The House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee wants young people to stop considering their elders as “wealth-hoarding ‘boomers’” who enjoy “comfortable lives in homes they own while younger generations struggle on low incomes, unable to afford to enter the housing market and struggling with high rents”. A report on ageism released this week calls this an unhelpful “stereotype” that ignores inequality within generations.
Of course, this is broadly true. Not every person over the age of 60 bought a house in Russell Square for 20p in the Eighties and now, through no effort of their own, spends the half of the year they’re not on a cruise living in an asset worth as much as a moderate Lotto win. Also, not all 20- or 30-somethings are lazy, entitled snowflakes who regularly waste whole house-deposit-sized piles of cash on avocado toast. Nor do we truly wish our parents ill for the luck of being born in an age of affordable housing and work that paid (although we might wish they’d downsize already and help a gal out).
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