The Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations (FRFG) and the Intergenerational Foundation (IF) jointly award the biennial Intergenerational Justice Prize. Previously, the now discontinued Demography Prize was also awarded. A total of €10,000 – generously endowed by the Stiftung Apfelbaum – is awarded each year and divided among the winning entrants.
Intergenerational Justice Prize 2022
“Existential and Unknown Risks for Future Generations”
The Scope of the Prize
Existential risks are defined to be all potential dangers that could destroy humanity or deprive it of its discretion. Humanity does not have to go extinct for this. It would suffice if humanity suffered an irreversible collapse of its civilisation, or if it could no longer freely control its own fate. Such risks can be of man-made or natural origin – what is more, they can also be unknown to us today.
What makes dealing with existential and unknown risks particularly difficult is that we have not been able to gain any experience with them yet. There is this notion that existential risks will fail to materialise or at least not occur during our lifetime.
From a geological-historical point of view humanity is still at the very beginning; most individuals – unless a catastrophic event wipes out humanity – are yet to be born. Thus, proactive action is required on our part to give these future generations the chance to realise humanity’s potential. Today’s generation, as a result of the increased means of self-destruction, is called upon to be more considerate than any previous generation.
The submitted papers should be innovative and creative, and focus on civil society issues, with practical applications. The FRFG and IF particularly appreciate participants trying to explain complex ideas in as simple and accessible terms as possible. Submitted research papers may employ all possible methodological approaches.
The 2022 Winners
1st
Does Longtermism Depend on Questionable Forms of Aggregation?
Marina Moreno
2nd
How to Cope with Nightmares: Menschenrechte und existenzielle Risiken für zukünftige Generationen
Christoph Herrler
3rd
Extinction risks and resilience: A perspective on current existential risks research with nuclear war as an exemplary threat
Johannes Kattan
4th
The post-antibiotic era: an existential threat for humanity
Dominik Koesling & Claudia Bozzaro
5th
Existential and Unknown Risks for Future Generations: Trends and analysis
Augustine Ugar Akah
Symbolic Prize
From a Hegemony of Risk to Pedagogies of Uncertainty: An Anthropological Proposition
Hannah Wadle & Aleksandra Lis-Plesińska
Intergenerational Justice Prize 2020
“Intergenerational Wealth Transfers through Inheritance and Gifts”
The Scope of the Prize
Wealth transfers across generations combine justice between past, present, and future generations (intergenerational justice) with justice within the present generation (intragenerational justice).
For questions of intergenerational justice, with inheritance and legacies, it is not the transfers between deceased persons and the survivors of the same family generation (widow, siblings) that are relevant, but between deceased persons and the next generation(s), i.e. the children or grandchildren. A major cause of increasing intragenerational inequality in society is the accumulation of wealth within families.
When someone dies, there is an opportunity to mitigate this effect. The essential instrument for this is an inheritance tax. To varying degrees, inheritance tax deprives the testator of the opportunity to pass on their assets to their direct descendants. Instead, the state distributes it to all citizens. To counteract a possible avoidance of inheritance tax through donations before death, the state can levy a gift tax. Both types of tax are, of course, politically highly controversial.
Inheritance (and gifting) only arises as a “philosophical problem” when property rights are individualised. On the one hand, there is the view that the acceptance of private property implies that it should also be allowed in family relationships: wealth may accumulate along family lines, instead of being redistributed to society as a whole at every change of generation. Conversely, the birth lottery (the question of being born into a poor or rich family) should not affect the life chances of the youngest generation. According to this latter view, the right to inheritance should be rejected because it enables the heirs to have an unearned and effortless income and reduces the relative opportunities of the familially and financially underprivileged.
To date, no liberal-democratic constitutional state has completely eliminated this effect. Some countries, including Switzerland and Sweden, do not levy taxes on inherited property at all. One reason for this is the impact of inheritance tax on family businesses. A high inheritance tax on all business assets would lead to the expropriation or forced sale of businesses if the previous owner dies. A further reason consists in the difficulty of monetising the wealth of real estate. These values quickly exceed possible allowances, with the result that the children may no longer be able to live in their parents’ house.
Undoubtedly, intergenerational transfers of wealth by inheritance and gifts (and related issues of inheritance and gift tax) are a complex issue that has been the subject of many political and philosophical discussions. In this Call for Papers, we invite contributions that consider and analyse the topic from various perspectives of intergenerational justice.
The 2020 Winners
1st
Mind the gap: inheritance and inequality in retirement wealth
Oscar Stolper & Lukas Brenner
2st
Capital on the moral continuum: the UK, Sweden, and the taxation of inherited wealth
Ann Mumford, Martin Eriksson & Asa Gunnarsson
3rd
Inheritances and gifts: Possibilities for a fair taxation of intergenerational capital transfers
Johannes Stößel, Sonja Stockburger & Julian Schneidereit
Demography Prize 2019
“Housing Crisis: how can we improve the situation for young people?”
The Scope of the Prize
In many European countries, and especially in large cities and university towns, affordable housing is a pressing and sometimes explosive issue.
In the debate about such questions as home ownership or rent increase caps, the intergenerational perspective is often forgotten. But different generations are affected in noticeably different ways. Rising rent and purchase prices make it ever more difficult for young people to access the housing market. The quality of housing is a key factor in living standards and well-being, as well as an integral element of social integration, yet in 2014 a total of 7.8% of young people in the European Union (aged between 15 and 29) were in severe housing need, 25.7% of the young people in the EU lived in overcrowded households, and 13.6% lived in households that spent 40% or more of their equivalised disposable income on housing (Eurostat 2016). Young people often live longer in their parental homes, or in the private rental sector, than previous generations (Ronald/Lennartz 2018).
In response to the 2008/9 financial crisis, government programmes for public and social housing aimed at the poorer parts of the population were cut back, leading to diminishing access to affordable housing, especially in urbanised areas. For young people, this means that they have to pay higher rents.
What is often referred to as a “housing crisis” can certainly be seen as a question of intergenerational justice, because the baby boomers had easier access to housing or to the means to finance it. Today, the baby boomer generation benefits from housing inequality in two ways: through property values and rental income. At the same time, with pension systems under pressure because of ageing populations, the ownership of residential property has become an important component of retirement income (Helbrecht/Geisenkauser 2012).
Younger generations, on the other hand, are disadvantaged in two respects: today’s increased demand leads to further pressure on the housing market in the low-price segment, which in turn leads to an increase in the rent burden for lower and middle-income groups, and also makes the purchase of residential property more difficult. In many parts of Europe, such as the Southeast of the UK, in the 1980s the average cost of a first home was three to four times the annual average salary; today it can be ten or twelve times the annual average salary.
In many European countries, ownership of real estate has become a much greater source of wealth inequality between generations than salary differentials.
This gloomy picture of housing and home ownership is, however, by no means universal. Statistics point to significant differences between countries, and international comparisons show that successful housing policies are possible. An EU comparison shows that the percentage of households managed by a person aged 18–29 who spends 40% or more of their disposable income on housing costs ranges from 1.3% (in Malta) to 45.4% (in Greece) (Leach et al. 2016). Some countries perform significantly better than others in providing affordable housing for the next generation.
The 2019 Winners
Joint Winner
Right to housing for young people: On the housing situation of young Europeans and the potential of a rights-based housing strategy
Veronika Riedl
Joint Winner
Do young people stand alone in their demand to live alone? The intergenerational conflict hypothesis put to test in the housing sector
Laura Naegele, Wouter De Tavernier, Moritz Hess & Sebastian Merkel
Intergenerational Justice Prize 2017/2018
“How attractive are political parties and trade unions to young people?”
The Scope of the Prize
Political parties are intrinsically linked to the functioning of modern democracies. They provide fundamental linkage mechanisms of representation and participation that connect citizens with the state (Keman 2014; Webb 2000). Party members and affiliates, more generally, are in this respect one of the linking mechanisms that are beneficial for the effective functioning of political representation.
Members are often described as the “eyes and ears” (Kölln/Polk 2017; Kölln 2017) of parties in the electorate because of their communicative role. They bring new policy ideas to the party and communicate the party’s programme within society. In addition, members are among the primary sources of political personnel because party membership is often an informal prerequisite for acquiring political office. From this representative perspective and following the notion of “descriptive representation” (Mainsbridge 1999), members’ social makeup should ideally reflect that of the general population.
Although party members have hardly ever been entirely representative of the population in their demographic characteristics (Scarrow/Gezgor 2010), the general decline of party membership seems to affect younger generations disproportionately. They enrol less often in parties, rendering the parties’ age profiles all too often considerably older than the broader electorate that they hope to embrace (Bruter/Harrison 2009; Scarrow/Gezgor 2010). For instance, the share of young members (under 26 years old) in German parties is at most 6.3 % (LINKE) but can also be as little as 2.2 % (CSU) (Niedermayer 2016). In contrast, around one-quarter of the general population belongs to this age group. And even though the age profile of Swedish parties is considerably better, with over 14 % of members being under 26 years old (Kölln/Polk 2017), this figure is largely driven by members of the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) in which almost 26 % are under 26 years old. In other countries, hardly any of these problems seem to exist. According to 2017 figures from the United Kingdom, the share of members aged 18–24 reflects the general population of 8.9 % quite well: group size estimates suggest that 18–24s make up 14.4 % of the Green Party, 13.2 % of the Conservative Party and 11.5 % of the Labour Party, with only the Scottish National Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP) below the 8.9 %, at 6.9 % and 6.7 % respectively (UK Party Members Project).
Overall, however, the statistics suggest not only an age problem in political parties across many European democracies but also substantial country- and party-level differences. German parties seem to be doing particularly poorly in the descriptive representation of the young, while other countries and individual parties are much better at engaging younger generations.
Trade unions are facing similar problems in recruiting young members across Europe (Gumbrell-McCormick/Hyman 2013). Reasons for this pattern might be found in the dominant political issues that trade unions care about. Younger people are confronted with the rapidly changing nature of the workplace as well as the rise in temporary work and zero-hours contracts and are probably more interested in salaries, entry requirements and work contracts, rather than in end-of-career matters such as pensions and retirement ages. The skewed age profile of trade unions could shift the discussion more towards the latter concerns, deterring younger generations and reinforcing existing age problems.
Given members’ importance and their overall age profile, it could be argued that political power or access to it is unequally distributed between the young and old. Parties and trade unions might be disproportionately representing older rather than younger generations because of their own social-demographic makeup. This could create an unjust distribution of political influence between living generations.
The 2018 Winners
1st
Not Too Young to Run? Age Requirements and Young People in Elected Office
Mona Lena Krook & Mary Nugent
2nd
How can Young Adults’ Political Organisations be made more Appealing?
Philipp Köbe
Joint 3rd
Is there a Sound Democratic Case for Raising the Membership of Young People in Political Parties and Trade Unions through Descriptive Representation?
Thomas Tozer
Joint 3rd
Youth Representation in the European Parliament: The limited effect of political party characteristics
Aksel Sundström & Daniel Stockemer
5th
What’s Going Around? A social network explanation of youth party membership
Emilien Paulis
Intergenerational Justice Prize 2015/2016
“Constitutions as millstones? Are regular national constitutional conventions the solution to give successive generations the flexibility they need?”
The Scope of the Prize
By their very nature, constitutions are intergenerational documents. With rare exceptions, they are meant to endure for many generations. They establish the basic institutions of government, enshrine the fundamental values of a people, and place certain questions beyond the reach of simple majorities. Constitutions, especially written ones, are often on purpose difficult to modify.
The question of constitutions and future generations has at least two different aspects. On the one hand, constitutions provide the opportunity to guarantee consideration of the rights of future generations, and may serve to protect future generations against the actions of current electoral majorities. On the other hand, the provisions of a constitution may become outmoded, restricting the ability of majorities in the future to respond to the real problems in ways they see as necessary and proper.
Ideally, constitutions strike a balance between seeking to protect and perpetuate those values and rights the present generation understands to be fundamental while ensuring the right of future generations to define for themselves the values and rights they see as essential, and to modify the institutions they have inherited in light of their own experience.
This tension between durability and flexibility finds expression in Edmund Burke’s concept of a constitution as an intergenerational covenant. It also informs the discussion among Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), James Madison (1751–1836), and Thomas Paine (1737–1809) in the course of founding the United States of America. Jefferson represented the position that every law and therefore every constitution should lose its validity after 19 years, so that every generation can organise itself, with a freedom comparable to the preceding one. Madison disagreed and referred to the uncertainty that would emerge from such an arrangement. Thomas Paine sided with Jefferson and formulated the following famous sentence: ‘Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it.’ This statement, written in 1795, defended the right to engage in revolution. This right was even enshrined in the French Constitution of 1793. Article 28 stated: ‘Un peuple a toujours le droit de revoir, de réformer et de changer sa Constitution. Une génération ne peut pas assujettir à ses lois les générations futures.’ (‘A people always has the right to review, reform, and amend its constitution. One generation may not subject future generations to its laws.’) The preservation of the same number of options and opportunities for action is regarded as the one of most important elements of intergenerationally just behaviour in modern generational ethics.
The 2016 Winners
Joint 1st
Constitutions as Chains? - On the Intergenerational Challenge of Constitution-Making
Konstantin Chatziathanasiou
Joint 1st
Legitimate Intergenerational Constitutionalism
Inigo Gonzalez-Ricoy
Joint 3rd
Constitutions, Democratic Self-Determination and the Institutional Empowerment of Future Generations
Michael Rose
Joint 3rd
Could Present Laws Legitimately Bind Future Generations? - A Normative Analysis of Jefferson's Proposal
Agmon Shai