ILPC 2027

 The relationship between young and old has been the focus of attention in recent years and a number of public policy issues, from property ownership to the provision of health care, have been framed in terms of inequality between generations. However, the language of intergenerational conflict has been less  prevalent with respect to discussion of employment and the labour market as a whole. This is despite the fact that, depending on sector and occupation, employment is an arena where intergenerational relationships tend to be common. Rather than blaming the baby boomer generation for youth unemployment, for example, there is evidence to suggest that higher employment of older workers tends to coincide with lower youth unemployment.

This paper addresses three issues. First, based, among others, on the literature on age-diverse workplaces, it critiques the way in which the term ‘generations’ is utilised to imply associations and characteristics with particular age groups. Second, it discusses the limited and rather unhelpful literature on intergenerational relations in the labour market which is often based on the ‘lump of labour’ approach or fallacy. Thirdly and finally, it draws on qualitative data from a comparative European project in which examples of intergenerational bargaining were explored. The main argument is that intergenerational inequality is an inappropriate and unhelpful concept as applied to the workplace. We go on to disentangle the interpretations of equality and fairness that underpin such a view.