The Irish are thought to be a compassionate people who care about human rights, but we are also capable of appalling selfishness towards our own citizens. A report this week from the Economic and Social Research Institute suggests that few developed nations have committed the level of intergenerational theft we have witnessed in Ireland since the financial crisis began.
The headline finding of the report, by Petra Gerlach-Kristen, is stark. “The younger age group on average spent 20 per cent less per week in 2009/2010 compared with five years earlier. Over the same period, those aged over 45 managed to keep most of their bubble-era gains, spending 31 per cent more each week than they did in 2004/2005.”
In a very short period, two groups in society have experienced a huge disparity in spending power. These groups are separated not by class or occupation or education but by the timing of their births.
In James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Stephen Dedalus declares, "Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow." That was written in 1914, but it seems we continue to fail in our efforts to form a republic in any meaningful sense because of clientelism and self-interest at the very highest levels.
The total number of job losses in the Irish economy since the economic crisis started is more than 300,000. Yet the number of people over 35 who are employed is now back above the level it was before the crisis. The unemployment burden has fallen squarely and almost exclusively on those aged 35 and under.
A recent report on food poverty in Ireland by Caroline Carney and Bernard Maître showed that young people between 18 and 30 are three times more likely to be at high risk of food poverty than people over 61. Between 2007 and 2011 some young people had their jobseekers’ benefit cut by 46 per cent while some pensioners saw their pensions increase by 10 per cent. Ireland’s youth unemployment, among 15- to 24-year-olds, has gone from one of the best rates in Europe, at 5 per cent, to about 30 per cent, and might be worse than that of Greece or Spain were it not for emigration.
Disproportionate share
Public- and private-sector employers have played their parts in making younger people face a disproportionate share of the pain in a recession they were too young to have caused.
The first Croke Park agreement was essentially an agreement to end pay cuts in return for reductions in numbers and industrial peace. The effect of this has been to rob young people of job prospects with the country’s largest employer, the State.
Agency and part-time employees, who tend to be younger, were also cut. Since then, unions have tried to avoid other pay cuts for existing employees by tacitly approving pay cuts for new entrants. They could have called for industrial action to show solidarity with new entrants who were being offered worse terms and conditions. They chose not to.
The private sector has also dropped the axe on the young. Lower-paid, younger workers have been pushed out and older, more experienced workers are taking on their work in exchange for wage stability.
So in effect the same policy is happening in both public and private sectors: protect older, better-paid employees from most of the impact of the recession.
While the domestic economy shrank for five years in a row, until last year’s slight upturn, almost nobody in a position of power seemed to ask a question of huge economic and social importance: how can you remove a large percentage of one age group from the economy, through increased unemployment and emigration, a group that spends almost every penny it earns, yet expect the economy to grow? They didn’t ask the question because they didn’t care what the answer was, as long as their pay was protected.
Public and private employers and policymakers need to realise that imposing the vast majority of unemployment, emigration and social-welfare cuts on one age group isn’t just immoral. It’s also bad for business.
Let’s admit how obvious it has been to all that the policies of recent years have disproportionately affected the young. Let’s admit we have done nothing to stop this. Let’s recognise also that few, even in the area of social justice, have done anything to highlight it.
Recessions happen in all countries, but not all societies react to them the same way. Unemployment has increased in Sweden, Denmark and the UK since the financial crisis began, but youth unemployment has not risen there in the same disproportionate way that it has here or in southern Europe.
Governments can enact policies that ensure burdens are spread more evenly. In the UK, for example, all three of the main political parties agreed to wage freezes to protect jobs. In Ireland, every time we come to that crossroads, we choose short-sighted self-preservation over policies that help the whole of society. We seem to lack the maturity to gain a better long-term outcome.
I am in my early 30s, and I have not been affected as badly as many of the “jilted generation” around me. I am lucky enough to work in information technology. I also have no political affiliation other than an interest in economics and social justice.
But I am politically aware enough to know that, in 10 or 20 years, the generation currently pursuing the policies that discriminate against the young will be part of a ballooning group that will require extensive levels of elderly care that will place a huge financial cost on the rest of society.
As the American bumper sticker says: “Be nice to your kids. They choose your nursing home.”
This article is an expanded version of a reader’s comment written this week on irishtimes.com