Reassessing the Intergenerational Contract

ABSTRACT This article addresses the concept of an intergenerational contract. Due to its various and imprecise definitions, the intergenerational contract seems a vague and descriptive notion with limited analytical relevance. Is it a contract based on kinship or a contract between age groups? Does it refer to implicit and informal obligations or explicit and formal ones as well? The article discusses the advantages and limitations of the concept by drawing on ethnographic examples from Singapore and on existing literature on the intergenerational contract.