Intergenerational Relationships – Developments and Socio-Political Challenges

During the first part of his presentation, Professor François Höpflinger of the University of Zurich spoke about significant trends in intergenerational relationships both within and outside families. He demonstrated that notions about the disintegration of intergenerational solidarity within families have proved to be wrong and that today there are some very intense intergenerational relationships within families. While intergenerational relationships within families have developed positively overall, intergenerational relationships outside of families are patchier.
In the second part, he explained to what degree the socio-political framework strengthens or weakens intergenerational relationships and what challenges are likely to arise for intergenerational relationships of the future from demographic developments. In this context, he demonstrated on the basis of international comparisons that a developed welfare state does not contribute to the repression, but sometimes even to the strengthening, of intergenerational relationships within families. On the other hand, demographic aging means that care must be taken not to allow older generations to profit too much at the expense of younger or subsequent generations.
His reasoning as to why today’s intergenerational relationships are so good was interesting: “Within the relationships, there is an ‘intimacy at a distance’. The generations within families are not dependent upon each other, and this knowledge makes the relationships stronger.”

Presentation of Professor François Höpflinger