Comparing generations is impossible but comparing conditions and opportunities isn't. Today's fracture is trifold. Working doesn't enable someone to increase his standard of living anymore for the first time in history. It took 15 years in the 1970s to double your standard of living, it takes 80 years today. The real estate market has turned around in the 2000s and young people have an historic low access to home ownership compared to Boomers. Young people's real estate purchasing power has halved between 2000 to 2025 and heavily impact family projects. Longevity postponed heritage to the point where people who inherit are already retired. Wealth is too concentrated among the elderly for the first time in history: people over 60 own 60% of real estate assets and 60% of financial assets. While today's young people can have hope for their financial future, the situation is brighter in the US than in France because productivity isn't as strong. Nobody cared about retirees' standard of living in the 1970s as it goes without saying that working people should have a greater standard of living than non-working people. We are supposed to rise through work but, in France, working people finance non-working people with an equal lifestyle. French retired Boomers are the best treated retirees in the world; they retired early and will live for long with great replacement rates. Poverty has changed age; elders where left dying until the Laroque Report and are now the age group with the lowest poverty rate while half of poor people are under 30. Workers are faced with record-high taxes to finances retirees with record-high standard of living. The French social model was built on the idea that young people would forever outnumber their elders. The situation is starting is leak through the pension discussion but will take on society as a whole. By opting for a pay-as-you-go system rather than a capitalization system, France relies solely on demographics for retirement. The Great Aging reached a point where 52% of voters are over 50 and 35% over 60, which is more than the number of voters under 40. People under 30 only represents 17% of the voter base today, thus making them less attractive for politicians than old people. Politics becomes gerontocratic. Many politicians would like to change retirement behind closed doors but won't say it publicly by fear of not being re-elected. Politicians know what to do but not how to get re-elected while doing it. 44% of public spendings are going toward elders' pensions and health. The biggest lever is the retirement age because it prevents people over 50 from being seen as less valuable by companies while reducing the number of retirees. The biggest blocker is the taxation rate that reduces workers standard of living while increasing its cost for the employer. A capitalization pension plan isn't magical and transition is difficult as each euro that goes into the capitalization plan doesn't go into the pay-as-you-go plan. We must take money back from Boomers, but how? We have to look at their assets and reduce the weight of both their retirement pensions and health conditions. Young people should not have to sacrifice themselves for richer old people with health issues. Demography, productivity, and growth can't be trusted when designing tomorrow's social model.
Maxime SbaihiRetirees' standard of living peaked in 2019 and will go down as long as we don't change anything. One problem is the fact that the number of retirees keeps growing while the number of workers keeps shrinking. On top of having a delayed career boost, Gen X also saw it halted during the 2000s. Even though they had less success in the real estate market, Gen Y had greater financial assets opportunities during the 2010s and 2020s. It was easy to get rich during the Thirty Glorious years post-WWII with 5% growth per year. It is easy to turn the current situation into a meme where Nicolas pays for everything but hard to change the situation in order to make Nicolas stay. The system must remain bearable for those who finance it. Up to which point will French people remain peaceful? French voters aren't the only one aging as French rulers are also older and less concerned about debt that they use to finance today's pensions instead of tomorrow's innovations. Children yet to be born cannot complain about the debt being too high. Politicians only think about the next year, not about the next generation. Pay-as-you-go and capitalization pension plans perform well depending on economic criteria: pay-as-you-go is good when growth is high, capitalization is good when interest rates are high. The biggest difference is who is responsible: the state is responsible for pay-as-you-go while the individual is responsible for capitalization. When retirement depends on investments, individuals build economic skills and companies receive more investments.
Anne de GuignéYour destiny is dictated by when you enter the labor market and the generation that has been the most affected by this isn't Gen Z nor Gen Y but Gen X because all the good jobs where already taken by Boomers. Boomers benefited from a wonderful inflation that allowed them to buy houses with monkey money. This problem affects all of Western Civilization and is due to people who where against housing construction. It isn't Boomers fault if people can't buy a home today, it is the fault of norms, regulations, and militants who prevented societies from building housing to follow population growth. A Boomers' home capital gain made thanks to the luck of circumstances can be greater than the money he made during his whole career out of merit. Demography is the core issue and bad political decisions made things worst: the French retirement age was kept at 60 in 1983 when there was 5 workers per retiree while there is now 1.7 workers per retiree. The French pension system is in deficit, its public numbers are manipulated, and is headed towards the Swedish scenario. Today's debt will be paid by tomorrow's workers. The system would be healthier if people under 25 worked more, if people over 50 weren't expelled from work, and if the employment rate was lower. We shouldn't replace the class struggle with the generation struggle just to animate the public debate. Age-based retirement is absurd, everyone should be able to retire when he wants.
Brice Couturier