Millennials Versus Boomers: An Asymmetric Pattern of Realistic and Symbolic Threats Drives Intergenerational Tensions in the United States

Francioli, Stéphane; Danbold, Felix; North, Michael S.

doi:10.1177/01461672231164203

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 38 publications

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“…This unevenness signified an increasing burden on younger generations to work in support of older ones ( Mason et al, 2017 ) and was exemplified by a ratio of workers to pensioners expected to decrease by 50% over the next few decades, from 4-to-1 to 2-to-1 ( Quattrucci, 2017 ). Pragmatically speaking, the increasing older population has been viewed as a burden to society ( Hövermann & Messner, 2023 ), especially when resource scarcity is salient ( Cohn-Schwartz & Ayalon, 2021 ; Francioli et al, 2023 ).…”

Section: From Cultural-value Explanation To Resource Tension Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Pension Tension: Retirement Annuity Fosters Ageism Across Countries and Cultures

Chen

North

Zhang

2023

Innovation in Aging

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Background and Objectives Globally aging populations raise worldwide concerns about how an older population will be valued. Cross-culturally, many espouse that Eastern cultures revere their older adults more than Westerners, due to stronger collectivism and filial piety traditions. In contrast, this paper proposes a resource tension hypothesis, whereby rapid population aging causes pragmatic strain across all modernized societies, fostering ageism. Research Design and Methods Three studies supported this resource tension hypothesis, focusing on the pragmatic role of public pensions—a fundamental resource inherently pitting older versus younger generations—in fostering ageism. Study 1 tested the relationship between nation-level public pension rate and attitudes toward older adults by using World Values Survey and European Social Survey datasets. Study 2 further explored this relationship via priming both the pension-based resource scarcity and the intergenerational competition over the public pension. Study 3 offered an intervention—future-self thinking via a photo ager—on reducing intergenerational tensions under pension scarcity conditions. Results Study 1 found a significant link between nation-level public pension rate and negative older adult attitudes across 39,700 World Values Survey, and 29,797 European Social Survey data points. Study 2 further supported the pension-ageism link via experimental methods. Participants who were reminded of the scarcity of pensions and intergenerational competition exhibited more negative attitudes toward older adults. Study 3 confirmed the effect of the future-self intervention on enhancing attitudes toward older adults even despite scarce pension resources. Discussion and Implications The findings support a resource explanation in driving perceptions of older adults, implicate pensions as a key mechanism driving intergenerational attitudes, and identify future-self thinking as a critical intervention. The present studies open up new research pathways for understanding and accommodating the globally aging population.

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Section: From Cultural-value Explanation To Resource Tension Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Pension Tension: Retirement Annuity Fosters Ageism Across Countries and Cultures

Chen

North

Zhang

2023

Innovation in Aging

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Americans harbor much less favorable explicit sentiments toward young adults than toward older adults

Francioli,

Shakeri,

North

2024

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Public and academic discourse on ageism focuses primarily on prejudices targeting older adults, implicitly assuming that this age group experiences the most age bias. We test this assumption in a large, preregistered study surveying Americans’ explicit sentiments toward young, middle-aged, and older adults. Contrary to certain expectations about the scope and nature of ageism, responses from two crowdsourced online samples matched to the US adult population ( N = 1,820) revealed that older adults garner the most favorable sentiments and young adults, the least favorable ones. This pattern held across a wide range of participant demographics and outcome variables, in both samples. Signaling derogation of young adults more than benign liking of older adults, participants high on SDO (i.e., a key antecedent of group prejudice) expressed even less favorable sentiments toward young adults—and more favorable ones toward older adults. In two follow-up, preregistered, forecasting surveys, lay participants ( N = 500) were generally quite accurate at predicting these results; in contrast, social scientists ( N = 241) underestimated how unfavorably respondents viewed young adults and how favorably they viewed older adults. In fact, the more expertise in ageism scientists had, the more biased their forecasts. In a rapidly aging world with exacerbated concerns over older adults’ welfare, young adults also face increasing economic, social, political, and ecological hardship. Our findings highlight the need for policymakers and social scientists to broaden their understanding of age biases and develop theory and policies that ponder discriminations targeting all age groups.

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Does Age Matter? Tweets About Gerontocracy in the United States

Indran

2023

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B

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Objectives Discussions on the political scene in the United States have been accompanied by the notion that the country has morphed into a gerontocracy, a system of governance where power is wielded predominantly by older individuals. With rising life expectancy, more, as well as older, candidates are likely to run for and stay in office. This study analyzes perceptions regarding the older political leadership of the United States. Method We collected 3,599 tweets containing the word ‘gerontocracy’ which were uploaded between 10 September 2022 and 10 November 2022, a month prior to the midterm elections in the United States, when this topic was likely to have sparked considerable discussion. After applying our exclusion criteria, 1,266 tweets were retained. Our qualitative content analysis was performed inductively and deductively. Results Seven themes emerged. Most tweets (24%; N=304) highlighted that ‘Gerontocracy is a Problem’ (Theme 1). Theme 2 (21%) focused on how ‘Democracy is a Sham’ (N=270). Theme 3 (19%) positioned ‘Old Age as the Problem and Youth as the Solution’ (N=234). Theme 4 (11%) was about how ‘The Future is at Stake’ (N=145). ‘Health Concerns’ dominated Theme 5 (10%; N=126). Theme 6 looked at ‘Structural Reforms’ (9%, N=115). Theme 7 ‘In Defense of the Gerontocracy’ formed 6% of the dataset (N=72). Discussion Attitudes towards older politicians are commonly tied to negative stereotypes surrounding old age. As the population ages, it is paramount that society focuses on potentially more important considerations in the evaluation of the actual caliber of a politician.

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Millennials Versus Boomers: An Asymmetric Pattern of Realistic and Symbolic Threats Drives Intergenerational Tensions in the United States

Cited by 4 publications

References 38 publications

Pension Tension: Retirement Annuity Fosters Ageism Across Countries and Cultures

Pension Tension: Retirement Annuity Fosters Ageism Across Countries and Cultures

Americans harbor much less favorable explicit sentiments toward young adults than toward older adults

Does Age Matter? Tweets About Gerontocracy in the United States

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