Ageing process may affect intergenerational relations in different ways, including income distribution. Simultaneously, the global economy has undergone various crises. An important question is whether these crises impact the nexus between ageing and intergenerational income distribution. Finding an answer to this question is difficult in the literature; although the crisis-income inequality nexus is quite often investigated, this is not in the intergenerational context. This paper attempts to solve such puzzles using data covering 13 OECD countries in the period 1995–2018. The findings show that the relationship between the age structure of the population and intergenerational income distribution before and after the Great Recession of 2007–2009 was quite different. Actually, the Great Recession seems to have triggered this nexus in such a way that the elderly won the intergenerational income game in the aftermath of the crisis; however, the working-age and younger cohorts took a rematch later. The results obtained may support the political decision-making how to cope with economic crises, including the present COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy and society, so as to treat different generations fair.

老龄化进程可能以不同方式影响代际关系，包括收入分配。与此同时，全球经济也经历了各种危机。一个重要的问题是这些危机是否会影响老龄化和代际收入分配之间的关系。在文献中很难找到这个问题的答案。尽管经常研究危机与收入不平等的关系，但这不是在代际背景下进行的。本文试图利用 1995-2018 年期间涵盖 13 个经合组织国家的数据来解决这些难题。研究结果表明，2007-2009 年大萧条前后人口年龄结构与代际收入分配的关系存在较大差异。实际上，大萧条似乎以这样一种方式触发了这种联系，即老年人在危机后赢得了代际收入博弈；然而，工作年龄和年轻的同伙后来又进行了复赛。所得结果可能支持政治决策如何应对经济危机，包括当前的 COVID-19 大流行及其对经济和社会的影响，从而公平对待不同世代。