Generational effects

James O’Brien writes:

Do you have any comment on what seems to be widespread interest in generational effects (Gen X, Y, millenials, etc). My sense is that these categories may not be particularly meaningful, because cutting the year of birth distribution at these points seems pretty arbitrary, and because there’s likely more variance within the groups than between them.

I’d be interested to know what you think about this, because I occasionally read things that seem devoted to the idea that these sorts of differences are quite meaningful. I would be inclined to agree that attitudes toward social issues, etc likely shift over the life course, are there are likely many other causal forces at work here thru history, but the cohorts seem like a pretty coarse way to go after this.

My reply: There is definitely something to this, if only from basic numerical calculations (what happens to the so-called marriage market when millions of baby boomers hit their twenties, and so forth). And sometimes we see new sorts of generational effects. For instance, the huge difference in voting patterns between under-30s and everyone else in the 2006 and 2008 elections was unprecedented, at least in the modern age of political polling.

I imagine people have studied generational patterns and probably not found any sharp divisions, for example between people born before 1965 (“boomers”) and those born after. The sharp dividing points must be matters of convenience more than anything else.

2 thoughts on “Generational effects

  1. The classic example of a similar concept in sociology is class, where groups are defined in terms of the kind of work people do. The idea is that the kind of work people do, shapes a whole set experiences, e.g. work time (and thus leisure time), possibilty to control other people, the kind of people they meet, etc. Causally these are interfening variables, so it makes sense to look at the total effect of class rather then trying to control for these intervening variables. I guess a similar story can be told about these generations.

  2. I'd say generational effects are based on whole range of socio-economic effects which are often age-specific. For example, my parents were offered free tertiary education (including living allowances) and graduated at a time of full-employment. Talkin' about my generation (to quote the Who), well we paid considerable university fees, borrowed to live and graduated into a job market where youth unemployment was about 25-30%. These things will change your attitude….

Comments are closed.