Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that Britain’s travails are far from unique. Germany is having the same panic as we are about low birth rates and pension sustainability: how to cope with an ageing population in the context of stagnating incomes and ever-growing pressure on public spending? Germany’s demographic situation is precarious: the Federal Statistical Office estimates that the country’s old-age dependency ratio will increase from 330 people aged 67 and over per 1,000 working-age adults, to 420 by 2035. Equivalent figures suggest the UK situation isn’t quite as bad (280 rising to 298), but our dependency ratio is still above the OECD average – and worrying.
Conversations about reforming the triple-lock on pensions seem impossible: observe the damage the government did to itself merely by attempting to reform winter fuel allowance. What about funding social care using housing wealth acquired during the multi-decade boom in property prices that has left younger generations unable to afford homes? Dead in the water since Theresa May’s ill-fated “dementia tax”. The latest idea is to raise the pension age for today’s workers in order to keep the system sustainable. Young people facing ever-higher taxes and watching retirement retreat further into the distance are far from impressed, but what’s the alternative?
The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has a novel suggestion: a “Boomer Soli” (boomer solidary surcharge) on pensioners with the highest incomes to alleviate pensioner poverty without taxing workers more. The DIW director Marcel Fratzscher told me the solutions must “focus less on redistribution from young to old, and more on redistribution from rich to poor within the baby boomer generation itself”.
That isn’t Fratzscher’s only controversial suggestion. In August he proposed a year of “mandatory social service” for new retirees. Here was his logic: Germany has a worker shortage, particularly in sectors such as healthcare that are essential to the elderly; filling this gap is a necessity for all of society, not just the young. In Der Spiegel magazine, he took a more antagonistic tone, blaming the generation retiring now for not having enough children to staff these essential services. “Why should only young people be held accountable for these life decisions of the baby boomers?”
The response has been exactly what you’d expect. German politicians from left to right are falling over themselves to denounce Fratzscher’s ideas. He’s been accused of “dangerous populism” and criticised for fuelling “generational conflict”. My canvassing of opinion here produced similar results. “Offensive”, “unworkable”, “an insult to people who have worked all their lives”, and “the sort of naive social idea economists come up with” were some of the assessments.
What I find fascinating is the framing. Fratzscher justified his social service idea by calling for “solidarity between the old and the young”. The Boomer Soli, meanwhile, takes its name from the Solidaritätszuschlag, a “solidarity surcharge” introduced in the 1990s to fund German reunification. The implication is that Germany needs something similar to reunite older and younger generations, whose prospects have dramatically diverged just as East and West Germany did.
Britain finds it hard to talk about generational wealth and how economic and demographic trends have advantaged the boomers. Inevitably, the debate turns bitter, and those speaking candidly on the issue are accused of pitting different generations against each other (a charge rarely made when we were mooting national service for teenagers). I don’t see either proposal getting much traction, here or in Germany. But it’s interesting to see the issue spoken about in terms of civic cohesion, with a responsibility on us all to tackle demographic challenges, rather than a burden for the young alone. Fratzscher’s ideas raise a question we don’t often ask: what could grandparents do to ensure a more secure future for their grandchildren?
[See also: The missing trusts from the maternity review]
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This article appears in the 17 Sep 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Can Zohran Mamdani save the left?