This unsettling book says we live too long – but Australia’s problems lie in power, not age

Australia’s widening generational gap of wealth and inequality could reach record levels within years, suggests recent research . This tension is playing out in national debates over the budget and the housing crisis, as well as provocative new books and films taking aim at baby boomers.

But centuries ago, Anglo–Irish politician Edmund Burke painted a very idealistic picture of the generational social contract. He described society as a partnership not only among the living, but between those who are living, dead and yet to be born.

It is a comforting idea: that each generation, with no unlimited authority vis-à-vis another, stewards the world on behalf of the next. But as Burke himself warned, those who have held power rarely relinquish it willingly. The idea of a stable generational social contract may be elegant in theory. In practice, it runs headlong into human nature.

Review: Going On and On: Why Our Longevity Threatens the Future – Lucinda Holdforth (Summit Books)

Author and former Labor speechwriter Lucinda Holdforth’s Going On and On lands squarely in this uncomfortable space. As a young researcher interested in generational politics, I found her book both a breath of fresh air and an affront.

There is something quietly disarming about a Boomer so candidly and polemically siding with younger generations – it almost makes me more generous towards older people. But youth is not a monolith, and neither is old age.

The book asks a confronting question: what price will younger citizens pay for the rest of us living longer? Its core argument is that extended longevity produces a structural challenge that risks distorting democracy, economic priorities and generational fairness.

The problem, as Holdforth frames it, is that those living longer are not willing to give up power – and that power is not being relinquished at the pace required to represent younger generations.

Lucinda Holdforth’s book siding with younger generations is ‘both a breath of fresh air and an affront’.

Monash University Press

Longer lives are a political problem

Like most advanced democracies , thanks to advancements in medicine, population ageing is accelerating in Australia, and with it, the numerical and political weight of older cohorts.

The 2023 Intergenerational Report underscores the scale of the issue: demographic ageing alone is estimated to account for around 40% of the projected increase in Australian government spending over the next four decades.

As more Australians live longer, governments will be required to devote increasing resources to health, aged care and income support. This will inevitably crowd out spending on the future, from education and innovation to climate transition.

This is where Holdforth’s argument sharpens into something more unsettling. Longevity is not just a fiscal problem, but a political one. If older cohorts both live longer and dominate the electorate, then generational turnover is delayed. The “passing of the baton” becomes deferred, and with it the capacity for renewal.

Burke himself understood that a society without the means of change is a society that risks stagnation. Holdforth pushes this further: when generational transition is postponed too long, progress is ultimately denied.

There is something compelling (and unsettlingly plausible) about this.

Neoliberalism is part of the story

Younger Australians today face a markedly different economic reality to their parents: precarious work, unaffordable housing and the increasing burden of funding a system from which they may never fully benefit.

In a recent commentary on the implications of Labor’s recent tax reform on intergenerational equity, I pointed out that younger workers are being squeezed from both sides: paying relatively more tax on their labour while missing out on asset-based advantages, and then inheriting the fiscal burden of an ageing society.

At the same time, the pipeline of future taxpayers is narrowing. Australia’s fertility rate has fallen well below replacement level, sitting at around 1.5 births per woman in recent years. This is not simply a matter of preference. As emerging evidence shows, many Australians are having fewer children than they would like, due to structural barriers : housing affordability, economic insecurity, gender inequality and climate anxiety.

Many Australians are having fewer children than they would like, due to structural barriers.

Phototribbiani/Pexels

Perhaps neoliberalism forms part of this story. Over recent decades, the shift towards privatisation, lower taxation on wealth and a reduced role for the state has eroded public investment in the very supports that make family formation possible, from affordable housing and secure employment to accessible childcare and social protection.

As risk has been individualised and economic life made more precarious, younger generations have been left to navigate an increasingly fragile pathway to adulthood. With a simultaneously ag…