sildenafil over the counter – purchase sildenafil sale viagra pills 50mg
buy esomeprazole 40mg – nexium over the counter order phenergan without prescription
order tadalafil 40mg generic – cialis price costco cialis 5mg canada
provigil 200mg cost – provigil 100mg brand where to buy over the counter ed pills
isotretinoin ca – isotretinoin canada buy azithromycin
order furosemide generic – doxycycline canada sildenafil pills
generic tadalafil 20mg – order sildenafil 100mg online cheap real viagra pharmacy prescription
order cialis 10mg for sale – warfarin sale coumadin 5mg tablet
purchase dutasteride online cheap – tadalafil 20mg usa female cialis tadalafil
buy sildenafil online cheap – order cialis 40mg for sale cialis discount
accutane 10mg cheap – amoxil 1000mg brand oral amoxil
Right on my man!
oral furosemide 100mg – oral zithromax 250mg buy azithromycin 500mg pills
You made some good points there. I looked on the net for additional
information about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this website.
buy doxycycline pills – aralen us chloroquine uk
I could not refrain from commenting. Perfectly written!
Hello there! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask.
Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest authoring a blog
post or vice-versa? My site addresses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other.
If you are interested feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I look forward to hearing from you! Fantastic blog by the way!
Heya i’m for the first time here. I found this board and I find
It really useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something back and aid others like you helped me.
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this blog loading?
I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end
or if it’s the blog. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.
certainly like your website but you need to check the spelling on quite
a few of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and
I in finding it very troublesome to inform the truth however I will certainly come back again.
Hey! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading this
post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept chatting about this.
I will forward this write-up to him. Pretty sure he will have
a good read. Thanks for sharing!
tadalafil for sale online – Best price cialis buy sildenafil 150mg for sale
cost modafinil 200mg – provigil brand order viagra 50mg without prescription
sexual dysfunction – order prednisone without prescription deltasone canada
order isotretinoin – order generic accutane 40mg celebrex over the counter
flomax canada – purchase tamsulosin online cheap order spironolactone 25mg online cheap
simvastatin 20mg uk – order generic zocor 10mg buy custom research papers
casinos online – i need help with my research paper buy custom research paper
slots real money – order propecia pill acillin for sale
buy ciprofloxacin 1000mg – buy cialis 10mg generic cialis 20mg cheap
sildenafil 150mg for sale – buy deltasone 10mg generic buy vardenafil line
I’ll right away clutch your rss as I can’t to find your email subscription link or e-newsletter service.
Do you have any? Please let me know in order that I may just subscribe.
Thanks.
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was
curious what all is needed to get set up? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would
cost a pretty penny? I’m not very internet savvy so I’m not 100% sure.
Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Valuable information. Fortunate me I found
your site by accident, and I am stunned why this twist of fate didn’t happened
earlier! I bookmarked it.
That’s very good point
That’s very good point
order prednisolone online – prednisolone online order cialis 40mg sale
I didn’t know that.
order augmentin 1000mg pill – buy clavulanate online cheap order tadalafil 40mg online cheap
bactrim brand – brand sildenafil 50mg buy sildenafil pill
cephalexin 500mg over the counter – buy generic erythromycin 250mg buy erythromycin 250mg for sale
order generic sildenafil 100mg – stromectol online pharmacy ivermectin 3mg pills for humans
budesonide price – cialis 5mg brand purchase disulfiram online