Social Generations, Life Chances and Welfare Regime Sustainability

Abstract

The generational sustainability of welfare regimes is of central importance to most long-term analyses of welfare state reforms (see for example: Esping-Andersen et al. 2002). In an ideal society, individual contributions to social welfare are supposed to be counterbalanced by expected benefits, but in reality there are structural disequilibria, notably between generations. Contemporary social reforms are designed to correct such imbalances, but the rewriting of the contract between generations could cause more harm than good. Here, the analysis of the generational disequilibria in France may be useful: French society faces severe generational non-linearities and inequalities, the consequences of which could be the long-term destabilization of the contemporary welfare regime.