Generational Conflict Or Methodological Artifact?

Abstract

In light of claims of a generational conflict over age-specific policies and the current fiscal troubles of related governmental programs, this article examines Americans’ attitudes toward education, health, and Social Security spending through the use of a new methodology designed to uncover asymmetries in public opinion and disentangle age, period, and cohort effects. Based on generalized ordered logit models within a cross-classified fixed-effects framework using General Social Survey data between 1984 and 2008, we find little evidence consistent with gray peril and self-interest hypotheses suggesting that older people support spending for health care and Social Security but not education. The divide in attitudes toward education spending is the result of cohort—not age—effects. Yet these cohort effects extend to other attitudes and are asymmetrical: The so-called greatest generation (born around 1930 or earlier) is ambivalent about government spending and especially likely to say that we spend the “right amount” on health care. As people approach retirement age, they also become more likely to say that we spend the “right amount” on Social Security. The nuanced ways in which American public opinion is divided by age and cohort are uncovered only through the use of a new methodology that does not conceive of public support and opposition as symmetrical. Historical reasons for these divides, along with their contemporary implications, are discussed.

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