The article explores how an ageing population and growing housing wealth affect relations between generations. Wallenius explains that Sweden’s pension reform in the 1990s anticipated demographic change by introducing automatic mechanisms to safeguard the system’s financial sustainability, alongside incentives to work longer.

However, financial stability does not necessarily mean that future pensions will provide adequate incomes. As fewer workers support more retirees, maintaining pension levels requires longer working lives. Younger generations therefore shoulder part of the adjustment through a rising target retirement age.

Wallenius also highlights the unequal practical consequences of working longer. People’s health, qualifications and occupations differ, making it easier for some to extend their careers than others. Continuing as a professor at 67, she notes, is different from continuing as a construction worker, yet the pension system treats them alike.

The article also features insights from Oxford’s Tim Vlandas on older voters’ economic priorities and the University of Gothenburg’s Maria Solevid on their political representation. Hannes Malmberg of the University of Minnesota explores how wealth changes as populations age, while economist Roine Vestman discusses how rising housing prices and inheritance widen inequalities among younger people.

The article concludes that Sweden’s emerging divide increasingly separates young people with wealthy parents from those without, adding a further dimension to the challenges facing younger generations.