Justice Across Ages Treating Young and Old as Equals

Age structures our lives and societies. It shapes social institutions, roles, and relationships, as well as how we assign obligations and entitlements within them. Each life-stage also brings its characteristic opportunities and vulnerabilities, which spawn multidimensional inequalities between young and old. How should we respond to these age-related inequalities? Are they unfair in the same way gender or racial inequalities are? Or is there something distinctive about age that mitigates ethical concern?

Justice Across Ages addresses these and related questions, offering an ambitious theory of justice between age groups. Written at the intersection of philosophy and public policy, the book sets forth ethical principles to guide a fair distribution of goods like jobs, healthcare, income, and political power among persons at different stages of their life. At a time where young people are starkly underrepresented in legislatures and subject to disproportionally high unemployment rates, the book moves from foundational theory to the specific policy reforms needed today.

If we are ever to live in a society where people are treated as equals, the book argues, we must pay vigilant attention to how age membership can alter our social standing. We should regard with suspicion commonplace forms of age-based social hierarchy, such as the political marginalization of teenagers and young adults, the infantilization of young adults and older citizens, and the spatial segregation of elderly persons. This position carries important implications for how we should think about the political and moral value of equality, design our social and political institutions, and conduct ourselves in a range of contexts including families, workplaces, and schools.

Juliana Bidadanure, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and, by courtesy, of Political Science, Stanford University

Juliana Bidadanure is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and, by courtesy, of Political Science, at Stanford University. She is also the founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Basic Income Lab. Her interests lie at the intersection of Philosophy and Public Policy. She has been working on how we should conceptualize the value of equality in general, and in particular on inequalities between age groups and generations.

Introduction
Part One
1. Equality over Time
2. Lifespan Prudence
3. Relational Equality Between Age Groups
4. Treating Young and Old as Equals
Part Two
5. Age, Jobs, and Inequalities
6. Basic Income versus Basic Capital: A Temporal Perspective
7. Youth-ing Politics: A Defence of Youth Quotas in Parliaments