Intergenerational equity

Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the idea of fairness or justice between generations. The concept can be applied to fairness in dynamics between children, youth, adults, and seniors. It can also be applied to fairness between generations currently living and future generations.

Conversations about intergenerational equity may include basic human needs, economic needs, environmental needs and subjective human well-being. It is often discussed in public economics, especially with regard to transition economics, social policy, and government budget-making. Many cite the growing U.S. national debt as an example of intergenerational inequity, as future generations will shoulder the consequences. Intergenerational equity is also explored in environmental concerns, including sustainable development, and climate change. The continued depletion of natural resources that has occurred in the past century will likely be a significant burden for future generations. Intergenerational equity is also discussed with regard to standards of living, specifically on inequities in the living standards experienced by people of different ages and generations. Intergenerational equity issues also arise in the arenas of elderly care, social justice, and housing affordability.

The debate around youth rights, children's rights and the rights of future generations includes discussions around when people should have political power, and how much they should have. Adam Benforado argues, for example, that giving children more political rights than adults results in everyone being better off by, for example, increasing the salience of long-term issues.

Those seeking rights or greater consideration for future generations discuss methods such as deliberative democracy, an ombudsman for future generations, or other institutions tasked specifically with considering future generations. Some advocates also want a child impact assessment of policies or decisions to evaluate outcomes for a specific child or even the next generation more broadly.

Since the first recorded debt issuance in Sumaria in 1796 BC, one of the penalties for failure to repay a loan has been debt bondage. In some instances, this repayment of financial debt with labor included the debtor's children, essentially condemning the debtor family to perpetual slavery. About one millennium after written debt contracts were created, the concept of debt forgiveness appears in the Old Testament, called Jubilee (Leviticus 25), and in Greek law when Solon introduces Seisachtheia. Both of these historical examples of debt forgiveness involved freeing children from slavery caused by their parents' debt.

The leaders of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy considered the precept of seven generation sustainability when making present decisions that could have significant impact on their potential future descendants.

Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato si', commented that

We can no longer speak of sustainable development apart from intergenerational solidarity. Once we start to think about the kind of world we are leaving to future generations, we look at things differently; we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely received and must share with others ... Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice.