Baby Boom --> Gen X: Squeezed Out? <-- Gen Y

The entire term and concept of Generation X came about to give description and voice to a group of people who were born immediately after the end of the baby boom and who, more importantly, felt disenfranchised.

Generation X, also known as the 13th Generation, are all adults now: the youngest are 26 and the oldest are in their mid-40s.

Speaking as a member of Gen X, I'll say we still feel disenfranchised.

Growing up and into my adulthood, everything was Boomer-centric. Recently, Boomers have begun having to share that limelight, but not with my generation; rather, they are sharing it with the generation after me: Generation Y, which is now coming of voting age.

Has my generation been squeezed out between two population booms? And is this a big mistake based on fallacy about my generation, from our quantity to our apathy?

The news media has created an entire special series (possibly even a new category) focused on Generation Y. It highlights people under 25, the leading edge of Generation Y. A few recent features included articles such as:

25 Under 25: Hollywood's Hottest Young Actors
Under 25, a look at the most talented and promising young actors in Hollywood.

20 Under 25: The Top-Earning Young Superstars - Forbes.com Some of the biggest earners in Hollywood aren't old enough to drink.

Underage Car & Auto Rentals, Renting Cars Under 25

America's Best Young Entrepreneurs Check out 25 smart new businesses from some of the brightest entrepreneurs in the US aged 25 and under.

Forbes Richest Celebrities Stars Under 25 - Forbes Magazine has named its top richest stars under 25.

Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind - Six states (Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida) graduate under 25% of students with special needs.

"25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers" (2008) The Center for Documentary Studies announced an open call for submissions in the third 25 Under 25 competition.

The Real Estate Market for Young Adults - New York Times The National Association of Realtors reported that 12 percent of first-time buyers are under 25. Though the under-25 buyer makes up only 1 percent of all home buyers.

BusinessWeek.com readers chose the top five in our inaugural Best Entrepreneurs Under 25 contest. A year later, they're flourishing .

Young, broke and fabulous - It's the perfect date night: hanging out under the stars on the comfy patio, with your favorite adult beverage.

A similar search at CNN for Generation X news stories brought out theoretical discussions about this group and pop culture references.

If one were paranoid, one might find that the media treats Generation X as a group outside the culture---something up for examination or entertainment---whereas the generation before and after are important and influential parts of the culture.

But don't underestimate Generation X. My generation isn't as small as you might think.

Depending upon who you listen to and whether you believe my generation begins in 1960 or 1965, we number somewhere between 50 and 80 million (equivalent to the Baby Boom).

The early-sixties birth cohorts are among the biggest in U.S. history -- and, at 80 million, this generation has numerically outgrown the Boom. By the late 1990s it will even outvote the Boom.
---Source: The Atlantic, "The New Generation Gap," by Neil Howe and William Strauss

If you place the beginning of my generation in 1960, then this includes presidential candidate Barack Obama.It also means we are a significant voting block.

A number of years ago Bill Clinton realized this when he appealed to the MTV generation to "get out and rock the vote."

When candidates target so-called soccer moms, they are by and large targeting my generation.

I believe to some degree candidates understand they are talking about a demographic that includes my generation, but I'm not sure they quite grasp that this means Generation X, a group that has been squeezed out of the spotlight since the beginning. It's also a group with an identity and priority list that is distinct from the other generations.

Even Obama, one of us, misses that

For Obama, who is 46, and his followers, boomer politics clearly have to go. What is less obvious is whom Obama represents. He often speaks to the Millennials, recently telling cheering college kids in South Carolina, "It's your generation's turn." But rarely mentioned is Obama's own generation, i.e., Generation X, the Lost Generation, whose name has been virtually erased from the national conversation. Source: The Nation

Obama isn't the only politician who focuses on Generation Y. The problem with that strategy is that every last Gen Xer is old enough to vote; Gen Y can't say the same, even if they are turning out in record numbers. Those numbers still don't meet or exceed the 50 to 80 million Xers.

In fact, considering it from the vantage point of a single issue, as one article about real estate for Generation Y admitted, that group comprises only 1% of home buyers right now. They're getting attention, though, because it's the fastest growing group---more than doubling since 1994. However, it is still the smallest percentage.

Meanwhile, according to the Center for Politics, Generation X comprises 25% of home owners.

Which group is more likely to be interested in the current mortgage crisis, and consider that as a factor in how they vote?

In 1999, Ted Halstead wrote an article for The Atlantic in which he said

This political disengagement cannot be explained away as merely the habits of youth, because today's young are markedly less engaged than were their counterparts in earlier generations. Voting rates are arrestingly low among post-Boomers. In the 1994 midterm elections, for instance, fewer than one in five eligible Xers showed up at the polls.

. . .

Surveys suggest that no more than a third of young adults identify with either political party, and only a quarter vote a straight party ticket. Xers are the group least likely to favor maintaining the current two-party system, and the most likely to favor candidates who are running as independents.

. . .

THREE quarters of Generation X agree with the statement "Our generation has an important voice, but no one seems to hear it."

Historically described as apathetic, slackers, and disenfranchised, as well as crybabies ("THE BORING TWENTIES: GROW UP, CRYBABIES." headline from The Washington Post), it's no wonder my generation feels disenfranchised.

What's changed since 1999?

My generation has become very politically active. According to "Will the Real Generation Obama Please Stand Up?" by Lakshmi Chaudhry:

The irony is that X-ers--a sociocultural label typically used to describe those born between 1961 and 1976--have become invisible at a time when they are changing the face of politics. As Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD.com and best known as the Blogfather of the progressive netroots, says, "It's people drawn from Generation X--the people who have gotten involved in politics this decade--who have brought about the whole new movement of progressive Democrats."

Listen up Democrats...start talking about MY generation.

What do you think? Are you part of Generation X and do you feel that the parties and candidates are addressing your issues, paying enough attention to Generation X as a group of voters and important movers and shakers in the US today? If not, how much of a role do you think the media plays in that?

Julie Pippert also writes at Using My Words and Moms Speak Up. You can read more about what she thinks about the generation gap issue in her article, "Money, Social Programs and The Generation Gap."

Comments

[Rachel]

I have to admit that part of what has drawn me to Obama is that he is one of us.

I agree that the housing crisis is a huge issue for Gen X. But here, the crisis started with the bubble, where baby boomers profited at the expense of Gen Xers. We were either shut out of the market, or bought at exorbitant prices so that little was left over for anything else. I'm against a bailout, though. Many of the underwater homeowners would be better off just going through foreclosure. We already reward owners at the expense of renters through our tax system, so why should we give them even more of our tax dollars? If we want to stimulate the economy, we can invest in infrastructure instead.

[Kady]

I agree that we don't get our fair shakes of media attention, but I just assumed that it's because we're less egocentric, self-aggrandizing, and megalomaniacal than our predecessors and successors.

I think of us as the silent (but deadly) power behind everything. hehehe.

Oh, and another article to throw into your list of the media playing up everything young.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/politics/08kids.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Julie Pippert]

Kady, I like that POV! And thanks for the article link. That article is along the lines of Cyn's article (below).

Rachel, you hit on something I've long believed about the price our generation pays for the boomers, and not just about real estate. Social security, too. Democrats would be WISE to hit these points for our votes.

[PunditMom]

Just as women have long been ignored as a voting block. On some level, I don't think the candidates themselves listen to anyone but their advisors who have come up with plans they believe will help them win. Why else would Hillary Clinton have spent so much time listening to Mark Penn?? I've felt in my gut all along that he was wrong and steering her in the wrong direction. Why didn't she feel that? Because others told her it would be a strategy to win the White House. I have a feeling it's the same with other groups, as well.

[John J.]

I think there is a very big, rarely talked about reason for this: members of our generation are the children of divorce. The boomer generation still controls most reins of power: the media - Williams, Murdoch, Couric; business - Gates, Jobs, Tillerson (Exxon Mobil); politics - Rove, Clinton, Bush.

We are their first children; the children of their first marriages. We are the offspring of the 60s and 70s.

Then came generation Y - either the grandchildren of the baby boomers, or the children of second+ marriages. The children of the "helicopter" parents.

Is it any surprise that our generation has been passed over?

[PollWatcher]

Obama is not part of Generation X. There is a growing consensus in the media, and among experts, that Obama is a member of Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, the heretofore lost generation between the Boomers and Xers).

Just in the last couple months, several top media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and NBC, have all made the argument that Obama is specifically part of Generation Jones. I also heard a panel of generations experts recently on a national radio show discussing this specific issue, and four of the five experts conlcuded that Obama is, in fact, a GenerationJoneser…that his bio and political worldview closely match the GenJones archetype (the one dissenting expert argues that Obama is a Boomer).

[Julie Pippert]

Pollwatcher, There are two specific camps: one has Gen X starting in 1960 and the other in 1965. I believe in 1960.

I am sure in 50 years it will be clearer.

However, you didn't address the main point, which isn't which generation Obama is in, but rather, is how the actual generation X is excluded in national discussion and your opinion about that. What do you think?

[John J.]

I would have to say Obama is a cusp generational, as are those (like me) born between '78 and '82. We get thrown into one or the other as seems expedient, but we don't share enough in common with the core of either generation to be fully accepted by all members of it or feel fully a part of either ourselves.

[cynematic]

I am proud of Generation X--we do things like put the Mars Rover on the red planet ON TIME AND UNDER BUDGET. With a cute little parachute to boot. As we used to say in elementary skool, Grind on that one, Excessively Self-Loving Boomers!

Lots of my friends are now ruling the non-profit sector after taking $13,000 a year jobs (like Obama) right out of college to work with the homeless or help women on welfare. They are tenured professors and filmmakers and other modestly-paying but crucial opinion-makers and artists.

We just lack the boomer narcisissm gene to think it's all about us, that's all.

[Amy@UWM]

Great post. We hear quite a bit about boomers and Gen Y, but nothing much about us Gen X-ers, at least since the 80s when we were the "slackers" who were predicted to be the first generation to fall short of our parents' success (of course, that has not come to be). I am the only X-er in my department (most are Boomers and Y-ers) at work and often feel I see things from a very different perspective.

Not sure that I see Obama's focus on the younger generation as a "diss" on the X-ers. It's logical for the "less experienced" candidate to focus on youth as Clinton did. As a Gen X-er, I wish all candidates would focus more attention on work/life balance issues. Not only do Gen X-ers care more deeply about quality of life, but these issues are hitting our families financially.

[Gunfighter]

Well done, Julie. Rather than leave a huge comment, I decided to post non it myself.

Here are my thoughts: http://gunfighter1.typepad.com/warrior/2008/04/talkin-bout-my.html

GF

[Debbie]

This is a brilliant post, J. I love not only your analysis, but the commenters and their takes.

My opinion is that of Amy@UWM's; we care more about quality-of-life issues than the pre- or post-generations did/do. Which is a real bummer, in terms of gaining traction (I mean, obviously, otherwise, it's not a bummer - it's good - it's what's driving the current political movement, the current green movement, the current ERA movement, etc). We're a lot less self-aggrandizing, as a group.

You'd think that would be a good thing. I know I do.

[Florinda]

Thank you for bringing this up. I'm one of those on-the-cusp people; I've been trying to get my head around this "Generation Jones" thing, but if Gen-X is dated to 1960 rather than '65, that makes sense to me (I was born in 1964).

I had thought that the media tends to play up the young-adult demographic of any generation, really; they definitely did it with the Boomers, they're doing it now with Gen-Y - but come to think of it, DID it happen with us?

I read a lot about anticipated conflict between Boomers and Millennials in the workplace - but where do we come in? Is the "Baby Bust," "slacker" generation just supposed to get out of the way?

No, I don't think we're being noticed the way we should be.

[Kristen Forbriger]

I guess I'm Gen Y, or a Millenial (born 1983), but I've grown a facination with Gen X. I just read about a new book in Time Mag, 'X Saves the World' that might be of interest. Here's a review... http://tinyurl.com/43yq3r

[Lawyer Mama]

Love this post, Julie! I have so many thoughts about how Generation X has been screwed over, I'll save them for a post.

But I'm going with 1960 as the start. Douglas Coupland's book Generation X coined the phrase and was written about Coupland's generation. He was born in 1961.

[keith]

I was born in 1988. That makes me a Y. Anyway I don't believe that generation X has been completely shafted. For the most part you guys are realistic, and to the point. You see the facts, and you notice after the fact. You are willing to roll up the sleeves and get down and get your hands dirty in toiling the soil.

Generation Y is the same way as gen X, but also we are self centered, but it really isn't our fault in the sense that once 2000 hit. Shit got harder for us. We had to constantly prove ourselves, and hell most of us where still in highschool, and as requirements are going up we are busting our asses harder, but again most of us are still in highschool. Hell I'm a junior in University right now.
For the most part I was able to avoid student loans because I busted my ass on making sure I got scholarships. For the most part I don't care if an entry level job pays 20k a year because well I will need the experience. For the most part I believe that we have figured out the system and how to use it to our advantage because we know not to trust it because we know we will get screwed.

For the most part generation x and y will get fucked over and has been fucked over completely. Both generations will be spear heading the problems that the boomers has caused in one way or the other. Who is spear heading this war on terror? The troops that are mostly made up of generation y enlistees and generation x officers. Facing stop-loss time, and other bullshit, and then coming back and realizing how under-valued their ability, skill, and hardwork, and achievements are.

What is a person to do?

Well Gen x and y are both extremely cynical.

With that being said. I think things will get better once gen x talks charge, but of course I think they will be using gen y as the new whipping boy. Which really fucking sucks because yea the gen wars will continue.
Ridiculous.