Seminar TopicGlobal Aging and Equity Across Generations
The aging of societies in both developed and developing countries sharpens questions about intergenerational equity. What do the young owe to the old and vice versa? We should distinguish between age groups and birth cohorts, which are easily confused because of the ambiguity of “generations.” These two concepts raise different questions of distributive justice. Under resource scarcity, for example, how should we think about the allocation of health care over the lifespan? This is a problem of equity among age groups. Similarly, what institutional structures can ensure equity in the treatment of different age groups? But different birth cohorts will pass through such institutions under different conditions, and we must also be concerned about equity among such distinct cohorts. I propose a solution to the age group problem and some constraints on how it can be solved in light of the birth cohort problem. Solving these two problems simultaneously is made more difficult by persistent and rapid societal aging of the sort facing China and many other countries.
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http://peh.harvard.edu/daniels.html |
