■ I am a very privileged person, one of the lucky generation born in the 1950s into the post-World War II wealth boom and baby boom. Now well past retirement age, I’m still able to live comfortably on the back of that wealth thanks in part to universal superannuation, writes Tim Senior.

During the 1950s, New Zealanders were the “third wealthiest people in the world” – we ranked third in the world for GDP per capita.

This wealth and the resulting high tax take by the government allowed us to have a free, well-functioning health system, a generous social security system and an education system that was the envy of many other countries.

We also had the benefit of a free university education and in some cases, such as teaching, got paid to train.

Relative to income, it was twice as easy to buy a house as it is now.

We began to take the protection of our environment more seriously.

Māori became more able to celebrate their heritage and gain a little of the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Most of us had a comfortable life and enjoyed a relatively egalitarian society.

I don’t recall anyone living on the streets and poverty was not a big concern.

Outside Aotearoa there were no more major wars, no major recessions and the falling of the Berlin wall gave us hope for continued peace.

Climate change and biodiversity loss were not a thing.

And now, as we pass retirement age, most of us are still enjoying the benefits of that era and I’m likely to be very comfortable till the end of my days.

But thanks in many ways to the actions, or lack of them, by my privileged generation, the world is now a very different place and mostly not for the better.

There’s no going back, but we can try to behave a bit better in the future

My children, and even more so, my grandchildren, are inheriting this changed world and I worry about what we are leaving them and what their future holds.

We didn’t have to worry about major wars, but my kids do.

The least we can do about that is to join other countries and speak out against the world’s current worst warmonger.

My grandchildren are going to have to deal with rapidly rising sea levels, a totally different climate and increasing devastating weather events.

Our response to mitigating climate change has been more or less dismantled.

No, we can’t change the world, but we can do our bit.

And, at the moment we’re not working towards adapting to even the inevitable changes.

My grandchildren will suffer the consequences of catastrophic biodiversity loss and a largely unprotected natural environment unless we change our ways.

I want my grandchildren to have access to a decent health service, which is currently in a state of collapse.

I want a social security system that doesn’t punish them if they fall on hard times.

I want my great-grandchildren to have the benefit of an improved education system based on educational research, and not returned to the system I experienced in the 50s and 60s.

And as for the egalitarian society we were once so proud of … we now live in a country where one in seven of our children are living in poverty.

The richest 1 percent of the population controls around 14 percent to 17 percent of wealth.

The poorest 20 percent hold a median net worth of just $11,000, and over 5 percent hold negative net worth (more debt than assets).

I would like my grandchildren to live in a fairer country.

And finally, their retirement. In the 1960s, seven working people pay taxes to support each retiree in Aotearoa.

Now, it is about four, and in 30 years there will be two workers to each retiree.

It is estimated our superannuation bill will cost New Zealand an extra $3000 a minute in the next decade, with warnings that costs will continue to soar as the number of older people balloons and the working population shrinks.

What is retirement going to look like for them?

Probably not as rosy as mine. Added to the fact that superannuation in its current form is going to be unaffordable, many of them have had huge student loans to pay off.

Housing costs already gobble up twice as much of their income as they did in the 1970s when my generation were buying their first home and they are much more likely to be still paying off a mortgage in their retirement.

The superannuation can gets kicked down the road and governments of all stripes regularly fiddle with it and how its funded, including the superannuation fund itself and KiwiSaver.

My children and my grandchildren have no certainty at all about their later years.

But it’s election time.

Polls regularly ask people,“Do you feel better or worse off?”

Are we really so selfish that this is our biggest concern?

I’ve never heard the question, “Do you think your children will be better or worse off?”

Do we really care so little about them?

I’ll be making sure my vote counts for my children’s and grandchildren’s future.