INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY – A SEEMINGLY RIGHT SOCIAL POLICY POSTULATE WHICH HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY TROUBLESOME

Abstract

In the paper the author analyses the Polish state’s social policy by examining the features that weaken solidarity between generations. The other aim of the paper is to propose the necessary adjustments to the state’s social policy to make it respond better to the current challenges of intergenerational solidarity. Certain positive consequences that the weakening intergenerational solidarity may have on the modernisation of the society have also been identified. Among the main shortcomings of the existing social policy whose adverse effects manifest themselves in the breaking down of intergenerational solidarity is the absence of a coherent pro-family policy and an ‘action’ type character of many social programmes, which inevitably leads to a decrease in the perception of social security among large social and professional groups. In the author’s opinion, although at the micro (family) level the symptoms of the breaking down of intergenerational solidarity as a result of the state’s incoherent social policy are not yet showing, its negative effects are already observable at the macrostructural level, and include, inter alia, the absence of fiscal loyalty on the part of middle-aged citizens, or the turning of a blind eye on the needs of senior citizens. On the other hand, despite what it may seem, declining intergenerational solidarity may be conducive to the modernisation of the society. For this to happen, though, it must be accompanied by increasing aspirations of senior citizens demanding to be treated as subjects of the social policy, and further combined with a greater pressure and demands on the state to reform its own social policy faster and more thoroughly.