Intergenerational social contract: refounding rather than opposing

One in five French people is now over 65 years old. By 2050, it will be one in three. In the public debate, young retirees are sometimes presented as the big winners of our social model. At the same time, younger generations are facing a very different reality: feeling lonely, entering the job market shaken by the irruption of AI, and access to housing increasingly dependent on family support.

A social contract under strain in the face of demographic change

Between these two realities lies a question we can no longer afford to avoid as we enter a period of profound demographic transition: is the social contract that has bound generations together since 1945 still sustainable?

It is tempting to view the current situation as a confrontation between two opposing camps: the “protected” on one side and the precarious on the other. Yet this reading leads nowhere. It oversimplifies a far more complex reality and, above all, traps us in a divisive narrative precisely when we should be building collective solutions for future generations.

On the one hand, poverty among 18- to 29-year-olds has risen to nearly 18% in France—well above the rate for people aged 65 and over, which stands at below 10%. Young people are also finding it increasingly difficult to enter the labour market as artificial intelligence begins to replace entry-level jobs, raising fundamental questions about how the next generation will acquire the skills and experience needed to build their careers.

On the other hand, older workers face a labour market that continues to discriminate against them. In France, only 42% of people over the age of 60 are in employment around ten percentage points below the European Union average.

Both of these realities are unfolding within a social contract that relies heavily on the balance between those in work and those in retirement. In 1960, four contributors financed one pensioner. Today, that ratio has fallen to just 1.7, and demographic trends indicate that it will continue to decline. The model is under increasing strain and must adapt to this new demographic reality

An economy in which young people remain excluded from stable employment while older workers are pushed out of the labour market prematurely is an economy that produces less, contributes less and ultimately protects less. Conversely, a society that enables people to work throughout every stage of their lives is one that is both more prosperous and more cohesive.

Young people and older workers are not competitors in the labour market. Recent studies conducted across around thirty OECD countries consistently show that employment among older workers and employment among younger workers tend to rise together rather than at each other’s expense.

Towards a new social contract: one that is chosen rather than imposed

More young people in employment and more older workers remaining economically active this is how we will strengthen our social model, not by setting one generation against another. That is the real challenge before us, and meeting it requires bringing every generation on board.

This means helping young people enter the labour market despite the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, while enabling older workers to remain in employment for longer and pass on their skills and experience instead of being prematurely excluded from working life. It also means rethinking the final stages of working careers and improving access to housing so that young people’s professional mobility no longer depends on their parents’ postcode. Above all, it requires an honest national conversation about how everyone should contribute to financing a social model capable of protecting all generations.

The latest edition of the France Ageing Barometer shows that a large majority of French citizens are fully aware of the demographic transition now under way. They recognise that both the pension system and the healthcare system are running structural deficits and understand that neither can remain sustainable without further reform.

At the same time, attitudes are evolving. A majority of French people now say they would be willing to work beyond the statutory retirement age, provided that doing so is flexible and voluntary. This aspiration cuts across generations. It offers a valuable direction for public policy and opens the way towards a new organisation of work within companies.

Setting generations against one another means fighting the wrong battle. As with every major transition, there are two possible responses: we can either endure change or anticipate it. Demographic change gives us the opportunity—if we choose to seize it—to prepare rather than react. The time has come not to preserve a model that has reached its limits, but to build a new one: fairer, more sustainable, and better equipped to meet the challenges we all share.