Is there a war between the generations for society's resources? Samuel H. Preston, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and director of its Population Studies Center, thinks that children and the elderly are in direct competition for economic support -- and that for the past 20 years the elderly have been winning. That has serious implications for America's future, he writes in the December 1984 issue of Scientific American ("Children and the Elderly in the U.S.").

Preston cites a number of different measures which show that while the condition of the elderly has improved dramatically, that of children has worsened, and sharply so in recent years. "In 1970, 16 percent of those under 14 lived in poverty compared with 24 percent of those older than 65. By 1982 the situation has been reversed: 23 percent of children lived in poverty compared with 15 percent of the elderly." If you count the value of non-cash transfer payments such as food stamps and Medicare, the proportion of elderly people in poverty drops to 4 percent, but the percentage of poor children goes down only to 17 percent. Public health spending reduced the mortality rates in all age groups between 1968 and 1980 -- but much more so for older than younger people. By 1980 those aged 75 to 79 had a four-year gain in life expectancy, but a 15-year-old' s life expectancy had increased by only a year. Rates of anxiety, emotional disturbance and suicide have all gone down among the elderly, risen among young people.

Widening the gap between the condition of each group is difference in effectiveness of the main programs directed at each. Health care is the principal public expenditure on the elderly, and it's been pretty effective. Education is the chief expenditure on children, but achievement has declined. Preston has an interesting explanation of the drop in achievement, despite declining enrollment and increased per-pupil expenditure in the decade between 1972 and 1982. He cites research showing that the only variable which studies have consistently found to affect students' academic achievement is the intelligence of the teacher. But instead of using a period of declining enrollment to improve teacher salaries and attract better teachers, school districts have done the opposite. "From 1973 to 1983," Preston writes, "teachers' real incomes declined by 12.2 percent." He studied state enrollment and salary data and found that "in the 1970's for each decline of 10 percent in school enrollment teachers' salaries decreased about 1.2 percent. The outcome of a reduction in average salary is predictable: the brightest workers, who can readily get other jobs, leave a field or do not enter it in the first place. This is what has happened in teaching."

What accounts for our apparent concern for the elderly and lack of concern for the young -- as demonstrated, for example, in the fact that we spend about 10 times as much per recipient in all federal programs for the aged as we do in all federal programs for children? Preston believes a number of factors are involved:

• The dramatic population shift from 1960 to 1982. The number of children under age 15 fell by 7 percent, while the number of those 65 or older grew by 54 percent. The elderly vote, in very high proportions. They have increasing political clout. And, as people get older they tend not to be concerned with issues affecting children. In the 1983 Gallup Poll on the schools, those younger than 50 were evenly split on whether they would vote to raise school taxes if the local school board asked them to. But those over 50 were opposed by 62 to 28 percent.

• In drawing on the larger population for political support, children have only their parents, while the elderly have "members of the under-65 population acting on behalf of elderly family members" and "acting on behalf of themselves in their own (future) old age."

• We tend to think of the family as being responsible for the care of children -- a private rather than a public responsibility. Since reliable birth control methods now make children "the result of a private decision rather than of chance, many people today think the parents should bear the cost of child rearing. On the other hand, we do not choose to have parents and so there is no equivalent motive for insisting that parents be privately supported." Unfortunately, while we charge parents with caring for their children, parents are often abandoning that responsibility; Preston says divorce is responsible for a share of children's increased poverty and decreased educational achievement.

Preston does not think the elderly are "the villains of the piece," nor that we should stop protecting them -- or ourselves, as we get older. "There is surely something to be said," he writes, "for a system in which conditions improve as we pass through life.

"On the other hand, the failure to devote resources to children cannot be defended so easily. Whereas expenditure on the elderly can be though of mainly as consumption, expenditure on the young is a combination of consumption and investment. The quality of education and the psychological well-being of children are crucial to the future productive capacity of the U.S.

"If we care about our collective future rather than simply about our future as individuals we are faced with the question of how best to safeguard the human and material resources represented by children. These resources have not been carefully guarded in the past two decades. Rather than assuming collective responsibility, as has been done in the case of the elderly, U.S. society has chosen to place almost exclusive responsibility for the care of children on the nuclear family. Marital instability, however, has much reduced the capacity of the family to care for its own children. Hence insisting that families alone care for the young would seem to be an evasion of collective responsibility rather than a conscious decision about the best way to provide for the
future."

Preston is right, of course. And failing to invest in the young goes beyond neglecting our "collective future." It also will affect individuals. Those who will be 65 twenty years from now have to understand that it is today's children who will -- or won't -- be the taxpayers of tomorrow, and who will -- or won't -- be able to afford to maintain their elders in reasonable health and reasonable comfort.