The concept of generational contract: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Major societal changes, such as the ongoing climate crisis, and the population ageing, affect the relations between generations within societies. The concept of generational contract is widely used to study these relations. However, the concept is rarely clearly defined, and the contents and terms of the contract, as well as the parties involved remain unclear. This article provides a systematic literature review on the definitions of the concept of generational contract. The literature searches were performed in June 2022 and yielded a total of 502 hits. After applying the exclusion criteria 76 peer‐reviewed research articles were included in the data. The inductive thematic analysis of the articles resulted in nine main components that define the generational contract. These nine components relate to types of contracts, parties involved, distributional issues, maintenance, value‐base and risks. Studies did not problematise the apolitical, gendered and heteronormative nature of generational contracts.