Age stereotypes in appeals for intergenerational solidarity: disentangling the paradox

Abstract Intergenerational solidarity has been a widely discussed normative concept in debates on global crises and is considered essential for addressing these challenges in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as a paradigmatic example and a stress test for the potential power of intergenerational solidarity during a crisis. While appeals for intergenerational solidarity gained momentum in media coverage, the emergence and recurrence of ageist stereotypes could be observed as well. However, research on the obvious tension between calls for intergenerational solidarity on the one hand and the resurge of ageist attitudes on the other is largely missing. Against this backdrop, this paper pursues two goals: first, to identify representations of age(ing) in pandemic-related newspaper coverage and to reconstruct how the category ‘age’ is inscribed in appeals for solidarity; and second, to examine how these representations frame intergenerational relations in such appeals in order to better understand the conceptualisation of solidarity as an intergenerational concept. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of a comprehensive sample from three major German newspapers ( n = 149), we highlight that (stereotypical) representations of age(ing) and intergenerational relations have become relevant in three dimensions during the pandemic: the body and its physical ability, social participation, and the perception of social justice. Interpreting these empirical findings through the lens of poststructuralist theory of ageing, we highlight that these results point to a paradox of intergenerational solidarity: in appeals for intergenerational solidarity to counter age discrimination and promote intergenerational cohesion, ageist representations of age(ing) are (re)produced as binary oppositions based on the bisected construction of age and the rhetorical strategy of othering. We suggest that understanding this paradox and its structure provides a basis for developing alternative perspectives on the theoretical conceptualisation of intergenerational relations and solidarity to sustain it as a moral resource in impending crises beyond the pandemic.