People of a like age enjoy (or not) similar social benefits and opportunities (or not) in a welfare state that is running out of resources. This emerging condition of scarcity makes age relationships meaningful. But it is also a controversy skewed by the bean counters among a consuming society of taxpayers for comparing life chances across age groups when comparison with "the Jones's" goes stale.
Those who understand that the generations of Homo sapiens to follow will be materially shortchanged because of their late arrival are the realists. The species has for some time foreshortened its concerns like old "in-the-long-run-we-are-dead" Keynes.