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Demographic Imbalance Series
Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson's newest work takes on one of the defining legal and social questions of the next century: how societies should respond when populations grow older, birthrates fall, and fewer working-age adults are left to support the needs of many more older people. In a new initiative for Tolerance Means, "Demographic Imbalance: Bridging the Looming Generational Divide," Wilson frames demographic imbalance not simply as a numbers problem, but as a coming stress test for families, governments, care systems, and the law itself. As traditional assumptions about marriage, children, caregiving, inheritance, and retirement begin to break down, family law must adapt to a world where care is more expensive, more necessary, and less easily supplied by the nuclear family alone.
At the center of this project is a search for practical, humane legal solutions in the gray areas between autonomy and obligation, family and state, scarcity and care. Through the forthcoming International Survey of Family Law volume on Demographic Imbalance: Aging Populations, Fertility Decline, and Implications for Family Law, scholars across the globe in family law and other disciplines examine how law can better support caregiving beyond marriage, chosen families, migrant care workers, community-based elder care, and new forms of intergenerational responsibility.
The project asks a question that is both urgent and deeply human: as aging societies place growing pressure on younger generations, how can law help us share the burdens of care without sacrificing dignity, liberty, or social solidarity?
Under the umbrella of the University of Illinois Family Law and Policy Program, the Nova School of Law, and the grant support of FTC, Demographic Imbalance: Bridging the Looming Generational Divide will present a series of webinars and other educational offerings that show what is at stake.
For more on Professor Wilson's work, see robinfretwellwilson.org
