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German Bundestag Survey on Intergenerational Justice in the Labour Market

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Abstract

Nowadays, most welfare transfer payments are made to the older generation, especially to cover pensions, nursing, and health costs. As far as distributive justice is concerned, redistributions among age groups are not unjust as such, because everybody ages. People usually experience both the state of youth and of old age during their lives, whereas they obviously keep their ethnicity and gender all life long. This distinguishes matters of intergenerational justice from gender justice or ethnic justice (Daniels 1988).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For instance, Rawls (1971, p. 287): “But this calculus of advantages, which balances the losses of some against benefits to others, appears even less justified in the case of generations than among contemporaries.” Or, on page 293: “We can now see that persons in different generations have duties and obligations to one another just as contemporaries do.”

  2. 2.

    For instance, Rawls (1971, p. 128): “For example, we may think of the parties as heads of families, and therefore as having a desire to further the welfare of their nearest descendants.”

  3. 3.

    Synonyms are “social generations”, “sociological generations”, or “historic generations”.

  4. 4.

    Societal generations are sometimes divided into “political”, “cultural”, and “economic” generations (cf. Kohli and Szydlik 2000, pp. 8–10). See also Kohli (2006).

  5. 5.

    Although some societal generations might have had an international impact, each country has still predominantly its own denominations for their generations. For the US, see Strauss and Howe (1991, 1993). For Germany, see Jureit and Wildt (2005).

  6. 6.

    Synonyms are “demographic generation”, “genetic generation”.

  7. 7.

    Further differentiations are often made, e.g., “young senior citizens” or “old senior citizens”. To simplify matters, only three generations (young, middle-aged, old) shall be referred to hereinafter.

  8. 8.

    The German demographer Wilhelm Lexis developed the diagram named after him in 1875

  9. 9.

    For the evaluation, all items were recoded in a way that high numbers indicate high awareness of generational justice issues.

  10. 10.

    Cf. Chauvel (2010).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Joerg Chet Tremmel

  2. Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations, 5115, 61422, Oberursel, Germany

    Patrick Wegner

Authors
  1. Joerg Chet Tremmel
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  2. Patrick Wegner
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Correspondence to Joerg Chet Tremmel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Generationen (SRzG), Stiftung für die Rechte zukünftiger, Ludwig-Erhard-Str. 16a, Oberursel, 61440, Germany

    Joerg Tremmel

Annex 1: Questionnaire of the German Bundestag Survey on Intergenerational Justice in the Labour Market

Annex 1: Questionnaire of the German Bundestag Survey on Intergenerational Justice in the Labour Market

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Tremmel, J.C., Wegner, P. (2010). German Bundestag Survey on Intergenerational Justice in the Labour Market. In: Tremmel, J. (eds) A Young Generation Under Pressure?. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03483-1_5

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