To define intergenerational fairness, it helps to take a demographic view, in which all of us, as we go through our lives, change the roles we play in our families, communities and the society. Seen through this lens, children, adolescents, working-age people and pensioners are not some antagonistic groups with contradicting political interests, but are all different incarnations of us, just at different stages of our diverse life histories.

Given this diversity, making our societies more resilient in the face of future challenges is a collective responsibility. Individuals differ with respect to their genetic makeup, health, ability, socio-economic background, upbringing, and other characteristics beyond their control. In an intergenerationally fair society, resilience cannot be just demanded of individuals, who may or may not have the capacity to deal with the challenges due to their health, economic situation or availability of other resources, such as knowledge.

Instead, for the societies to flourish, resilience should be a system-wide feature of the way our societies are organised, and of how we connect with one another across generations. Systems science hints that network-based structures are more resilient than either rigid top-down hierarchies or loose sets of individual elements. This means that the topology of our lives needs rethinking, to strike the right balance between the individuals and groups, and to make sure that support networks are there where needed.