BC Council for Families

by Maureen Ashfield

We live in an age-segregated society. Other than the family, there are few opportunities for meaningful interaction between people of different ages. Even in the family there are many reasons why interaction between the oldest and youngest generations do not happen as often as we might like. Children are placed in school groupings according to age, and their age/grade category tends to follow them in their involvement in community settings. While young and middle-aged adults may work together, there is never-the-less a tendency to maintain social lives dominated by age peers. Older people find lots of opportunity to spend time together in seniors' centres or in programs designated especially for them in community centres, but little opportunity to form friendships with others outside their own generation. There are not many people who can make the claim that they have a close friend (not an acquaintance, but a close friend) who is either 30 years older or 30 years younger than they are.

It is our loss as individuals when we find ourselves without the friendship of someone who is very different in age to us. People born at times different to our own bring a different perspective to life - one that has the potential to enrich our own. Lack of intergenerational contact is also a loss for our communities and can have an impact on our communities and on society in general.

Social scientists, policy analysts, and people working in community development have raised concerns directly related to the lack of intergenerational contact. The concern primarily has been identified in the United States, but Canadians are also beginning to identify the problem in Canada. The concern is called intergenerational conflict.

Intergenerational conflict is conflict between the generations which goes beyond the "generation gap" families sometimes experience. It is conflict among groups within society; to some extent it is based on the attitudes and perceptions that older, middle-aged and younger people have of each other, and on the social values which shape and inhibit intergenerational relations. An important component of intergenerational conflict is the idea that different age groups think they are in competition with each other for scarce social resources.

Broadly speaking, intergenerational conflict includes ageism. Blatant generalizations about older people are disturbing once we realize the great variety within the elderly population and the contributions made by seniors to our communities, especially in terms of volunteer work. However, ageism cuts both ways - many in our communities could easily fill in the blanks to complete these sentences "Today's youth is...." or "too many young people think..." and so on. Ignorance about the variety and contributions of younger people in our communities is rivalled only by the same attitudes toward older people. Devaluing others is a source for conflict and does not contribute to creating healthy communities. It is unlikely that ageist behaviour and attitudes will stop as long as we maintain separate activities and separate lives for people from different age groups.

Intergenerational conflict as competition for scarce social resources can be seen in a variety of ways. Newspaper articles claim the elderly receive too large a portion of public expenditures. Writers claim that social policies created to respond to the needs of older people in our communities create too big a financial burden for future generations. In the United States, cutting programs created to provide aid to older people, and to poor older people in particular, is proposed as a way to deal with the national deficit.

Does this sound familiar? Of course it does, because we are starting to experience the same tensions in Canada. A universal health care system and a strong public pension program designed to provide income assistance to people in need regardless of age, has meant that no one group, and in particular seniors, has been targeted with receiving too great a share of the resources available. But the perception has changed as resources become limited. "Will older Canadians break the health care bank?" is a hotly debated question. Young Canadians express the fear that there will be nothing left for them in terms of health care or pension funds, when they reach old age.

The unwillingness to see another get too much of the social purse works in other ways too. When we consider public expenditures, the other big item is the money spent on the education of children. There are retirement communities in the United States where the citizens have voted against paying school taxes. Children are not allowed to live in these communities and there are no schools. Therefore, in the view of these seniors, there is no need to contribute toward the education of the younger generation. A couple of years ago, a young, single, professional woman wrote a letter to the editor of a local British Columbian paper arguing that since she had no children she should not have to pay school taxes. These kinds of behaviours and opinions are fuelled by a lack of understanding of the interdependence of generations within a society. Obviously, someone (not just their parents) paid for the education of these people when they were young. The people who will in the future support the social health and welfare programs of older people, will be the children some are refusing to support through school taxes.

Whether we are the young or old in these scenarios, the focus is on competition for resources and what I can get, with little recognition of the interdependency of generations. Attempting to isolate ourselves from other age groups, or blaming other age groups for what is happening in our society, betrays a limited understanding of the basis of our social structures and the nature of social life in Canada.

This is why we need a strong voice for, and a clear vision of the role of intergenerational planning, programming and activity in our communities. As long as contact between different age groups does not happen naturally, and while changing economics and social structures create distrust of others, then it is incumbent upon those of us who want to see our communities strengthened, to intentionally create opportunities for intergenerational contact.

This article first appeared in Family Connections (Spring 1994), published by the BC Council for Families.