ELFAC Calls for Policies That Emphasize the Role of Families in Achieving an Equitable and Stable Future
By: Greta Wedel, ELFAC Project Manager
The European Large Families Confederation (ELFAC) welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to develop a comprehensive strategy for intergenerational fairness.
We agree that the incorporation of an intergenerational perspective is fundamental to developing sustainable solutions for these issues. ELFAC, however, would like to underscore the importance of family within this dialogue. Notably absent from the European Commission’s initiative approach – family is arguably the most important societal vessel for intergenerational collaboration. Declining birth rates and an aging population are both large-scale issues that fall into the scope of this initiative, threatening to topple pension and social welfare systems.
This phenomenon is not only a byproduct of policy deficits, it is additionally representative of a cultural shift towards individuality. Crises related to housing, childcare, and affordable living have exacerbated an already problematic societal shift, in which family has been neglected in favor of individual and career interests.
Demographic change is one of the most pressing intergenerational issues facing the EU. Inconsistencies in generation size mean that pension funding for older generations will be scarce, while increasing taxation and workforce burdens fall on younger generations. Family is the ideal vessel to facilitate intergenerational awareness across societies, as the family structure naturally connects individuals of vastly different age groups. The critical position of family in securing Europe’s future cannot be ignored.
As recognized within the summary – it is the younger generation that will bear the impact for today’s decisions. We argue that there is no better way to account for that reality than the direct incorporation of youth voices. Through our Better Future Festival Project, a year-long initiative funded by the European Commission’s CERV Program, ELFAC brought together youth from a number of different EU municipalities and facilitated the creation of youth manifestos, documents which expressed the vision for the future held by European youth.
Our recommendations on this strategy are threefold:
- ELFAC calls on the European Commission to highlight family as a key component of its strategy. The idea of intergenerationality cannot be de-coupled from the family system, and similarly, the core role of family in fostering intergenerational awareness and dialogue cannot be ignored. The inclusion of family perspectives and family-friendly policy are fundamental to the success of this initiative.
- ELFAC recommends that the European Commission provide active platforms for youth inclusion in the policymaking process, giving younger generations the opportunity to advocate for themselves, as opposed to deciding what they want and need without consultation. Intergenerational fairness cannot be achieved without recognition of the disproportionate burden that is placed on younger generations, making their voices necessary in this dialogue.
- ELFAC would suggest that the European Commission take active steps to account for the diversity of European countries when developing a tool to monitor intergenerational fairness, recognizing that fairness may take different forms when contextualized within the unique demographic reality experienced by each EU Country. We suggest that family, and by extension the family friendliness of policy, be accounted for within this metric.
Shaping an EU that is adaptable and able to tackle complex challenges requires first unifying the EU, not only through congruency in policy, but through breaking down barriers between generations and fostering effective intergenerational discussion. ELFAC ultimately argues that this process is best facilitated through intergenerational forums for discussion, the most natural of which is the family system.