LOUGHRAN: How soon is a war between generations?

PHOTO | FILE Children play in a slum in Nairobi. Due to harsh economic conditions and unemployment, young people living in slums turn to crime to survive.  NATION

In Summary
Many young people are saddled with huge debts and face growing unemployment
It is not just a British problem. A friend sent me figures showing that the Canadian Government’s per capita spending on over-65s was $45,000 (Sh3.7 million) against $12,000 (Sh988,000) for those under 43.

By Gerry Loughran
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Hot or cold, there has always been a war between the sexes. Will there soon be a war between the generations?

Calculations show that for the first time, the members of Britain’s younger generation are growing up poorer than their parents and they are not happy about it.

But the oldies, for their part, appear increasingly isolated and intimidated by modern life.

Many young people are saddled with huge debts from university, face the prospect of long-term unemployment and find it impossible to fund the purchase of a home. And because of improved health standards, people are living longer, thus imposing extra care costs on the young taxpayers.

Following a steep rise in house prices, parents find themselves owners of expensive properties while enjoying generous benefits that go to everyone over 60, irrespective of wealth — winter fuel allowance, free bus passes, free medical prescriptions.

Angus Hamilton, co-author of the Intergenerational Fairness Index, said: “Younger people are financing richer old people as our society grapples with demographic change and increasing longevity.” He called for a cut in benefits fairly across the generations, including those given to the pensioners.

A blogger wrote: “I’m 25 and my girlfriend is 21 and we are both in full-time employment. How we are expected to save £10,000 (KSh1.3 million) for a mortgage is beyond me. We don’t even run a car and it would take two or three years to save for a deposit for a house.”

GLOBAL PROBLEM
It is not just a British problem. A friend sent me figures showing that the Canadian Government’s per capita spending on over-65s was $45,000 (Sh3.7 million) against $12,000 (Sh988,000) for those under 43.

Professor Paul Kershaw said: “Health care costs and old age security have created an uneven balance between the generations. No-one wants there to be inter-generational tensions in society, no-one wants to pit grandchildren against grandparents, but our budgets are at risk of doing that.”

But if people are living longer, are they happier? Standing in a queue for rail tickets last week, I heard a group of old people discussing why they preferred to come to the station and buy across the counter – because they could not go online.

“I don’t know anything about computers,” said one lady, “I have no confidence with them, in fact I fear them.” Yet, increasingly we are being pressed to get our goods and services online. How soon before this is the only way?

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said last week that as many as 800,000 people in England are “chronically lonely,” which he described as “a national shame”. It’s a good bet that most of them are elderly, with only the television and perhaps a pet cat or dog for company.

David Howes from Rochester, Kent, told the BBC “I am only 67 and I have a nice home and all the trappings. But I have neighbours who don’t speak and I have no family at all. I have a friend who lives a few miles away but he never gets in touch. No-one visits. No-one telephones. It’s been like this for eight years. I dread Christmas.”

Vera Clempson, 82, a widow from Manchester: “My son sees me as often as he can, work permitting, and my daughter-in-law visits me once a week.

I have a cleaner who comes in once a week and a dear girl comes to keep me company. Between those visits, there are a lot of hours to fill. I used to run my own business and I love company. I miss that terribly now.”

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If you ever do or say something really stupid, comfort yourself with these stories:

— My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car which is designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the car boot.

— A girl in the office was upset about getting sunburned when she drove home for the weekend in her open-top car. “I don’t know how I got burned,” she said. “The car was moving all the time.”

— A man ordered a pizza to take away. The assistant asked if he wanted it cut into four pieces or six. The customer thought about it, then said, “Just cut it into four pieces, I’m not hungry enough for six.”

— I was on the beach with a group when somebody shouted, “See that dead bird.” My girlfriend looked up at the sky and said “Where?”

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Teacher: “If a trilingual person can speak three languages and a bilingual person two languages, what do you call someone who can speak only one language?”

Pupil: “English.”

Teacher: “If a story written by another person is called a biography, what is an autobiography?”

Pupil: “A story about a car.”