Age, Generation and Inequality: A Reply to the Reply

I am as flattered by Turner's engagement with my article as I am surprised by his representation of it. His interpretation, and suggestion that I am drawing attention away from structural issues, is rooted in a paradigm which is inadequate to the task of properly describing how life course processes are integral to general social arrangements. In this response I will again illustrate what I see as some major flaws in the assumptions of age stratification and generational conflict theorists. Some of Turner's expressed concerns lie at something of a tangent to the arguments I advanced in my paper, and I will not address them here. Instead I will attempt to clarify my position on what a.ppears to be our mutual concern: the place of age and generation within a more adequate theory of inequality and stratification. In my paper I took issue with the assumptions and arguments of age stratification and generational conflict theorists. These writers see age and generation related self interest as underpinning a growth in age based conflict. The dimensions of such conflict are seen to cleave around people's current relations to work and welfare In these approaches the claims of particular (welfare) groups appear as problematic yet other aspects of resource distribution (rewards to employment) do not. It was my argument that the approach of age stratification theorists undertheorizes the coherence of work and welfare processes. ln consequence it misspecifies the processes which give rise to age and generation related inequalities, and may mislead as to the nature of social change. Further, because it treats the claims of welfare groups as uniquely problematic, the approach adds momentum to an ageist set of assumptions which hold general currency. In his response to my paper Turner re-asserts the salience of intragenerational cohesion and inter-generational difference in shaping consciousness and action in efforts to secure social advantage. I remain unconvinced by the argument or the examples intended to demonstrate its validity. The argument of generational consciousness, solidarity and conflict appears to draw on a metaphor of class consciousness and action. However, the processes seen to place generations in positions of mutual antagonism are not clearly specified. Age stratification theorists have not satisfactorily demonstrated that generations share interests which put them at odds with members of other generations. This may be the case in