Ravers and boomers: is intergenerational Covid tension real?

On a Saturday evening in mid-July, Michael made a video call to his grandmother and checked she had everything she needed. Then, along with about 3,000 others, he set out for an illegal rave.

Despite coronavirus lockdown measures, Michael, a 20-year-old student from Bristol who asked to use a pseudonym, went to the event at a former RAF airfield near Bath three weeks ago with a group of friends. Before they met up, he said, their group chat was “mostly excitement, but a little bit of trepidation”. Michael added: “But we just thought, none of us live with old people, and the rules are all confusion.”

“I definitely don’t feel great about it,” he said. “Obviously I’m not looking for anyone to get sick because of me.” Still, he added, it was a “huge” night, “one of the best ever”. He next spoke to his grandmother a few days later, reminding her to wear a face mask when she went to the shops.

If Michael’s account seems to marry responsibility with recklessness, it is more nuanced than most attempts at understanding the relationship between the generations that have emerged in the latest iteration of this new coronavirus era.

Throughout the summer, a steady drumbeat of stories about irresponsible parties and beach trips has been set against memes about mean-spirited baby boomers.

A new surge in Aberdeen was blamed on transmission in pubs and bars; another in the north-west of England was pinned on family visits between households. This weekend, the head of Preston city council said young people there were being targeted with a “don’t kill granny” message after households in the city became the latest to be banned from mixing indoors or in gardens.

Last week, that tension found its clearest distillation yet, in response to reports in Sunday newspapers that Boris Johnson was prepared to consider ordering the over-50s to shield if circumstances should demand it.

While the prospect seemed remote, the fury was immediate. The Daily Express front page warned of a “BACKLASH AGAINST ‘AGEIST’ OVER-50s VIRUS PLAN” while the Daily Mail set the interests of the young and old in explicit conflict: “Make the young socially distance before locking down over-50s, Boris is warned.”

As local lockdowns replace a nationwide approach, the economic consequences of the coronavirus are starting to bite, and the interests of different groups are drifting apart. There are fears that the relative unity which has characterised the public response to the crisis could unravel.

“As we get more and more tailored approaches to lockdown, it’s going to get more divisive and more tense,” said Bobby Duffy, director of the King’s College London Policy Institute, who is writing a book about intergenerational connection and conflict.

“One of the great things about the initial lockdown was that we really were all in it together, in a literal sense. And as that changes, different age groups will be one of the fulcrums that has the potential to divide people.”

Beyond anecdotes of careless twentysomethings and unsympathetic pensioners, there was evidence of real difference between generations on adherence to lockdown, noted Dr Daisy Fancourt of University College London, who has led research tracking tens of thousands of people’s views on the crisis since March.

“Compliance has been lower among 18- to 30-year-olds than older adults,” she said. “And when we look at complete compliance, that’s only 20% to 30% of the youngest age group, against 50% of older respondents.”

On the other hand, YouGov data shared with the Guardian suggests that all age groups agree younger people are most severely affected financially. Half of respondents say the youngest will face the greatest economic hardship, against just 9% who say the same about pensioners.

However, a growing number of voices warn that older people are facing worse age discrimination as a result of the pandemic. “I find it worrying that the government is even prepared to fly a kite on the idea of shielding for the over-50s,” said Catherine Foot, of the Centre for Ageing Better. “There is such a thing as compassionate ageism – that you can think you’re being kind but patronise people and limit their humanity.

“If you think age equals vulnerability, and you lump them together as this inactive, stagnant group, then you will find yourself making a choice between an elderly population that doesn’t contribute and the wellbeing of a younger generation that is keeping the economy going. And of course that is a nonsense.”

Most barometers of public opinion suggest people of all ages are much less likely to view each other as the enemy than some media narratives suggest – perhaps because they register the mitigating circumstances behind the headlines.

If younger people are more likely to have broken lockdown rules, that may be less due to the lure of a relatively small number of raves and more because, as the Intergenerational Foundation has pointed out, that they have nearly 30% less space at home, even without gardens being factored in.

Fancourt said younger people were more likely to be key workers, and were in general more likely to lead logistically complicated lives. She said: “Lots of older adults are retired, they don’t have to worry about childcare or getting to work. If you apply the [lockdown] rules to a simpler life, they tend to look OK. It’s when you try to apply them to more complex situations that they really don’t add up.”

Duffy argued that while generations lived further away from each other than they once did, family ties remained strong. “The reality is that we have stronger visceral connections up and down generations than we do across them,” he said. “So that is a massive counteraction to the idea of people just acting according to their selfish interests based on their age.”

Where there is suspicion between those of different ages, it can often be tempered by mutual exposure. Emily, 17, and her mother, Emma, have been living in Cheltenham throughout lockdown with 79-year-old Sheila as part of the Homeshare UK scheme, where younger people live free of charge with older people in exchange for company and help around the house. The early stages of the pandemic were not easy, with both sides having initial concerns, but they’ve ended up delighted with the arrangement.

“I was scared I wasn’t going to like it,” said Emily. “Being bossed about or whatever. But actually we chat, we spend time together – she has stories better than the people I’m at college with.”

Sheila, for her part, “was worried they’d be drinking until one in the morning – but it’s not been like that”. She takes a benign view of news stories about people going to the beach: “They’re having a bloody good time. It reminds me of being a young person myself.”

In the end, said Foot, stereotypes of young and old that were presented as a battle for supremacy were in reality a route to mutual destruction. “How do we make sense of, on the one hand, increasing use of these stereotypes at both ends, and on the other of increasing solidarity? Or of people desperate to help their neighbours, and on the other hand illegal raves? It’s a story about opposites being true at the same time.”

Although Michael didn’t put it that way, he did say that he had not been to another rave recently. He did not regret going, he said, but added: “If I don’t want to talk to my nan about it, it’s probably not that good an idea, is it?”