Europe is ageing. While this is good news, as Europeans live longer, healthier lives, it is going to strain the labour market, pension systems, care. Often, the hope is to “fix this” by raising fertility. However, demographic projections have shown that there is no “fixing” demographic change. Instead, we need “resilience”: adapt and transform.

What does this mean for intergenerational fairness?

• The most resilient institutions tend to be those where we spend time during the ages 25 to 65: organisations of work and business. We see little flexibility in institutions where younger and older people are: places of education, places of long-term care. This means that these groups are hit more severely by shocks, as we have seen during the pandemic.

• Fairness is created across the life course. So is unfairness. We already see that the increase of life expectancy is not the same for everyone, longevity is becoming more unequally distributed. At the same time, we project a large risk of worsening gender inequality when it comes to pensions: https://futu-res.eu/digests/pay-gap-pension-gap. To invest in intergenerational fairness is to expand young people’s resources.

Embracing change is difficult. Instead of putting the burden of transformation solely on individuals, Europe’s institutions should act as role models.

What is FutuRes? FutuRes is a collaborative research project funded by the EU (Grant Agreement No. 101094741). www.futu-res.eu/publications