tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/generation-x-36829/articlesGeneration X – The Conversation2024-02-28T13:12:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229122024-02-28T13:12:01Z2024-02-28T13:12:01ZWill Britons work until they’re 71? Expert examines proposed pension age rise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574609/original/file-20240209-22-wo3zz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C5385%2C3579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The current pension age of 66 is set to rise to 67 by 2028.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-man-changing-light-bulbs-retired-2269968695">Andrew Angelov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The retirement age will need to rise to 71 for UK workers in future, according to a recent <a href="https://ilcuk.org.uk/ageing-populations-forced-to-increase-state-pension-age-to-71-by-2050-to-maintain-dependency-ratio/">report</a> looking at the effect of increasing life expectancy and falling birthrates on the state pension. </p>
<p>The current pension age of 66 is set to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-review-2023-government-report/state-pension-age-review-2023#:%7E:text=The%20Pensions%20Act%202014%20brought,68%20between%202044%20and%202046.">rise</a> to 67 by 2028, and to 68 from 2044. But research by the International Longevity Centre (ILC), a thinktank focusing on ageing, says that doesn’t go far enough. </p>
<p>It suggests that anyone born after April 1970 may have to work until they are 71 years old in future. And there’s a possibility that the age limit may need to go even higher than that. The underpinning reason is the rising cost of pension provision because the number of pensioners and the value of payments are growing. </p>
<p>The government’s Office for Budget Responsibility <a href="https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/#:%7E:text=Pensioner%20benefit%20spending%20in%202023,5.3%20per%20cent%20of%20GDP">estimates</a> the state pension will cost around £124 billion this financial year. The pension level is safeguarded by the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-triple-lock-how-will-state-pensions-be-uprated-in-future/">triple lock</a>, which was first introduced in 2010. It means annual increases in payments are made in line with earnings growth, price inflation (currently 4%) or 2.5%, whichever is highest. </p>
<p>The Institute for Fiscal Studies has <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/triple-lock-uncertainty-pension-incomes-and-public-finances">estimated</a> that continuing the triple lock will lead to an extra £45 billion of annual cost by 2050.</p>
<h2>It’s not just the UK</h2>
<p>The issue of rising pension costs isn’t merely a UK problem. Countries across Europe are currently grappling with the conundrum of how to look after their ageing populations in retirement. </p>
<p>Protests erupted across <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/06/in-france-a-14th-day-of-protest-to-derail-macron-s-pension-reform_6029218_7.html">France in 2023</a> in response to pension reforms which would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. There have also been ongoing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL8N12F3RN/">protests in Greece</a>, which has been struggling with pension reforms since 2010. </p>
<p>Pension age increases are also <a href="https://www.etk.fi/en/work-and-pensions-abroad/international-comparisons/retirement-ages/">planned</a> in numerous other countries such as Denmark, the Czech Republic, Spain and the Netherlands.</p>
<h2>How the state pension works</h2>
<p>Unlike company-sponsored pensions, which invest money in individual accounts for future payouts, the UK state pension operates on a different principle. Instead of accumulating a personal “pot” of money, the idea is that current workers essentially fund the pensions of retirees. So, the state pension is financed from national insurance contributions and general taxation.</p>
<p>For this model to sustain itself, each new retiree entering the “pensioner pool” needs to be matched by a new worker entering the “worker pool.” As long as this balance persists, and pension claim periods remain reasonable, the system maintains its solvency.</p>
<p>Less than five years after the introduction of the state pension in 1946, the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1954-11-15/debates/ed3805b1-dbb6-4f54-970e-58a43094a094/Old-AgeAndRetirementPensioners">pressures on the system</a> were already beginning to show. And the central issues are the same now as they were then – we are living longer and having fewer children. </p>
<p>In 1951, the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09">UK life expectancy</a> was 66 for men and 71 for women. By 2011, it had increased to 79 for men and almost 83 for women.</p>
<p>This means that a 66-year-old in 2024 will receive a pension for an average of nearly 16 years. But since <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/281416/birth-rate-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/">birth rates have fallen</a> from 15 per 1000 in 1951 to 10 per 1000 in 2021, those retirees aren’t being replaced with fresh workers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/matching-state-pension-to-the-national-living-wage-would-help-pensioners-maintain-their-dignity-217473">Matching state pension to the national living wage would help pensioners maintain their dignity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/compendium/economicreview/april2019/longtermtrendsinukemployment1861to2018#:%7E:text=Image%20.csv%20.xls-,The%20highest%20employment%20rates%20recorded%20were%20in%20the%20years%201872,average%20employment%20rate%20was%2073%25.">In 1951</a>, the UK population was 50 million with an employment rate of 70.4%. There were 35.2 million workers who were supporting 4.5 million pensioners, or 7.8 workers for every pensioner. </p>
<p>Today, the UK’s population is more than 67 million, which includes 33.17 million <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9366/">workers</a> and 12.8 million <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2023/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2023#:%7E:text=The%20main%20headline%20figures%20for,5.6%25%20to%201.6%20million%20claimants">pensioners</a>. This means that every pensioner is being “supported” by just 2.6 workers. </p>
<p>Both central planks of the state pension system appear to be broken. And, to further complicate matters, we are seeing increasing levels of people <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/how-is-health-affecting-economic-inactivity/">leaving the workforce</a> before they reach pension age, largely due to ill-health.</p>
<p>The state (in other words, the taxpayer) cannot afford the current pension provision for an ageing population for longer periods, let alone improve it. So, tough decisions have to be made, and soon. </p>
<h2>Generation X and millennials</h2>
<p>The implications of a rising retirement age won’t be felt by baby boomers like me. Generally speaking, we have benefited from jobs for life, free education, affordable housing and good company pensions. </p>
<p>The first cohort to shoulder the changes to the pension age will be generation X, born between 1965 and 1980. And they do not possess the wealth and assets of previous generations. </p>
<p>In fact, recent government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/analysis-of-future-pension-incomes/analysis-of-future-pension-incomes">figures</a> show that a third of the UK’s 14 million gen Xers won’t have enough savings to comfortably cover their retirement. <a href="https://www.justgroupplc.co.uk/%7E/media/Files/J/Just-Retirement-Corp/news-doc/2023/majority-of-gen-x-worried-they-wont-save-enough-for-good-standard-of-living-in-retirement.pdf">More than half</a> are not confident about achieving a good standard of living in retirement.</p>
<p>This generation, sometimes described as the “<a href="https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Gen-X-face-huge-pension-black-hole-with-two-thirds-not-saving-enough.php">forgotten generation</a>” by finance experts, stands at a disadvantage due to their lack of early access to defined benefit pensions, which were largely closed to new employees by the time they entered the workforce. They also missed out on the financial benefits of automatic enrolment in workplace pension schemes, which was introduced only after many members of this generation had already established their careers.</p>
<p>The situation doesn’t look any rosier for the millennials, who have <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/moreadultslivingwiththeirparents/2023-05-10">struggled</a> to get onto the housing ladder and are paying back student loans. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/04/britons-cut-pension-contributions-hargreaves-lansdown-abrdn">Research</a> last year showed that almost a third of 18 to 34-year-olds had either stopped or cut back on pension contributions to save money. </p>
<p>Perhaps it comes as no surprise that more than two thirds of this age group <a href="https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/one-fifth-unsure-over-future-certainty-of-state-pension.php">don’t believe</a> the state pension will even exist when they enter retirement. </p>
<p>While the future of the state pension in its current form remains uncertain, one thing is clear – ignoring the problem is no longer an option.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Parry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Increasing life expectancy and falling birthrates means many of us may have to keep working until beyond 71 years of age.Chris Parry, Principal Lecturer in Finance, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101542023-08-08T12:29:52Z2023-08-08T12:29:52ZOlder ‘sandwich generation’ Californians spent more time with parents and less with grandkids after paid family leave law took effect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541049/original/file-20230803-27-xpn12q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4535%2C2841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly a dozen states have enacted these policies so far.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-taking-care-of-old-woman-in-wheelchair-royalty-free-image/970176900?adppopup=true">Westend61 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>A California law that mandates paid family leave has led to adults in their 50s, 60s and 70s spending more time taking care of their parents and less time being their grandkids’ caregivers.</p>
<p>The law requires all employers to allow eligible workers to <a href="https://edd.ca.gov/en/disability/Am_I_Eligible_for_PFL_Benefits/">take up to six weeks of paid leave</a> to care for newborns, newly adopted children or seriously ill family members.</p>
<p>From 2006, two years after the law went into effect, to 2016, <a href="https://ca.db101.org/ca/situations/workandbenefits/rights/program2c.htm">this policy led to older adults’ spending 19 fewer hours</a> per year caring for their grandchildren, a 17% decrease. They spent 20 additional hours on average helping their own parents, a 50% increase. </p>
<p>The effect was most striking for people with newborn grandchildren and parents in need of help, but the law also benefited Californians with older grandchildren and those who don’t have parents requiring their assistance.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2023.2226283">These findings</a> are from research I conducted with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yWNlAzcAAAAJ">Marcus Dillender</a>, a fellow economist. They suggest the law had effects through two channels. It enabled older adults to take paid leave to care for relatives with medical needs and it reduced the need for older adults to care for their grandchildren by granting paid parental leave to these children’s parents.</p>
<p>To assess how older adults spend their time, we analyzed data for people between the ages of 50 and 79 from the Health and Retirement Study, a <a href="https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/">longitudinal study of approximately 20,000 Americans</a>.</p>
<p>The survey asks respondents in that age group how much time they spend taking care of their grandchildren and helping their aging parents with basic personal activities like dressing, eating and bathing. We compared outcomes for people who lived in California with what happened to Americans in other states before and the law’s enactment.</p>
<p>We also looked into what happened for people who had different combinations of caregiving obligations – grandchildren less than 2 years old or older grandkids, or parents who need help or no parents requiring assistance.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>The U.S. is the only wealthy country that <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf">doesn’t require employers to provide paid family leave</a>. California was the first state to implement its own policies; <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-family-and-medical-leave-laws">10 others and the District of Columbia</a> have followed suit so far.</p>
<p>These policies can significantly affect older adults, who spend substantial time caring for their relatives.</p>
<p>Caregiving has become a more urgent policy issue because of the growing number of Americans who feel that they belong to a “<a href="https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/sandwich-generation-study-shows-challenges-caring-both-kids-and-aging-parents">sandwich generation</a>” of people who have to take care of their children or grandchildren and their parents at the same time. </p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Other research has found that California’s paid family leave policy doubled the overall length of maternity leave by new mothers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21676">increasing it from an average of three weeks to six weeks</a>. It also upped the likelihood that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22030">fathers take parental leave</a> following the birth or adoption of a child by 46% – although <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21894">fathers take less leave on average than mothers</a>.</p>
<p>According to some of the many other studies conducted so far, California’s paid family leave law helped workers with caregiving responsibilities stay employed by allowing them to take time off with reduced financial risk and increased job continuity, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/workar/waab022">including for those ages 45 to 64 with a disabled spouse</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gny105">middle-aged female caregivers</a>. The law has, in addition, reduced the share of elderly people using nursing homes by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22038">facilitating more informal care</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelle Abramowitz receives funding from the National Institute on Aging, the Social Security Administration and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The law changed older adults’ caregiving behavior because their children became more able to take paid time off work to care for their own newborns.Joelle Abramowitz, Assistant Research Scientist at the Survey Research Center, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980752023-02-17T13:24:41Z2023-02-17T13:24:41ZTurning 50? Here are 4 things you can do to improve your health and well-being<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508743/original/file-20230207-27-jzu8l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C5184%2C3406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Turning 50 can be the time of your life – but it also means adapting to new challenges.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mature-retired-couple-stop-for-rest-and-hot-drink-royalty-free-image/1387313039?phrase=50%20year%20old&adppopup=true">monkeybusinessimages/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve to mark the beginning of 2023, I came to grips with the fact that I would turn 50 years old this year. </p>
<p>Entering a new decade is often a time to pause and reflect on our lives, <a href="https://theconversation.com/midlife-isnt-a-crisis-but-sleep-stress-and-happiness-feel-a-little-different-after-35-or-whenever-middle-age-actually-begins-173131">particularly when reaching middle age</a>. For 50-year-old American men, the average remaining life expectancy <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf">is 28 more years; for women, it’s 32</a>. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=87v4Nk4AAAAJ&hl=en">public health professor</a> who is an expert in health promotion, I started to think about things one could do around this milestone birthday to improve the chances of living a healthy life for decades to come. </p>
<p>After reviewing the literature on healthy aging, I identified four things in particular that take on greater importance when you turn 50 – and that go beyond general health advice that’s beneficial at any age, like <a href="https://theconversation.com/kick-up-your-heels-ballroom-dancing-offers-benefits-to-the-aging-brain-and-could-help-stave-off-dementia-194969">staying active</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-like-cookies-chips-frozen-meals-and-fast-food-may-contribute-to-cognitive-decline-196560">eating well</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/better-sleep-for-kids-starts-with-better-sleep-for-parents-especially-after-holiday-disruptions-to-routines-196110">getting enough sleep</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F5rDA5k3R4c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A TV reporter gets a colonoscopy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Get a colonoscopy</h2>
<p>Urging everyone to get a colonoscopy is certainly not the most fun piece of advice, but it’s one of the most important. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be more than 105,000 new cases of colon cancer, more than 45,000 new cases of rectal cancer and <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html">over 50,000 deaths from colorectal cancer in 2023 alone</a>.</p>
<p>This makes colorectal cancer the <a href="https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/common.html#">second leading cause of cancer-related deaths</a> for men and women. </p>
<p>The good news is that the <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/survival-rates.html">survival rate is high</a> if the cancer is detected early, before it spreads to other parts of the body. The survival rate drops precipitously if cancer is found in the later stages. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diagnostic-tests/colonoscopy">colonoscopy</a> is a routine inpatient procedure that uses a <a href="https://theconversation.com/colonoscopy-is-still-the-most-recommended-screening-for-colorectal-cancer-despite-conflicting-headlines-and-flawed-interpretations-of-a-new-study-192374">scope to examine the rectum and colon</a> and that requires sedation or anesthesia.</p>
<p>In addition to detecting cancerous or potentially malignant polyps, your doctor can also detect swollen tissue and ulcers. These may indicate potential problems and increase the need for more frequent monitoring. </p>
<p>For people at low risk of colorectal cancer, there are <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/colon-cancer-screening-decisions-whats-the-best-option-and-when-202206152762">less invasive tests</a> that can be done at home, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/cologuard">such as Cologuard</a>. This involves collecting and mailing a sample of poop to a lab. These options should be discussed with your doctor to figure out which screening is best for you. </p>
<p>In 2021 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a national panel of experts, changed its recommendation for beginning colorectal cancer screening <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.6238">from age 50 to 45</a> for people at low risk. As a result, <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/screening-coverage-laws.html">insurance companies are required</a> to cover the cost of screening for anyone age 45 or older. </p>
<p>People at high risk <a href="https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening">should get screened even earlier</a>. <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html">High risk</a> is defined as a family history of colorectal cancer or a diagnosis of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ibd/what-is-IBD.htm">inflammatory bowel disease</a>. Colorectal cancer can occur in younger people too; for example, the “Black Panther” star, actor Chadwick Boseman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/movies/chadwick-boseman-dead.html">died of colon cancer at the age of 43</a> in 2020. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photograph of a Black man wearing a tuxedo and bow tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510691/original/file-20230216-28-8dde3u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Chadwick Boseman at the 2016 NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, Calif. Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020 at age 43.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actor-chadwick-boseman-poses-in-the-press-room-at-the-47th-news-photo/508687706?phrase=chadwick%20boseman&adppopup=true">Jason LaVeris/Film Magic via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Get the shingles vaccine</h2>
<p>For many people who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, getting chickenpox was a rite of passage. I had a particularly severe case around my 10th birthday. </p>
<p>Once you have chickenpox, <a href="https://theconversation.com/chickenpox-and-shingles-virus-lying-dormant-in-your-neurons-can-reactivate-and-increase-your-risk-of-stroke-new-research-identified-a-potential-culprit-194627">the virus lies dormant</a> in your body for the rest of your life. And it <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/symptoms-causes/syc-20353054">can reemerge as shingles</a>. </p>
<p>While shingles are not usually life-threatening, they cause a rash and can be extremely painful. Getting shingles also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiac405">greatly increases one’s risk of having a stroke</a> over the following year.</p>
<p>The good news is that the shingles vaccine is highly effective. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html">adults 50 and older get the two-shot regimen</a>, two to six months apart, which is 97% effective at preventing shingles. </p>
<h2>Bump up retirement savings, look for discounts</h2>
<p>Retirement might seem like a long way off, but the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/394943/retiring-planning-retire-later.aspx">average retirement age</a> in the United States in 2022 was 61. The same study found that on average people thought they were going to retire at age 66. </p>
<p>For anyone born after 1960, full retirement benefits <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html">don’t kick in until age 67</a>, leaving a six-year gap between that and the average retirement age. </p>
<p>Retiring earlier than you had planned can occur for many reasons, but involuntary ones, like job loss, injury or illness, can be a financial strain. The general rule is that you need about <a href="https://www.aarp.org/retirement/planning-for-retirement/info-2020/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-retire.html">80% of your pre-retirement income</a> to be financially comfortable in retirement. This consists of all sources of income, including Social Security benefits, pensions and investments. </p>
<p>If you are behind where you should be in savings, the Internal Revenue Service allows you <a href="https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-catch-up-contributions">to make catch-up contributions</a> starting the year you turn 50. Employees who are 50 or older with a 401(k), 403(b) or 457(b) can contribute an extra US$7,500 a year. This money grows tax-free and helps provide an extra cushion when you retire. At age 50, an extra $1,000 per year can also be contributed for <a href="https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-ira-contribution-limits">individual retirement accounts and Roth IRA accounts</a>.</p>
<p>Another way to save: Many hotels, restaurants and retail outlets offer senior discounts starting at age 50. </p>
<p>You can find reliable and up-to-date discounts by joining the <a href="https://www.aarp.org/membership/benefits/all-offers-a-z/?intcmp=GLOBAL-HDR-LNK-CLK-BENEFITS-UXDIA">AARP</a>. This nonprofit organization advocates for people ages 50 and older. Membership is under $20 per year and provides hundreds of discounts. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8G51OpWo0QI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The challenges of turning 50.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Get your paperwork in order</h2>
<p>While people in their 50s and beyond often still have their best decades ahead of them, it is vital to prepare for the unexpected – at any age. The <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/">mortality rate for people ages 55 to 64 is double that</a> of those age 45 to 54. </p>
<p>This is an excellent time to decide how you want your affairs to be handled. According to the National Institute on Aging, this includes your <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/getting-your-affairs-order">will, living will and a durable power of attorney</a>. </p>
<p>A will describes how you would like your financial assets distributed after your death. However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/68-of-americans-do-not-have-a-will-137686">most Americans don’t have a will</a>. There are several <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-tools-put-will-writing-in-reach-for-most-people-but-theyre-not-the-end-of-the-line-for-producing-a-legally-binding-document-173569">online tools for wills</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-to-do-more-for-your-favorite-charity-consider-a-planned-gift-138241">bequests</a> that can make this process easier. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303">Living wills</a> indicate the type of care you want or don’t want if you are unable to communicate your preferences. The <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303">durable power of attorney</a> is a document that allows someone you appoint to make health care decisions for you if you cannot. This is different from a general power of attorney, which ends if you can no longer make decisions on your own.</p>
<p>These may seem like a time-consuming list of things to do, but breaking them down into separate tasks makes it more manageable. So far, I have bumped up my retirement savings and scheduled my colonoscopy – even though I’m five years late on that one, based on the new recommendations. </p>
<p>I will get the rest done by the end of the year – and if you’re turning 50 or just planning ahead, I hope you do too. Admittedly, not all of it is fun, but everything on this checklist will add security to your years, and perhaps years to your life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Maddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Middle age means staying a step ahead on both the medical and financial fronts.Jay Maddock, Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877362022-08-02T12:57:52Z2022-08-02T12:57:52ZWhy food insecurity among Gen Z is so much higher than for other age groups<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476195/original/file-20220727-14-nkxvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=121%2C56%2C4995%2C2926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 30% of Gen Z adults needed help from a food bank or other charity to get enough food in 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FoodBanksUtah/71a3a68e5d4f4c85869e41ca301802ed/photo?Query=food%20bank&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2982&currentItemNo=35">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adult members of Generation Z are experiencing food insecurity at <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/cfdas/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Report_06-2022.pdf">over twice the rate of the average American</a>, according to our latest consumer food survey. In fact, about 1 in 3 Americans born from 1996-2004 have had trouble affording enough food in 2022.</p>
<p>That compares with fewer than 1 in 5 millennials and members of Generation X, and fewer than 1 in 10 baby boomers. </p>
<p>We run the <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/cfdas/about/our-team/">Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability</a> at Purdue University, and every month, through our Consumer Food Insights survey, we query over 1,200 Americans with the goal of tracking national food security as well as many other behaviors, attitudes and preferences related to food. </p>
<p>Food insecurity means <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/definitions-of-food-security/">having a lack of money or other resources for food</a>. And when food insecurity surges, it can take a long time for affected populations to recover. After the Great Recession that ran from 2007 to 2009, <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/10/03/food-insecurity-us-households-2018-down-2017-continuing-trend-and-returning">food insecurity increased by 34%</a>. It took a decade for food insecurity to drop to its pre-recession levels.</p>
<p><iframe id="AzPLk" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/AzPLk/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>With COVID-19, food insecurity increased again, particularly among the most vulnerable groups in society, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13099">such as seniors</a> and <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13069">households with children</a>. </p>
<p>But it also increased for members of Gen Z, who were the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01082021.htm#:%7E:text=HOUSEHOLD%20DATA%0ATable%20A%2D10.%20Selected%20unemployment%20indicators%2C%20seasonally%20adjusted">most likely to face unemployment</a> due to the pandemic. And for those attending college, the pandemic reduced essential food services on campus and <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/more-students-are-dropping-out-of-college-during-covid-and-it-could-get-worse/">increased the number of students dropping out of school</a>.</p>
<p>Now, with <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL">inflation soaring at the fastest pace in 40 years</a>, those who lost jobs during the pandemic and college students with fixed incomes must stretch their limited resources even further at the grocery store.</p>
<p>We have found that education, income and race are three of the biggest factors driving food insecurity among America’s youngest generation. Members of Gen Z without a college degree or who make less than the <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines">federal poverty line</a> have a much higher risk of being food insecure – over three times the risk of other Gen Z households. The rate of food insecurity among Gen Z Black and Hispanic households is almost double that of white and Asian households. </p>
<p>Other research shows that factors like marriage and owning your own home <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppt024">typically improve food security</a>. Since young people typically aren’t married or own a home, Gen Z by and large isn’t benefiting from these factors.</p>
<p>Additionally, full-time college students are generally <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/students">not eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a>, formerly known as food stamps. Although student eligibility has been expanded during the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, the paperwork required to apply <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13497">can potentially discourage young people</a> who have much less experience navigating the government bureaucracy. </p>
<p>Our survey also shows a significant portion of Gen Z – 30% – has relied on free groceries from a pantry, church or other charity.</p>
<p>Prices for food consumed at home are currently jumping at over 12% a year. That’s the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF11#">fastest pace since 1979</a>. Our survey data only reflects some of these recent price gains, so it’s unclear yet how much this will affect food insecurity. But what is clear is that Gen Z Americans, like other vulnerable groups, need more support to ensure they can access an affordable diet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>About a third of American adults in Generation Z lack the money or resources needed for reliable access to nutritious food.Sam Polzin, Food and Agriculture Survey Scientist, Purdue UniversityAhmad Zia Wahdat, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Agricultural Economics, Purdue UniversityJayson Lusk, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642092021-07-19T12:11:22Z2021-07-19T12:11:22ZEvangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411528/original/file-20210715-32900-1hrwmn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C1007%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump's evangelical supporters cheered the 2018 move of of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MideastUSEmbassyToJerusalem/b6ce96595ae2499cbbc86872bc51ffdf">Ariel Schalit/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/">made waves</a> in May 2021 when he publicly suggested that Israel should prioritize its relationship with American evangelicals over American Jews. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/AmbDermer">Dermer described</a> evangelicals as the “backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.” By contrast, he described American Jews as “disproportionately among [Israel’s] critics.” </p>
<p>Dermer’s comments seemed shocking to many because he stated them in public to a reporter. But as <a href="https://walkerrobins.com/">a historian of the evangelical-Israeli relationship</a>, I didn’t find them surprising. The Israeli right’s preference for working with conservative American evangelicals over more politically variable American Jews has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">evident for years</a>. And this preference has in many ways paid off. </p>
<h2>Christian Zionism in the Trump era</h2>
<p>American Christian Zionists are evangelicals who believe that Christians have a duty to support the Jewish state because the Jews remain God’s chosen people.</p>
<p>During the Trump years, Christian Zionists were crucial allies for former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. They helped Netanyahu lobby Trump for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">relocation of</a> the U.S. embassy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/18/the-biggest-fans-of-president-trumps-israel-policy-evangelical-christians/">to Jerusalem</a>, as well as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/08/the-withdrawal-from-the-iran-deal-signals-a-new-power-player-in-washington-christian-zionists/">withdrawal of the U.S.</a> from the “Iran Deal” – the international nuclear arms control agreement with Iran.</p>
<p>These evangelicals also backed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-endorses-israeli-control-of-the-disputed-golan-heights/2019/03/21/7cfc0554-4bfb-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html">Trump’s recognition</a> of Israel’s 1981 annexation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-recognition-of-the-golan-heights-as-israeli-territory-matters-114132">the Golan Heights</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-cuts-more-than-200-million-in-aid-to-the-palestinians/2018/08/24/5bd7d58e-a7db-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html">cuts of more than US$200 million to American funding for the Palestinian Authority</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>Coming after this string of policy victories for the Israeli-evangelical alliance, Dermer’s comments made sense.</p>
<p>However, the alliance’s future may be in doubt. <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178">Recent polling shows dramatic declines</a> in support for Israel among <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/as-israel-increasingly-relies-on-us-evangelicals-for-support-younger-ones-are-walking-away-what-polls-show/">young American evangelicals</a>. Scholars <a href="https://uncp.academia.edu/MottiInbari">Motti Inbari</a> and <a href="https://www.uncp.edu/profile/dr-kirill-bumin">Kirill Bumin</a> found that between 2018 and 2021, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/support-for-israel-among-young-us-evangelicals-drops-sharply-survey/">rates of support fell</a> from 69% to 33.6% among evangelicals ages 18-29.</p>
<p>While these polls speak most immediately to the current context, they also underline a larger historical point: Evangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable.</p>
<h2>Southern Baptists and Israel</h2>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention – long the denominational avatar of white American evangelicalism – offers an example of how these beliefs have shifted over time, which I examine in my book “<a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel</a>.” </p>
<p>Southern Baptists are broadly supportive of Israel, and have been for much of the past half-century. Baptist leaders like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/evangelists-meet-in-the-holy-land-1000-from-32-countries-confer-on.html">W.A. Criswell</a> and <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/ed-mcateer-pioneer-for-faith-in-public-policy-dies-at-78/">Ed McAteer</a> helped organize Christian Zionism in the U.S. The Southern Baptist Convention itself has passed a number of <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/?fwp_resolution_search=israel">pro-Israel resolutions</a> in recent decades.</p>
<p>More recently, Southern Baptist support for Israel was highlighted when the Trump administration <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/15/mitt-romney-may-not-like-it-but-robert-jeffress-was-a-natural-choice-to-deliver-the-invocation-at-the-new-u-s-embassy-in-jerusalem/">invited Robert Jeffress</a>, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, to lead a prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018.</p>
<p>However, Southern Baptists were not always so unified in support for Israel, or the Zionist movement that led to its creation. This was evident only days after the establishment of Israel in 1948, when messengers to the convention’s annual meeting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1948/05/20/archives/baptists-criticize-truman-on-israel-refuse-commendation-consider.html?searchResultPosition=1">repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted down resolutions</a> calling for the convention to send a congratulatory telegram to U.S. President – and fellow Southern Baptist – Harry Truman for being the first foreign leader to recognize the Jewish state. </p>
<h2>Zionism was ‘God’s plan’ – unless it wasn’t</h2>
<p>This seems shocking today, after years of seemingly unanimous evangelical support for Israel. However, as I document in <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">my book</a>, Southern Baptists had diverse views on Zionism and “the Palestine question” in the decades leading up to Israel’s birth. While some did argue that support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine was a Christian duty, others defended the Arab majority’s rights in the Holy Land. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="U.S. President Harry S. Truman holds a copy of the Torah, presented to him by Chaim Weizman, right, in Washington on May 25, 1948." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Southern Baptist Convention refused to congratulate President Harry Truman for being the first world leader to officially recognize the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, even though he was one of their own. At right is Chaim Weizman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumanandWeizman/ae37ce7d442f4f5388d28efdb8b9938d">ASSOCIATED PRESS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During this era, the Southern Baptist Convention published books, pamphlets and other materials reflecting both sides. In 1936, its press <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9963436">published a work by missionary Jacob Gartenhaus</a>, a convert from Judaism to evangelical Christianity, arguing that to be against Zionism was “to oppose God’s plan.” The following year, however, the press published <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7962317">a mission study manual by J. McKee Adams</a> contending that “by every canon of justice and fair-play, the Arab is the man of first importance.” </p>
<p>Adams was one among a coterie of professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke out against what they sometimes derided as “Christian Zionism” – then an unusual term.</p>
<p>Even evangelicals who believed the Bible anticipated the return of Jews to Palestine disagreed on whether the Zionist movement was part of God’s plan. </p>
<p>The influential Baptist leader J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth, Texas, who broke away from the mainstream Southern Baptist Convention in the 1920s, argued in the 1930s and 1940s that Christians had a duty to God and civilization <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/432608001">to support the Zionists</a>. </p>
<p>But there was no widespread sense that being a Baptist – or an evangelical Protestant – entailed support for Zionism. John R. Rice, a prominent disciple of Norris’, rejected his mentor’s arguments outright. “The Zionist movement is not a fulfillment of the prophecies about Israel being restored,” Rice <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31748240">wrote in 1945</a>. “Preachers who think so are mistaken.” </p>
<p>Regarding the political question of whether Arabs or Jews should control Palestine, most evangelicals were unconcerned. The Southern Baptists focused on other priorities in the Holy Land, such as the growth of their missions in Jerusalem and Nazareth. Even those Baptists who supported the establishment of a Jewish state did not organize politically around the issue.</p>
<h2>The future of Christian Zionism</h2>
<p>In the decades after the establishment of Israel, however, <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">motivated evangelical and Jewish activists – as well as the Israeli government – </a> worked to stitch together the interfaith relationships, build the institutions and spread the ideas underpinning today’s Christian Zionist movement. These efforts have been remarkably effective in making support for Israel <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">a defining element</a> of many evangelicals’ religious and political identities.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/26/survey-young-evangelicals-largely-backed-biden-and-have-shifting-views-on-israel/">as the latest polling of young evangelicals shows</a>, there is no guarantee this will be permanent. This diverse and globally connected generation of evangelicals has <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-gen-x-and-millennial-evangelicals-are-losing-faith-in-the-conservative-culture-wars-162407">its own ideas and priorities</a>. It is more interested in social justice, less invested in the culture wars and increasingly weary of conservative politics.</p>
<p>Young evangelicals remain to be convinced of Christian Zionism. And they very well may not be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Walker Robins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The political alliance between American evangelicals and Israel’s right wing may have peaked during the Trump administration.Walker Robins, Lecturer in History, Merrimack CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616472021-05-31T20:09:18Z2021-05-31T20:09:18Z68% of millennials earn more than their parents, but boomers had it better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403529/original/file-20210531-14-1trq7rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C933%2C5330%2C2609&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">fongbeerredhot/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A lot of us are pessimistic about our children’s future. According to the most recent data from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey (in 2019), just 29% of Australians believe today’s children will be <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/question-search/?qid=1625&cntIDs=&stdIDs=">better off financially</a> than their parents.</p>
<p>Such pessimism is common in many developed nations. In Japan, just 13% believe children will be better off, in France 16%, in Britain 22%. Australians are still marginally less optimistic than Canadians (30%) and Americans (31%), and significantly less optimistic than Swedes (40%) and Germans (48%). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.lifecoursecentre.org.au/research/journal-articles/working-paper-series/are-we-richer-than-our-parents-were-absolute-income-mobility-in-australia/">Our research shows</a> things aren’t as bad as many fear, with 68% of millennials (those born between 1981 and 1987 for our research) earning more income than their parents did at the same age. This is close to the highest percentage <a href="https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13456/trends-in-absolute-income-mobility-in-north-america-and-europe">among countries</a> for which estimates are available. The experience of gen-Xers (born from the early 1960s to late 1970s) has been similar.</p>
<p>But it’s not all good news. That percentage is lower than the upward mobility enjoyed by baby boomers (born from 1946 to the early 1960s). For those born around 1950, 84% earned more at age 30-34 than their own parents did at the same age. </p>
<p>There are two prime reasons for this decline in absolute mobility since the 1980s. Lower economic growth leading to average incomes growing more slowly; and growing income inequality.</p>
<h2>How we did our research</h2>
<p>The share of people whose income is higher than their parents at the same age is known as “absolute income mobility”. It is an appealing indicator of economic progress because it captures aspirations for our children. It reflects economic growth, inequality and opportunity.</p>
<p>Estimating absolute mobility, though, is quite hard. The data we need to measure it directly – information about what people earned at a particular age compared to their own parents – does not exist for Australia. </p>
<p>To do this exercise, therefore, we’ve applied <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/398">new statistical methods</a> that have been developed in recent years to estimate absolute mobility without linked parent-child data. These methods, using separate generational data on income distribution, have been verified in research published <a href="https://4a2bc32e-a967-44a4-9e23-f2b3b9cf578e.usrfiles.com/ugd/4a2bc3_10d644c7d36c42eba03136cca93e56fc.pdf">in 2018</a> and <a href="https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13456/trends-in-absolute-income-mobility-in-north-america-and-europe">in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Our own approach closely follows leading international studies. We used sources of data including the Melbourne Institute’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, data from Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys and income tax records. </p>
<h2>What our research shows</h2>
<p>The main results are below. Of people born in 1950, 84% had higher household incomes than their parents. This fell to about 68% for those born since the early 1960s. It has stayed roughly constant for gen-Xers and millennials.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="CxoOP" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CxoOP/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>The main driver of this change is slower economic growth. Boomers’ incomes were much higher than their parents particularly due to decades of uninterrupted economic growth from World War II to the mid-1970s.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="qjHQt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qjHQt/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>The other driver has been rising income inequality over the past 40 years, after falling in earlier decades, as the next chart shows. The relationship between inequality and mobility is complicated, because high inequality for either generation lowers the rate of mobility.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="8bQEW" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8bQEW/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>Absolute mobility would be higher if income was adjusted for family size – 78% for millennials, because the younger generation have smaller families than their parents did at the same age.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-income-inequality-looks-like-across-australia-80069">What income inequality looks like across Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Complicating factors</h2>
<p>Our results are for income earned in a single year (at about age 32). We have also found similar results when looking at income at around age 37. </p>
<p>Ideally, we’d like to calculate absolute mobility of lifetime income. But methods to do this have not yet been developed. So we don’t know what mobility in lifetime income is. The same could be said for indicators of income inequality, which mostly use single-year income measures as well.</p>
<p>You also might be wondering about how the cost of housing fits in – an important issue given the escalating cost of a home compared to the median wage. </p>
<p>In all the results shown, income is adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. Housing is a big part of the index though costs such as the price of land and mortgage interest payments are <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6467.0Feature+Article1Mar+2017">not included</a>. </p>
<p>The ABS does factor mortgage debts into its “Selected Living Cost Indices”, but these only go back to 1998, so couldn’t be used in these calculations. However, the changes in the CPI and the SLCI over the past 20 years are similar, which gives us some assurance our estimates account for the cost of housing. Further work could explore this in more detail. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-in-ages-were-setting-up-a-generation-to-be-worse-off-121983">For the first time in ages, we're setting up a generation to be worse off</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Valid concerns</h2>
<p>Australia has achieved high levels of absolute income mobility for all generations since at least the 1950s. This is still the case. But the pessimism about our children’s financial future is rooted in some valid concerns. </p>
<p>Wage growth has been <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2017/mar/2.html">slow for years</a>. Income inequality has been <a href="https://wid.world/country/australia/">increasing for decades</a>. So has the gap <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/generation-gap/">between young and old</a>. </p>
<p>So there are clear threats for the prosperity of today’s children – even without factoring in concerns such as climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Siminski has previously received funding from the NSW Department of Education to research intergenerational income mobility and the role of education. </span></em></p>For those born around 1950, 84% earned more at age 30-34 than their own own parents did at the same age. It has been about 68% for those born since the early 1960s.Peter Siminski, Professor of Economics, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1569082021-03-15T13:31:45Z2021-03-15T13:31:45ZGeneration X: its tales about McJobs and information overload feel as poignant now as in 1990s<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389565/original/file-20210315-23-1634avu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1911%2C1080&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abacus </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Andy, Dag and Claire are in their twenties. Dissatisfied with society’s structures and expectations, they move to the Californian desert looking for new beginnings and more meaningful lives. To survive, the three get <a href="http://asapjournal.com/thirty-years-of-generation-x-mcjobs-and-veal-fattening-pens-work-and-futurity-in-generation-x-diletta-de-cristofaro/">McJobs</a> – “low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future jobs in the service sector” – only finding solace in each other’s company and storytelling. </p>
<p>This is the plot of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Generation_X.html?id=WRdH_LnSsQ0C&redir_esc=y">Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture</a>, the first novel by Canadian writer and artist <a href="https://coupland.com/">Douglas Coupland</a>. Published 30 years ago, Generation X went on to become a cult text and helped to popularise the term “X” for those born between the mid-1960s and the early-1980s.</p>
<p>Coupland struck a chord, as his characters’ disaffection, “<a href="http://asapjournal.com/thirty-years-of-generation-x-isolated-little-cool-moments-the-life-death-of-irony-in-generation-x-mary-mccampbell/">knee-jerk irony</a>”, and withdrawal from society chimed with depictions of the young in the early 1990s in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102943/">popular culture</a>. But rather than referring to a cohort of people born between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s, <a href="https://coupland.tripod.com/details1.html">for Coupland</a> “X” identifies the refusal of “the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence”. As he puts it, “X is a term that defines not a chronological age but a way of looking at the world”. </p>
<p>Neither is the novel just a snapshot of young people’s concerns and lives in the early 1990s. Mixing narrative text with pop-art-inspired illustrations, slogans and definitions, the novel depicts what it refers to as our “accelerated culture”. Three decades later, it is a literary classic that still speaks to issues central to today’s world.</p>
<h2>Information overload</h2>
<p>Coupland was originally commissioned to author a non-fiction handbook about Generation X on the back of <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ajHCZrjLPOI/VNZ20tM5ivI/AAAAAAAAYlM/_06LVAfBR1k/s1600/Generation%2BX.jpg">articles</a> and a <a href="https://rocketfiction.blogspot.com/2005/10/generation-x.html">comic strip</a> he wrote in the late 1980s about “the young and restless workforce following the baby boom”. Yet to the dismay of his publishers, who nearly didn’t publish Generation X, he soon realised that the book needed to be a novel.</p>
<p>Coupland’s decision speaks to a prevailing fear in the book that with information overload and technological acceleration, we may have lost the plot of our individual lives and wider society. As Dag puts it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m just upset that the world has gotten too big – way beyond our capacity to tell stories about it, and so all we’re stuck with are these blips and chunks and snippets. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Photo of author Douglas Coupland sitting on steps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389544/original/file-20210315-17-1fa6t2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Douglas Coupland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Coupland#/media/File:Douglas_Coupland_Photo_of_Author.jpg">Douglas Coupland/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Generation X was published, Coupland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/26/douglas-coupland-generation-x">observed</a>: “information overload meant 50 TV stations instead of ten.” In the current era where internet connections give access to a previously unimaginable wealth of content, this seems rather quaint. Nonetheless, Generation X’s intuitions help us understand the destabilising effects that the online world has on our sense of self today. </p>
<p>The novel insists on the <a href="http://asapjournal.com/thirty-years-of-generation-x-generation-x-deceleration-and-the-necessity-of-narrative-andrew-tate/">human need for narrative</a> and on the power of storytelling to make sense of the world around us. Andy, Dag and Claire try to regain direction and meaning in their lives by telling each other stories. Today, we might take to social media. Yet the “stories” we post on these digital environments resemble the “blips and chunks and snippets” Dag was lamenting in Generation X. </p>
<p>Indeed, as Coupland, the British writer <a href="https://yourheadisthewholeworld.wordpress.com/about/">Shumon Basar</a>, and the Swiss art critic <a href="https://waysofcurating.withgoogle.com/about/bio">Hans Ulrich Obrist</a> discuss in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/272/272295/the-age-of-earthquakes/9780141979564.html">The Age of Earthquakes</a>, the internet reinforces “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2015/feb/22/glossary-for-extreme-present-online-world">denarration</a>”. This is “the process whereby one’s life stops feeling like a story”. Instead, they write, our lives now feel like a “lineup of tasks”. There is no story in a life that is made up of short burst of mundane activity; it is not flowing and engaging but stilted and of little consequence.</p>
<h2>Apocalyptic anxieties</h2>
<p>Many of the stories Andy, Dag and Claire share with each other have a distinctly apocalyptic flavour. Fittingly for a novel published at the tail end of the cold war, the fear of “the flash”, namely nuclear apocalypse, is prevalent.</p>
<p>Anxieties over pollution also emerge, which speaks to the 21st-century <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-convinced-on-the-need-for-urgent-climate-action-heres-what-happens-to-our-planet-between-1-5-c-and-2-c-of-global-warming-123817">climate crisis</a>. One of Generation X’s chapters is titled “Plastics never disintegrate”, while the novel’s definitions include “Paper Rabies: Hypersensitivity to littering” and “Dumpster Clocking: The tendency when looking at objects to guesstimate the amount of time they will take to eventually decompose”. The climate crisis would remain an important thread running through Coupland’s ensuing works, from <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Generation_A/_ri25t89TCAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">Generation A</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2018/may/18/i-was-feeling-at-one-with-the-cosmos-then-the-first-plastic-bottle-washed-up">Vortex</a>.</p>
<p>Andy’s, Dag’s and Claire’s apocalyptic stories express their “futurelessness”. Saddled with McJobs, angry at previous generations handing over the world to them “like so much skid-marked underwear”, envious of boomers’ wealth and security – something that resonates with <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/millennials-are-new-lost-generation/609832/">Millennials</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/19/20963757/what-is-ok-boomer-meme-about-meaning-gen-z-millennials">Gen Z</a> today – Coupland’s protagonists have a hard time imagining the future beyond a nuclear blast.</p>
<p>Our perception of the future might not have changed much since 1991. As Coupland puts it in a recent Instagram post, “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CJt1kElBUMx/">The future feels like clickbait</a>”. The post follows the style of his <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/slogans-for-the-21st-century-douglas-coupland/YAHKd5suSZiS-w?hl=en%22%22">Slogans for the 21st Century</a>, which Coupland began in 2011 wanting to capture phenomena that “would make no sense to someone from 1991”. Andy, Dag and Claire might struggle with the idea of “clickbait”, but I’m sure they’d get the sentiment of an empty future made up of an unending list of meaningless things forever vying for our attention.</p>
<p><em>Join us to celebrate Generation X’s 30th birthday at the free online conference “<a href="https://douglascouplandconference.wordpress.com/">Douglas Coupland and the Art of the ‘Extreme Present’</a>”, April 23-24 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diletta De Cristofaro receives funding from the Wellcome Trust. </span></em></p>Published in 1991, the tale of over-educated, under-employed young people who lament the broken world they’ve inherited speaks to the concerns of today’s youth.Diletta De Cristofaro, Research Fellow, Department of Humanities, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1472572020-10-14T01:01:56Z2020-10-14T01:01:56ZCobra Kai, Bill & Ted: comebacks redefine middle-aged masculinity, but where are the women?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362843/original/file-20201012-23-193no9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=571%2C2%2C1113%2C871&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dad bods abound in the Karate Kid reboot. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are certain film roles that can define an actor’s career. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001494/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Ralph Macchio</a> has starred in over 25 films, yet he is most identifiable as the teenage Danny Larouso in The Karate Kid (1984). Similarly, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0935664/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Alex Winter</a> has had a long career as a director and actor, but is best known as high school student Bill S. Preston, Esquire in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). </p>
<p>The recent popularity and role reprisals by these actors: Winter in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1086064/?ref_=nm_knf_t1">Bill & Ted Face the Music</a> (2020) and Macchio in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7221388/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cobra Kai</a> (2018–), combined with <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2552760/brad-pitt-and-jennifer-aniston-will-reunite-for-an-unexpected-project">celebrities reading aloud the scripts of old teen film classics via Zoom</a> suggests nostalgia. It is also an opportunity to revisit and consider the nuances of characters and gender roles with greater maturity and a wiser perspective.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bill-and-ted-face-the-music-review-party-on-dudes-this-film-is-as-sweet-and-daggy-as-its-predecessors-144074">Bill & Ted Face the Music review: party on, dudes - this film is as sweet and daggy as its predecessors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Dads today</h2>
<p>Generation X, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">born 1965–1980</a>, were in their adolescence when these two films premiered. Both movies present a version of teenage masculinity that was in remarkable contrast to male adult roles in action films of that time. In the 1980s, tough muscular bodies were pictured on screen in films such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083944/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Rambo</a> (1982, 1985, 1988), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082198/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_68">Conan the Barbarian</a> (1982), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092675/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bloodsport</a> (1988), and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Die Hard</a> (1988). </p>
<p>While the young male protagonists in The Karate Kid and Bill & Ted possess purposeful strength, they display a vulnerability, a gentle resilience, a sense of humour with suburban heroism. (Indeed nerd teen archetypes meet tough jocks in detention in 1985’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/">The Breakfast Club</a>.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young actors in Bill and Ted movies scene." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=259&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362844/original/file-20201012-23-q3n670.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Though he hasn’t had the screen success of his old pal Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter has continued to work in movies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0935664/mediaviewer/rm152513024">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their hero’s journey is relatable yet undeniably epic. The films depict the story of the underdog, of young males who don’t quite fit into the mould and, significantly, are fine with this.</p>
<p>There is a desire to learn, whether from history, as in Bill & Ted, or from older characters sharing their wisdom, as in The Karate Kid. Accordingly, the phrase “wax on, wax off” became popular shorthand for a stern lesson in patience and skill development. </p>
<p>Now, as the characters return to our screens older and in the 21st century, there are still lessons to be learnt.</p>
<p>Rather than entering a mid-life crisis — popularly depicted with older males seeking renewed vigour in the embrace of young mistresses or new sports cars — these middle-aged characters convey the opportunity to relive, redo and revisit past triumphs. </p>
<p>The role reprise is also an opportunity to transform the tribulations of the past. Indeed, Cobra Kai is more focussed on Macchio’s onscreen karate opponent, Johnny Lawrence, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0951420/?ref_=tt_cl_t6">William Zabka</a>. Now a “deadbeat dad”, Johnny reboots the Cobra Kai dojo and his sense of purpose. </p>
<p>As adult characters, now husbands and fathers, the midlife narrative can navigate an updated definition of masculinity. They may be comeback dudes, but they are also dads. In both the new Bill & Ted movie and the Cobra Kai TV series, the characters’ children have the opportunity to actualise the dreams of their fathers. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MLpyi-oVoIY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Character revivals provide a chance for a ‘do-over’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-find-it-so-hard-to-move-on-from-the-80s-59445">Why do we find it so hard to move on from the 80s?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Be excellent’ but it’s also complicated</h2>
<p>The 1980s films challenge toxic masculinity. The teen protagonists are undeniably nice, likeable guys who try to do the right thing. Bill and Ted are guided by a moral imperative to “be excellent to each other”.</p>
<p>The famous quote summarises a positive life mantra and shows how good and bad are clearly defined in the original films. The middle aged comeback vehicles show a more mature understanding of the moral complexities of life.</p>
<p>In reprising their roles, the notion that Macchio, Zabka and Winters have aged does not act as a hindrance but a point of identification for Generation X audiences. There is a strong connection to viewers’ own past lives. Seeing the actors again on screen is akin to seeing long lost friends at a high school reunion. </p>
<p>Macchio and Zabka remind us of the high school tensions that are painfully never quite resolved. Seeing Winter with Keanu Reaves’ Ted provides a joyous reminder of the strong bonds of same-sex friendships of our youth. And like a high school reunion there is a lot of reminiscing about the way things were compared to what life is like now. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DskTb6nYq98?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Turns out everyone got older.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-seachange-is-a-sad-case-of-zombie-tv-when-your-favourite-programs-come-back-from-the-dead-123162">The new Seachange is a sad case of Zombie TV: when your favourite programs come back from the dead</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What about the comeback mothers?</h2>
<p>Significantly, there are fewer female role revivals to remind us of the character growth related to womanhood. </p>
<p>Iconic teenage female actors seem more likely to have comebacks in supporting roles as mothers, rather than as the protagonists.</p>
<p>Examples here are Molly Ringwald in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179817/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_6">The Secret Life of an American Teenager</a> (2008-2013), Holly Marie Combs in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578873/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Pretty Little Liars</a> (2010-2017) and Winona Ryder in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Stranger Things</a> (2016-). </p>
<p>Perhaps the current success of Bill and Ted, and Cobra Kai, could see Molly Ringwald’s iconic role in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088128/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Sixteen Candles</a> (1984) remade as Fifty-two Candles? Similarly, is it time for an update of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250494/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Legally Blonde</a> (2001) to Legally Grey?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman looks shocked" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362882/original/file-20201012-19-diac2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While comeback dads get to fulfill their destinies, comeback mums — like Winona Ryder in Stranger Things — return in a supporting role.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Panizza Allmark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The return of actors like Karate Kid Ralph Macchio and Bill & Ted’s Alex Winter sees them older and wiser. Fewer role revivals remind us of character growth related to womanhood.Panizza Allmark, Associate Dean of Arts, Associate Professor Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1436042020-07-30T19:58:00Z2020-07-30T19:58:00ZForget a capital gains tax – what New Zealand needs is a tax on inherited wealth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350314/original/file-20200730-13-4ugeoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C30%2C6679%2C4396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s wealthiest people will transfer US$15.4 trillion in assets to their heirs in the next decade, according to a recent <a href="https://www.wealthx.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Wealth-X_Family-Wealth-Transfer-Report_2019.pdf">report</a>. </p>
<p>Published by specialist data analysts Wealth-X, the report focused on the richest 0.1% (those with net assets worth over US$5 million), but it’s a similar story for the more modestly wealthy baby boomers. </p>
<p>With New Zealand’s average national <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117903021/house-prices-shoot-ahead-again-as-majority-of-kiwis-say-ownership-unachievable">house price</a> now over $700,000, the heirs of home-owning boomers (as well as people born before 1945 whose significant wealth is often overlooked) will receive a currently untaxed bonanza. </p>
<p>Ignoring this unprecedented transfer of wealth from people who no longer need it to people who haven’t earned it would be absurd. But equitable tax policy must first overcome political timidity and rhetoric. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-rising-inequality-is-stalling-economies-by-crippling-demand-99075">How rising inequality is stalling economies by crippling demand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As New Zealand’s election approaches, forward-thinking politicians should take heart from Sinn Féin winning a majority in the 2019 Irish election on the promise of making the country’s tax system <a href="https://www.sinnfein.ie/a-fair-tax-system">radically more equitable</a>. </p>
<p>While a capital gains tax (CGT) is <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-will-not-implement-capital-gains-tax">off the table</a> for now, tax arrangements are never set in stone and voters can be open to change.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1118343240762019840"}"></div></p>
<h2>Taxing inheritance is nothing new</h2>
<p>New Zealand first taxed inter-generational capital transfers in 1866. However, the rate of estate duty was reduced to zero in 1993 and gift duty was scrapped in 2011. <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2439053">According</a> to tax law specialist Michael Littlewood:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These taxes for many years enjoyed broad political support. Indeed, it was widely regarded as obvious that a significant part – perhaps as much as 50% or so – of every large estate ought to go to the state. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Taxing a person’s wealth when they no longer need it, provided a reasonable exemption is made to support dependants, has been usual since Roman times. In the modern era, inter-generational wealth was seen as eminently taxable, too. Indeed, progressive tax rates were applied to estate taxes before they were first used for income taxes. </p>
<p>In 1979 Australia became the first developed country to abolish estate duty (at both state and federal levels). As analysts Sam Reinhardt and Lee Steel <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/economic-roundup-winter-2006/a-brief-history-of-australias-tax-system">pointed out</a>, support for estate taxes had declined despite “various tax review committees recommending refinements to improve the equity, efficiency and simplicity of the tax”. </p>
<h2>Politics gets in the way</h2>
<p>In New Zealand, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University’s 2010 <a href="https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/sacl/centres-and-institutes/cagtr/pdf/tax-report-website.pdf">tax working group</a> didn’t consider reintroducing an estate tax or retaining the gift duty then in force. It argued that reforms in the late 1980s had “improved the efficiency and equity of the tax system”. </p>
<p>Certainly, stamp duty is an unlamented tax – although many jurisdictions try to use it to cool overheated housing markets. But it’s not clear why the working group considered estate taxes inefficient or inequitable. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-proposed-capital-gains-tax-could-nudge-taxpayers-to-invest-in-art-instead-of-property-112765">New Zealand’s proposed capital gains tax could nudge taxpayers to invest in art instead of property</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Unfortunately, the <a href="https://taxworkinggroup.govt.nz/resources/terms-reference-tax-working-group">terms of reference</a> of the next tax working group, established by the Labour-led government after the 2017 election, specifically excluded an inheritance tax. While there were good theoretical reasons for such a tax, group member Geof Nightingale <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/106050956/inheritance-tax-good-economics-and-the-politics-may-be-better-than-they-seem">said</a>, it “breaks down at the politics”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Inheritance taxes are intensely disliked, so if you haven’t got one it’s very hard to put one in.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The arguments against estate taxes are well rehearsed – usually accompanied by emotive references to “death taxes”. But, in the long term, the current ideological opposition to taxing inter-generational wealth transfers may prove to be an anomaly. </p>
<p>One simple reason for reviving the debate about such a tax is demographic: baby boomers, the wealthiest generation that has ever lived, will increasingly start dying during the 2020s. </p>
<p>Tax policymakers cannot ignore the opportunity – arguably the moral imperative – of taxing and redistributing those transfers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1277055371455066112"}"></div></p>
<h2>Millennials and Gen X will be the winners</h2>
<p>There remain three challenges to achieving a fairer tax based on inter-generational wealth. </p>
<p>First, the application of tax needs to shift from the deceased to the living. In other words, we need to focus on the recipient of the wealth transfer. Ireland’s <a href="https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/capital-acquisitions-tax/cat-collector-general-district-guidelines.pdf">capital acquisitions tax</a> (CAT) applies a flat rate of 33% to accumulated gifts and inheritances over the relevant threshold. </p>
<p>Unlike a CGT, which can be perceived as penalising business owners, a CAT targets unearned windfalls from an accident of birth. This should make a CAT more politically acceptable than a CGT. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-you-want-a-fair-inheritance-tax-make-it-a-tax-on-income-33654">If you want a fair inheritance tax, make it a tax on income</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Second, the younger generations most critical of baby boomers’ “unfair” acquisition of wealth (Gen X and millennials) must accept that taxing this unprecedented transfer of wealth will promote both inter- and intra-generational fairness. </p>
<p>If we don’t tax and redistribute these transfers, wealth inequalities will be exacerbated and entrenched among future generations. </p>
<p>And finally, arguments in favour of a more equitable system have to overcome the rhetoric of “death taxes”. As far back as the 1960s, Canada’s Royal Commission on Taxation did this by popularising the idea that “<a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/royal-commission-on-taxation">a buck is a buck</a>”, no matter how it is earned. </p>
<p>In other words, if you have the money you can pay tax, whether that money comes from labour, investment or inheritance.</p>
<p>So far, only the Greens are proposing any <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300044327/the-crucial-feature-of-the-greens-wealth-tax-that-would-exempt-most-family-homes">tax on wealth</a> as part of their election policy offering. But with the generational clock ticking, it’s maybe time for New Zealand to think about getting a CAT.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Barrett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the adult children of baby boomers start inheriting their parents’ wealth, it’s time we looked seriously at taxing this unearned income.Jonathan Barrett, Lecturer, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1337402020-03-18T12:07:50Z2020-03-18T12:07:50ZThe coronavirus could be Generation Z’s 9/11<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320912/original/file-20200317-27643-zc9xrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C48%2C4605%2C3032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A pedestrian wearing a protective face mask walks past a nearly empty restaurant in New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-New-York/796bfeb498d24348bf7b2435b341080b/8/0">John Minchillo/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Less than two weeks ago, everything still seemed pretty normal. </p>
<p>On March 6, I was returning home from a short business trip; my flight was full, and the airport was full. My phone’s newsfeed, however, was far from normal: We were, health experts said, on the cusp of <a href="https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020">a global pandemic caused by COVID-19</a>.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996">research generational differences</a> and cultural trends – essentially, how cultural events impact people. That early March evening in the airport, I suddenly realized that this was the last time things were going to feel normal. I was reminded of Sept. 10, 2001 – the day before everything changed the last time.</p>
<p>Except: In many ways, the coronavirus outbreak is bigger than 9/11. It might also be bigger than the Great Recession.</p>
<p>We don’t know yet how this will play out, but the coronavirus outbreak could become the biggest and most impactful cultural event of our lifetime. Neither 9/11 nor the Great Recession so profoundly altered as many aspects of day-to-day life in such a short period of time the way the coronavirus has affected schools, work, travel, entertainment and shopping. Plus, 9/11 and the recession didn’t have as direct an impact on so many people around the world. The outbreak and our reactions to it are not a lone event – they intersect with the trends of the past and will have an impact on the future of many people, especially the generation <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/iGen/Jean-M-Twenge/9781501152016">I call iGen</a> – those born after 1995.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The outbreak is already having deep psychological effects on many people – anxiety, fear and worry are rampant. As we cut ourselves off from social interaction, anxiety may turn into depression. </p>
<p>That may be especially true for iGen, also known as GenZ. Social interaction with peers is paramount for young people, and with schools closed, working at home encouraged, and larger gatherings canceled, that is all but over. Texting, social media and video chat can help fill the void – but <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-02758-001">virtual communication is just not as good as actual face-to-face contact</a>.</p>
<p>This situation is especially concerning because this generation was already vulnerable. Between 2011 and 2018 – the most recent data available – rates of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/abn0000410">depression</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.13317">self-harm</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.3886">suicide</a> soared among teens. 2020 might well make things even worse – especially if mental health resources are more difficult to obtain as the pandemic worsens. </p>
<p>Some crises, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/07/nashville-tornado-thousands-volunteers-cleanup-effort/4990941002/">like the aftermath of a hurricane</a>, lend themselves to action. We can clean up; we can volunteer. Taking meaningful action boosts mental health; it feels good to help others and to change things. </p>
<p>But, at least so far, pandemic prep has discouraged big communal actions. While health care providers and grocery store workers rise to new challenges, most Americans have been forced to focus on passive tasks that increase anxiety rather than purpose – worrying every time we cough, standing in line for toilet paper, and reading articles about using hand sanitizer when <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/28/coronavirus-2020-preparation-more-supply-shortages-expected/4903322002/">hand sanitizer has been sold out for weeks</a>. I fear the pandemic will cement an attitude <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/iGen/Jean-M-Twenge/9781501152016">I’ve found was already prevalent among iGen</a>: The world is not a kind or fair place. </p>
<h2>Where generations agree</h2>
<p>Despite the clear warnings of disease specialists reported in the media, until fairly recently many Americans believed that <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/15/exaggerating-coronavirus-doomsday-scenario-ignores/">the threat of the coronavirus was overblown</a>. That’s somewhat understandable: In an age of social media hype and political polarization, it’s sometimes difficult to understand what’s worth our concern and what’s not.</p>
<p>But it goes deeper. The last few decades have seen a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25205784">long, steady decline in Americans’ trust in large institutions</a>. In the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, trust in the media fell from 85.4% in 1973 to 54.4% in 2018. Trust in Congress fell from 84.3% to 54.2%. Even doctors were not immune: While a whopping 94.1% trusted medical experts in 1973, that slid to 86.9% by 2018. This decline has been fairly similar across age groups and includes every generation. </p>
<p>Trust in institutions and experts is critical in times like these – and fewer of us have it. When trust is low and political polarization is high, we are less prepared to agree on basic facts and less prepared to work together. If you don’t trust the government, you’re less likely to listen when the government tells you to stay home.</p>
<p>Now that the scope of the challenge is clear, we’re going to have to trust each other more and listen when public health experts tell us: No, this is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/health/coronavirus-washington-nursing-home-outbreaks/index.html">not a good time to visit an older relative</a>. No, it’s not a good idea to go <a href="https://twitter.com/SarahHollenbeck/status/1239621939729235968">ahead with your spring break</a> as if nothing has changed. It’s becoming clear that distrust kills. </p>
<h2>The end game</h2>
<p>Here’s the possible upside: Big cultural events can lead to big changes in attitudes. Perhaps this crisis will renew our faith in the media, in doctors and public health experts, and in government. That will be the most likely to happen if we work together – not just Republicans and Democrats, but millennials and boomers, GenX’ers and iGen’ers.</p>
<p>Boomers know that there is life on the other side of cataclysmic events, a good lesson for younger generations to hear. But that might also be why many Boomers, most of whom are in their 60s and 70s, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-say-parents-wont-take-coronavirus-precautions-2020-3">stubbornly kept going out and risked getting sick</a>. Some millennials and iGen'ers have also flouted the advice to stay in, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/american-individualism-in-the-age-of-coronavirus">saying “I’m young – I’ll be fine,”</a> which risks spreading the virus to vulnerable people. GenX'ers are caught in the middle <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/how-to-talk-to-older-adults-who-arent-taking-coronavirus-seriously.html">between aging parents and iGen children</a>, just trying to hold it together.</p>
<p>Decades from now, we’ll still be talking about the pandemic of 2020. What will you say when someone asks what you did for the greater good?</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Twenge has received honoraria and consulting fees from Verizon and Jana Partners.</span></em></p>We don’t know how long-lasting the effects of the virus will be, but the outbreak is already having a deep psychological impact on people and disrupting life on a massive scale.Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1273002019-11-19T14:05:07Z2019-11-19T14:05:07ZWhy saying ‘OK boomer’ at work is considered age discrimination – but millennial put-downs aren’t<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302281/original/file-20191118-66921-g49omo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">OK, boomer... </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-company-employee-feeling-tired-listening-1512367268">Motortion Films/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The phrase “OK boomer” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/18/779783608/-okboomer-vs-okmillennial-workplace-nightmare-or-just-a-meme">has become a catch-all</a> put-down that Generation Zers and young millennials have been using to dismiss retrograde arguments made by baby boomers, the generation of Americans who are <a href="https://www.careerplanner.com/Career-Articles/Generations.cfm">currently 55 to 73 years old</a>.</p>
<p>Though it <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ok-boomer">originated online</a> and primarily is <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/farrahpenn/ok-boomer-jokes-that-prove-gen-zers-are-funnny">fueling memes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/okboomer?lang=en">Twitter feuds</a> and a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/13/problem-with-ok-boomer/">flurry of commentary</a>, it has begun migrating to real life. A New Zealand lawmaker <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-zealand-lawmaker-says-ok-boomer-during-parliament-speech-about-n1078066">lobbed the insult</a> at an older legislator who had dismissed her argument about climate change. </p>
<p>As the term enters our everyday vocabulary, HR professionals, <a href="https://law.uoregon.edu/explore/elizabeth-tippett">employment law specialists like me</a> and even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/supreme-court-age-bias.html">Supreme Court justices</a> now must ponder the question: What happens if people start saying “OK boomer” at work?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ipe9WxUfh7w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Evidence of discrimination</h2>
<p>A lot of the internet fights over “OK boomer” revolve around whether the phrase is offensive or not. But when you’re talking about the workplace, offensiveness is not the primary problem. The bigger issue is that the insult is age-related.</p>
<p>Workers aged 40 and older are protected by a federal statute called the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc">Age Discrimination in Employment Act</a>, which prohibits harassment and discrimination on the basis of age. </p>
<p>Comments that relate to a worker’s age are a problem because older workers often face negative employment decisions, like a layoff or being passed over for promotion. The only way to tell whether a decision like that is tainted by age discrimination is the surrounding context: comments and behavior by managers and coworkers. </p>
<p>If a manager said “OK boomer” to an older worker’s presentation at a meeting, that would make management seem biased. Even if that manager simply tolerated a joke made by someone else, it would suggest the boss was in on it.</p>
<p>Companies also risk age-based harassment claims. Saying “OK boomer” one time does not legally qualify as harassing behavior. But frequent comments about someone’s age – for example, <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/17-1191/17-1191-2018-08-01.html">calling a colleague “old” and “slow”</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7763968087195450711">“old fart”</a> or <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5555043418652493543&q=%22age-based+harassment%22&hl=en&as_sdt=2006">even “pops”</a> – can become harassment over time.</p>
<h2>Gen Xers are covered too</h2>
<p>And it doesn’t matter if the target isn’t even a boomer.</p>
<p>Gen Xers were born <a href="https://www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-z">around</a> 1965 to 1979. That makes them older than 40 and covered by federal age discrimination law. </p>
<p>Yes, I get that the comment is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/better/lifestyle/ok-boomer-diving-generation-what-does-it-mean-ncna1077261">a retort to “unwoke” elders</a> who cannot be reasoned with. The problem is that the phrase is intended as a put-down that is based, at least partly, on age. If you say it at work, you’re essentially saying, “You’re old and therefore irrelevant.” </p>
<p>Lumping Gen Xers into a category with even older workers doesn’t make it better. Either way, you are commenting on their age.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1194357940007796737"}"></div></p>
<h2>Funny or not</h2>
<p>I recently watched some of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NarX9usjj0Q">“OK boomer” TikTok compilations</a>. </p>
<p>A lot of them were quite funny, like the hairdresser imitating a customer who criticized her tattoos as unprofessional. She responded, “OK boomer,” while appearing to lop off a huge swath of the customer’s hair.</p>
<p>When I was an employment lawyer, I heard tons of hilarious stories of things people said in the workplace. But that’s the point: The story ended with a lawyer on the other end of the phone. </p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2149108217300957983&q=reeves+v.+sanderson&hl=en&as_sdt=2006">most famous</a> age-discrimination cases – which made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court – involved a manager who described an employee as “so old he must have come over on the Mayflower.” </p>
<p>In other words, “it was just a joke” is an awful legal defense. </p>
<h2>Tit for tat</h2>
<p>To millennials who have suffered through years of being called “snowflakes” by their elders, protests of age discrimination can seem a bit rich. Why didn’t HR ban all those <a href="https://jeffjbutler.com/2019/04/12/where-did-the-avocado-toast-millennial-stereotype-come-from/">millennial jokes about avocado toast</a>? </p>
<p>The Age Discrimination in Employment Act only kicks in for workers who are 40 or older, which means millennials aren’t covered. For now.</p>
<p>The oldest millennials will turn 40 later this year. So fear not, the millennial jokes may eventually become a legal problem for companies as these workers age.</p>
<p>Also, a few states, <a href="https://dhr.ny.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/age-discrimination.pdf">including New York</a>, ban age discrimination for all workers over 18, and employers in those states probably should have done something about the millennial jokes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302470/original/file-20191119-111690-qw4ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millennials tired of their elders making fun of their love for avocado toast are out of luck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/healthy-avocado-toasts-breakfast-lunch-rye-1105043105?src=343fd847-5577-4d34-8228-a345bef4f2e9-1-23">By Nelli Syrotynska/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why older workers need protections</h2>
<p>Boomers might seem really powerful, and yes, they might be your boss’s boss’s boss. </p>
<p>But older workers are more vulnerable than they seem. Older workers are expensive – by the time they’ve worked their way up the corporate ladder, their generous salaries start to weigh on the balance sheet. And management <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/emplrght16&div=6&id=&page=">may have trouble</a> envisioning spectacular growth and innovative ideas from them years into the future, even if they are ready and willing to deliver.</p>
<p>That’s why Congress thought it was important to extend protections to those workers. It wanted employers to treat them <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7232159241469569502">as individuals</a> who shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand because of their age.</p>
<p>And in many ways, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/31/why-gen-z-millennials-using-ok-boomer-baby-boomers/4107782002/">that’s what young people seem to want</a> as well: a little respect for what they bring to the table. After all, that meme didn’t make itself.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Nov. 19, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An employment law expert explains why you shouldn’t use an age-related insult at work to demean an older colleague – an issue even the Supreme Court is now talking about.Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132402019-03-20T17:36:56Z2019-03-20T17:36:56ZTeens have less face time with their friends – and are lonelier than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264693/original/file-20190319-60956-6picsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teens aren't necessarily less social, but the contours of their social lives have changed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/519646">pxhere</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ask a teen today how she communicates with her friends, and she’ll probably hold up her smartphone. Not that she actually calls her friends; it’s more likely that she texts them or messages them on social media. </p>
<p>Today’s teens – the generation I call “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/iGen/Jean-M-Twenge/9781501152016">iGen</a>” that’s also called Gen Z – are constantly connected with their friends via digital media, spending as much as <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/landmark-report-us-teens-use-an-average-of-nine-hours-of-media-per-day">nine hours a day on average</a> with screens. </p>
<p>How might this influence the time they spend with their friends in person?</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1430162?journalCode=rics20">studies</a> have found that people who spend more time on social media actually have <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/28/teens-who-are-constantly-online-are-just-as-likely-to-socialize-with-their-friends-offline/">more face time with friends</a>.</p>
<p>But studies like this are only looking at people already operating in a world suffused with smartphones. They can’t tell us how teens spent their time before and after <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/ppm-ppm0000203.pdf">digital media use surged</a>. </p>
<p>What if we zoomed out and compared how often previous generations of teens spent time with their friends to how often today’s teens are doing so? And what if we also saw how feelings of loneliness differed across the generations? </p>
<p>To do this, my co-authors and I examined trends in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519836170">how 8.2 million U.S. teens</a> spent time with their friends since the 1970s. It turns out that today’s teens are socializing with friends in fundamentally different ways – and also happen to be the loneliest generation on record.</p>
<h2>Less work, but fewer hangs?</h2>
<p>After studying two large, nationally representative surveys, we found that although the amount of time teens spent with their friends face to face has declined since the 1970s, the drop accelerated after 2010 – just as smartphones use started to grow.</p>
<p>Compared with teenagers in previous decades, iGen teens are less likely to get together with their friends. They’re also less likely to go to parties, go out with friends, date, ride in cars for fun, go to shopping malls or go to the movies. </p>
<p>It’s not because they are spending more time on work, homework or extracurricular activities. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12930">Today’s teens</a> hold fewer paid jobs, homework time is either unchanged or down since the 1990s, and time spent on extracurricular activities is about the same.</p>
<p>Yet they’re spending less time with their friends in person – and by large margins. In the late 1970s, 52 percent of 12th-graders got together with their friends almost every day. By 2017, only 28 percent did. The drop was especially pronounced after 2010. </p>
<p><iframe id="5ezEn" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5ezEn/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Today’s 10th-graders go to about 17 fewer parties a year than 10th-graders in the 1980s did. Overall, 12th-graders now spend an hour less on in-person social interaction on an average day than their Gen X predecessors did. </p>
<p>We wondered if these trends would have implications for feelings of loneliness, which are also measured in one of the surveys. Sure enough, just as the drop in face-to-face time accelerated after 2010, teens’ feelings of loneliness shot upward. </p>
<p>Among 12th graders, 39 percent said they often felt lonely in 2017, up from 26 percent in 2012. Thirty-eight percent said they often felt left out in 2017, up from 30 percent in 2012. In both cases, the 2017 numbers were all-time highs since the questions were first asked in 1977, with loneliness declining among teens before suddenly increasing.</p>
<p><iframe id="UmhvG" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UmhvG/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>A new cultural norm</h2>
<p>As previous studies have shown, we did find that those teens who spent more time on social media also spent more time with their friends in person. </p>
<p>So why have in-person social interactions been going down, overall, as digital media use has increased? </p>
<p>It has to do with the group versus the individual. </p>
<p>Imagine a group of friends that doesn’t use social media. This group regularly gets together, but the more outgoing members are willing to hang out more than others, who might stay home once in a while. Then they all sign up for Instagram. The social teens are still more likely to meet up in person, and they’re also more active on their accounts. </p>
<p>However, the total number of in-person hangs for everyone in the group drops as social media replaces some face-to-face time. </p>
<p>So the decline in face-to-face interaction among teens isn’t just an individual issue; it’s a generational one. Even teens who eschew social media are affected: Who will hang out with them when most of their peers are alone in their bedrooms scrolling through Instagram?</p>
<p>Higher levels of loneliness are just the tip of the iceberg. Rates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-crisis-among-americas-youth-is-real-and-staggering-113239">depression</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-might-explain-the-unhappiness-epidemic-90212">unhappiness</a> also skyrocketed among teens after 2012, perhaps because spending more time with screens and less time with friends isn’t the best formula for mental health.</p>
<p>Some have argued that teens are simply <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/13/5488558/danah-boyd-interview-the-era-of-facebook-is-an-anomaly">choosing to communicate with their friends in a different way</a>, so the shift toward electronic communication isn’t concerning. </p>
<p>That argument assumes that electronic communication is just as good for assuaging loneliness and depression as face-to-face interaction. It seems clear that this isn’t the case. There’s something about being around another person – about touch, about eye contact, about laughter – that can’t be replaced by digital communication. </p>
<p>The result is a generation of teens who are lonelier than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Twenge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the late 1970s, 52 percent of 12th-graders hung out with their friends almost every day. By 2017, only 28 percent were doing so.Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122062019-03-11T11:09:59Z2019-03-11T11:09:59ZMillennials are US$1 trillion in debt – but they’re better at saving than previous generations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261503/original/file-20190228-106353-100m06i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Millennials carry more student loan debt than previous generations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-managing-debt-1081849367">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New findings from <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/interactives/householdcredit/data/pdf/hhdc_2018q4.pdf">the New York Federal Reserve</a> reveal that millennials have now racked up over US$1 trillion of debt. </p>
<p>This troubling amount of debt, an increase of over 22 percent in just five years, is more than any other generation in history. This situation may leave you wondering how millennials ended up in such a sorry state.</p>
<p>As important as the debt is how millennials’ economic choices vary from the expectations. Millennials are much more conservative than the debt balances may indicate. In fact, in comparison to previous generations this group is significantly more fiscally conservative. </p>
<h2>A product of the times</h2>
<p>U.S. millennials – Americans born between 1981 and 1996 – have experienced the cosmic duality of yin and yang like few other generations.</p>
<p>Millions across all generations <a href="https://www.axios.com/uneven-recovery-great-recession-financial-crisis-5e4ae825-f6b6-441f-acdf-bc76e1ac9710.html">have yet to fully recover from the global financial crisis</a>, but displays of extreme wealth are more visible than ever, thanks to social media.</p>
<p>Millennials benefit from dramatic advances in health care, while living through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/opioids-car-crash-guns.html">an opioid epidemic that is now a major cause of death</a> in the U.S. They have witnessed and contributed to <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2018/">monumental technological advances</a>. At the same time, they must reconcile the ethical and financial implications of 29 years of global military actions frequently led by the U.S.</p>
<p>Do these experiences affect the behaviors of millennials? It seems that it has led millennials to be more conservative with their money, as is well documented in <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/98729/millennial_homeownership_0.pdf">studies of this group</a>.</p>
<h2>Compared to other generations</h2>
<p>While the debt levels accumulated by millennials eclipse those of the previous generation, Generation X, at a similar point in time, the complexion of the debt is very different. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/second-quarter-2018/accounting-age-financial-health-millennials">According to a 2018 report from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank</a>, mortgage debt is about 15 percent lower for millennials and credit card debt among millennials was about two-thirds that of Gen X. </p>
<p>However, student loan debt was over 300 percent greater. Student debt affects a much broader age segment than just millennials, <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/data-center/student/portfolio">at over 43 million borrowers</a>, but the burden weighs most heavily on this generation.</p>
<p><iframe id="Z63dh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Z63dh/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Given the behavior of previous generations, it seems that this lower credit card debt and mortgage debt reflect millennials’ more risk-averse approach to their finances.</p>
<p>Another marked behavioral difference between generations is the higher levels of retirement savings among millennials than any previous generation at the same age. While Gen Xers had acquired about $13,600 at around the same point in time, millennials have saved <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/second-quarter-2018/accounting-age-financial-health-millennials">$15,500 in retirement accounts on average</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="rKbPQ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rKbPQ/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Millennials are also more committed to higher education. Between 2001 and 2016, the number of people aged 25 to 29 with at least a four year degree grew by 25 percent.</p>
<p>Both increased retirement savings and additional education are behaviors that economists might consider conservative investment strategies, more so when paired with lower credit card debt. But these changes in attitudes or perspectives can be difficult to measure. </p>
<h2>The housing market</h2>
<p>Another significant departure in this generation’s spending behavior is that millennials are delaying when they enter the housing market as homeowners and take on the associated debt of owning a home.</p>
<p>Statistics <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/98729/millennial_homeownership_0.pdf">from the U.S. Census Bureau and the American Community Survey</a> illustrate this stark difference in homeownership. The number of millennials who own houses lags previous generations by about 8 percentage points.</p>
<p><iframe id="VRCHi" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/VRCHi/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Student debt was <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/consumer-community-context-201901.pdf">cited by the Federal Reserve in its January 2019 Consumer and Community Context report</a> as a factor in millennials delaying homeownership. However, given millennials’ propensity to contribute more to their retirement savings accounts, it’s not certain that student loan debt alone is what is keeping them out of the housing market.</p>
<p>For example, in recent years, <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/04/blame-geography-for-high-housing-prices/478680/">the trend toward urbanization</a> has resulted in an increase in urban housing prices. This is particularly evident in counties where more young people live or are moving to.
These rising housing prices nearest employment centers may partly explain why millennials have delayed entering the housing market.</p>
<h2>Are millennials better off?</h2>
<p>Perhaps a different perspective of success is required when assessing the millennial generation, a perspective that emphasizes more than the acquisition of homes and other hard assets, which is based on the relative perspective of an older generation’s measures of the American Dream.</p>
<p>After all, previous generations have led millennials down a path of global economic uncertainties and real estate booms and busts. Millennials are now showing their reluctance to commit to such long-term debt, given the times they have lived through and the true economic return on homes. Homes <a href="http://www.multpl.com/case-shiller-home-price-index-inflation-adjusted/">return little more than the rate of inflation</a>, and when taxes, insurance and maintenance are factored in they look even less attractive. </p>
<p>The net result of these behavioral changes, paired with the economics of the environment, is that <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/second-quarter-2018/accounting-age-financial-health-millennials">millennials’ average net worth is about $90,000</a>, compared to Gen X of $130,000 at a similar age point.</p>
<p>But I contend that net worth isn’t the whole story. Millennials have emphasized post-secondary education, resulting in less time in the work force than their Gen X counterparts. Given this choice of education over employment, the net worth figures are quite logical. Although one might profess that in a few years these millennials will “catch up” and enter this phase of homeowner indebtedness, perhaps their approach on life deemphasizes the acquisition of things. </p>
<p>While long-term student debt has reduced millennials’ ability to gather assets at the same rate as previous generations, many of this generation seem to have adopted <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/05/millennials-are-prioritizing-experiences-over-stuff.html">an alternative view on assets</a>, preferring the acquisition of experiences and savings accounts over things. Studies show that experiences <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.004">lead to longer-term happiness</a> and may provide another perspective on which to gauge the fiscal state of millennials.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jimmie Lenz has received funding from Manhattan Institute. </span></em></p>Millennials are more financially conservative than their high debt balances might suggest.Jimmie Lenz, Adjunct Professor of Finance, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1068922019-01-16T09:32:17Z2019-01-16T09:32:17ZMillennials, Gen X, Gen Z, baby boomers: how generation labels cloud issues of inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252625/original/file-20190107-32136-z16arh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C100%2C5160%2C3290&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/outdoor-group-portrait-black-multi-generation-401695108?src=hBWurnPZGzsRod4zIbExsg-1-38">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Generations can be defined by family structure, stage of life or historical events. But most often, they’re categorised as “cohorts” of people born during a particular period in time. Catchy labels such as baby boomers, millennials and Gen X and Gen Z tend to stick with each cohort, which are assumed to have shared experiences, behaviours and ideals. This is known as a “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/cohort-effect">cohort effect</a>”. </p>
<p>But common generalisations – for example, that baby boomers are hoarding housing, while <a href="https://theconversation.com/generation-rent-is-a-myth-housing-prospects-for-millennials-are-determined-by-class-108996">millennials have no hope</a> of buying a home – can distort or mask the inequalities that exist within and across generations. So rather than pitching the generations against one another, perhaps it’s time to unpack some common assumptions, and question how much one generation really benefits at another’s expense. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/generation-rent-is-a-myth-housing-prospects-for-millennials-are-determined-by-class-108996">Generation rent is a myth – housing prospects for millennials are determined by class</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The name game</h2>
<p>Popular labels are applied to the generations currently living. The “silent generation” are those born from 1925 to 1945 – so called because they were raised during a period of war and economic depression. The “baby boomers” came next <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236216134_Baby_boomers_consumption_and_social_change_The_bridging_generation">from 1945 to 1964</a>, the result of an increase in births following the end of World War II.</p>
<p>After the baby boomers came “Generation X”, from around 1965 to 1976. The term coined by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26339959">Charles Hamlett and Jane Deverson</a> (originally referring to the Baby Boomers in their teenage years), was made popular by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/sep/11/book-club-generation-x-douglas-coupland">Douglas Coupland’s eponymous 1991 novel</a>. The label reflected the counterculture of a rebellious generation, distrustful of the establishment and keen to find their own voice.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qCU1p/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="500"></iframe>
<p>The cohort known as millennials – originally Generation Y – were identified by American authors <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials">William Strauss and Neil Howe</a> as those graduating high school in the year 2000. With the popular focus on the millennium at the time, the name stuck. Although the birth date of this cohort can start from as early as the late 1970s, by some accounts, it generally ranges from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s or early 2000s. </p>
<p>“Generation Z” is the current name for the cohort born from the mid-1990s, though iGen, centennials, post-millennials are further possible labels for a generation that has grown up in a hyper connected world. A “new silent generation” is emerging for those born during the early 2000s, since like their great grandparents in the silent generation, their childhood is also deemed to be <a href="http://www.generationaledge.com/blog/posts/genz-like-grandparents">marked by war and economic recession</a>. </p>
<h2>From needy to greedy</h2>
<p>Social and political conflict between generations often boils down to the seemingly unfair consumption of resources by the old. During the 1940s, the “needy” older generation <a href="https://housing-studies-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Livsey-and-Price-Paper-for-the-HSA-10-4-13-FINAL.pdf">were seen as a burden</a> on the tax-paying younger generation. From the 1950s, older people were <a href="http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/77346/8/Healthmanagementarticle_with_coversheet.pdf">blocking beds in hospitals</a>, when they should be in their own homes. More recently, older people are being told that they should move out of their homes and stop <a href="http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/IF_Housing_Defin_Report_19oct.pdf">hoarding family housing</a>.</p>
<p>Today, it’s often said that baby boomers benefited most from the welfare state, during a period when healthcare and education were free, jobs plentiful and housing affordable. There is also a fear that this generation <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-baby-boomers-will-be-the-last-generation-to-have-good-pensions-45008">will be the last</a> to have good pensions.</p>
<p>But all of these arguments conveniently ignore the inequalities within generations, which are greater than the inequalities between them. Not only is there <a href="https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28344/1/CASEreport60.pdf">considerable inequality</a> within cohorts, even greater divides are created by gender, ethnicity, disability, housing tenure and class.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252626/original/file-20190107-32130-upzo30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some young people are living the dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-young-couple-embracing-standing-outside-1055745611?src=U8-5Je-aS8y1zl4Wz_zmlA-1-0">Shutterstock.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Take housing, for example. While baby boomers are often accused of hoarding housing, the accumulation of housing wealth is more often a reflection of income and regional variances, rather than age differences. Between <a href="http://wealthgap.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2013/02/WealthGap_No_03_Housing_wealth_inequalities_Appendix.pdf">20%</a> and <a href="http://wealthgap.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2013/02/WealthGap_No_03_Housing_wealth_inequalities.pdf">25%</a> of the housing wealth in the UK is owned by those under the age of 65, who are in the top 20% of the population in terms of income. </p>
<h2>Society’s limits</h2>
<p>Another example is education. While baby boomers and Gen X may not have paid for their university education, very few were actually able to take advantage. In <a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8151/CBP-8151.pdf">England and Wales</a>, participation was at 8.4% in 1970 compared to 33% in 2000. Overall levels of education <a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04252/SN04252.pdf">have actually improved over time</a>. </p>
<p>The problems facing younger cohorts have more to do with the <a href="https://zielonygrzyb.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/social-limits-to-growth/">social limits to growth</a> than the cost of education. In 1976, sociologist Fred Hirsch <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674497900">suggested that</a> while the economy continues to grow, enabling ever greater consumption, society’s social structures will remain limited. </p>
<p>So, though <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/analysisoftheuklabourmarketestimatesofskillsmismatchusingmeasuresofoverandundereducation/2015#age">more people are gaining degrees</a>, only one person can get the job or the promotion. Standing out from the crowd requires ever increasing educational qualifications, work experience or skills training. In Hirsch’s words, “if everyone stands on tiptoe, no one gets a better view”. </p>
<p>With limited opportunities in society, rationing is achieved through higher entry requirements to both the labour and housing markets. The extent to which people can meet those requirements is still a matter of where they were born in the social hierarchy, rather than when they were born. </p>
<p>Indeed, wealth is generally transferred from older to younger generations via inheritance, rather than withheld: the problem is that this reinforces inequalities within cohorts, as <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/seminarpapers/wpa22062016.pdf">richer people benefit more</a> from transfers of family wealth. People’s access to health care, education and housing are determined by policy and the economy, not their date of birth, and the hype about generational conflict only serves to mask the real inequalities in society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beverley Searle receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust and The Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>Baby boomers didn’t all benefit from free education, and not all millennials are struggling to buy a home.Beverley Searle, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1096672019-01-11T14:50:44Z2019-01-11T14:50:44Z‘Snowflake millennial’ label is inaccurate and reverses progress to destigmatise mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253261/original/file-20190110-43541-13qkffu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Triggered?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shefftim/39702050223/in/photolist-23ukoki-2e2a4eq-2dCBJcv-2dBZd1R-RuimcY-2c9hHRs-2aR12ir-rhm9tn-qknmAW-DT3s7f-dSsMzA-69h5N7-iV2qZM-4aZNWP-hk6qMg-69GSV1-c3sya-dQBJ2B-G3nQmX-9sUXPt-8Zw2ud-owmubi-23UteTF-P568rZ-2atLAgu-2curn2J-Rve2X3-5zxwgE-22vwr15-2dfeXBT-FJ7x6m-98481H-G14E7N-imsS3a-8G4asF-G9efGM-2zMhZf-91SZYk-5ZofsT-5UUUUC-D8GLDM-prxaE8-cJFRgo-9euZw5-EFdhe2-2daRC4U-72ZLxh-2atLUNj-25cMPGd-R7vJJQ">Tim Dennell/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the baby boomers of the mid 1940s to the early 60s to Generation X yuppies who came of age in the 1980s – <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/16/how-millennials-compare-with-their-grandparents/" title="). It's not really clear [what delineates them](https://dennis-gilbert.com/generational-shift/ "">labelling generations is nothing new</a> but as early as 1839 French Philosopher Auguste Comte wrote about the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/351863">gradual and continuous influence</a> generations have upon each other and how generational stereotypes hold firm.</p>
<p>For today’s millennials, who came of age around the early 2000s, the charge of “snowflake” has been attached to criticise their perceived sensitivity. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/03/uk-army-recruitment-ads-target-snowflake-millennials">The British Army even used the name</a> recently to address young people in a recruitment campaign. One of the soldiers featured in the campaign has received hundreds of social media messages <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/06/soldier-quit-army-face-used-snowflake-advert-8314549/">mocking his association</a> with the snowflake poster. Despite this reaction from some people, the advert’s intention was to invert the label’s stigma and highlight the value of compassion in millennials.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1080773741725007873"}"></div></p>
<p>Use of the term elsewhere has been uniformly negative. The English <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/snowflake">dictionary</a> defines “snowflake” as a derogatory term to describe an easily offended person, or someone who believes they are entitled to special treatment on account of their supposedly unique characteristics. Members of the so-called “snowflake generation” are typecast as emotionally weak and lacking resilience.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.freelists.org/archives/sig-dsu/11-2012/pdfKhTzvDIi8n.pdf">Research has shown</a> that labels such as these create stigma – and stigma’s role in mental health is an age-old problem. Amid the media furore around the poster there remains the disturbing <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics">statistic</a> that one in eight children and adolescents and one in four adults in the UK will experience a mental illness. </p>
<p>Flippant stereotyping of a generation as weak based on their mental well-being contradicts efforts to reduce mental health <a href="https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/about-us">stigma</a>. It also undermines the goal of ensuring society values mental health equally with physical health.</p>
<h2>From ‘can-do’ to #MeToo</h2>
<p>The “snowflake” label contrasts with early published anticipation for the millennial generation. At the outset, millennials were met with encouragement, as a book published in 2000 by William Strauss & Neil Howe shows. “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001QA4S06/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">Millennials Rising</a>” predicted a “can-do youth” which would recast young people from downbeat and alienated to upbeat, engaged and optimistic.</p>
<p>Since then however, global financial recessions, the rising cost of living and education, insecure work, climate change and a turbulent political landscape have all contributed to significant <a href="https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/media/4487/global-young-people-report-single-pages-new.pdf">increases in poor mental health</a> among young people. This has created a difficult environment for millennials to meet their potential. Rather than characterise them as weak, society should work together to help young people overcome these challenges.</p>
<p>In the UK, tabloid headlines have fuelled the problem. “Life’s too tough for <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/685560/snowflakes-young-adults-stress-worry-keepmesafe-campaign">snowflake worriers</a> who spend six hours a day stressed out” reads one from the Daily Star in 2018. “<a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/727651/Snowflakes-paying-for-ADULT-classes-to-help-them-survive-real-world">Sheltered snowflakes</a> with no idea how to survive in the real world are having to pay for ‘adulting classes’”, reads another. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253384/original/file-20190111-43538-6d1y7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millennials have inherited difficult career prospects, a febrile international order and an expensive housing market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nervous-young-asian-job-applicant-wait-1191901768?src=SRJexZtmleJrHlqzjS1L2A-1-9">Fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recent Daily Star headline from December 2018 prompted an <a href="https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/news/open-letter-labelling-children-snowflakes-actively-damaging">open letter</a> from mental health campaigner Natasha Devon. She condemned the headline: “<a href="https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-star/20181207/281964608796976">Snowflake kids get lessons in chilling</a>” and implored the media to recognise the ongoing mental health crisis and the need to challenge stigma, rather than labelling and stigmatising those in need.</p>
<p>What is perhaps more worrying is the ease with which this label is seeping beyond the millennial generation with the Daily Mail <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-star/20181207/281964608796976">stigmatising even young children</a> as “snowflakes”.</p>
<p>A quick Google image search of “snowflake generation” produces a slew of images that typify a hatred towards millennials, with derogatory jokes and memes. There’s also an association with words such as “weak”, “sensitive”, “triggered” and “entitled”. </p>
<p>Using “snowflake” as an insult was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminology-20161115-story.html">popularised by the alt-right</a> during the 2016 US presidential elections in the US to negate the views of those considered anti-Trump, including liberals and leftists. This legacy does not reflect well on those parroting it in the UK media.</p>
<h2>Debunking the 'weak millennial’ myth</h2>
<p>The label’s connotations need to be challenged. In reality, the millennial generation are resilient in bucking legacies left by older generations. Millennials are consuming <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/drugusealcoholandsmoking/bulletins/opinionsandlifestylesurveyadultdrinkinghabitsingreatbritain/2014">less drugs and alcohol</a> than previous generations and youth turnout at the 2017 general election in the UK was reported to be the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6734cdde-550b-11e7-9fed-c19e2700005f">highest in 25 years</a>.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/66149ea8-158a-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640">growing insecurity</a> in the job market, unemployment in Britain’s under-25s is among the <a href="https://www.intergencommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/A-New-Generational-Contract-Full-PDF.pdf">lowest</a> in Europe. Millennials are also <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2016/11/17/britains-young-are-doing-better-than-many-think">ousting older generations</a> from high-ranking roles.</p>
<p>The emotional intelligence of millennials shines through their continued efforts to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=n5FODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=C.O.N.T.A.C.T+interviews+Georgia+Whitaker&source=bl&ots=lMlWBhYsZ6&sig=JHwuiudx46h6zJXobR2uax6MiqA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwhNqFpOTfAhVCPBoKHVymBNQQ6AEwC3oECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=C.O.N.T.A.C.T%20interviews%20Georgia%20Whitaker&f=false">oppose injustice</a>. Their resilience is also clear in their <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20171003-proof-that-people-have-always-complained-about-young-adults">efforts to excel</a> despite the challenges they face.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the snowflake label is unfair because it encourages stigma and evokes hatred. The word “snowflake” has lost its wistfulness as the harbinger of winter, replaced by insults to an individual’s capacity to cope in a challenging world. As a society, perhaps we need to ask ourselves – when has stigma and contempt ever helped?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelly Haslam-Ormerod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Millennial snowflakes” are derided as weak and sensitive but this nastiness is patently false and actively harms progress on tackling mental health.Shelly Haslam-Ormerod, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health and Wellbeing, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912642018-03-19T16:00:07Z2018-03-19T16:00:07ZA 1988 song about television addiction is more pertinent today than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209895/original/file-20180312-30958-14fup9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chuck D (L) and Flavor Flav of the US rap group Public Enemy performing in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve C Mitchell/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Veteran American hip hop group <a href="http://publicenemy.com/">Public Enemy</a> need no introduction when it comes to paradigm shifts in that music genre. From the moment leader and rapper Chuck D, fellow rappers Flavor Flav and Professor Griff, group DJ Terminator X and the S1W group (aka Security of the First World) launched off the <a href="http://www.defjam.com/">Def Jam</a> record label’s platform in 1987, their acute sociopolitical presence resonated throughout hip hop culture and far beyond.</p>
<p>With their debut album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/yo%21-bum-rush-the-show-mw0000194784">“Yo! Bum Rush The Show”</a> (1987), it was clear that Chuck D’s lyrical pressure was destined to confront racism, destitution and a myriad of other issues connected with African American life. </p>
<p>However, the song I would like to discuss here is the lesser-celebrated <a href="https://genius.com/Public-enemy-she-watch-channel-zero-lyrics">“She Watch Channel Zero?!”</a> from their 1988 sophomore album <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/public-enemy-it-takes-a-nation-of-millions-to-hold-us-back-20110330">“It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back”</a>. Dealing with the subject of television addiction, Chuck D reaches beyond the sphere of the African American and into most of westernised existence.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RoBw0Fz8mu4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘She watch Channel Zero?!’ by Public Enemy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This reach is further exemplified through the sonics of the song. Its driving metal edge also championed the rap-metal fusion sub-genre. It not only forged collaborations with the American heavy metal band <a href="https://anthrax.com/">Anthrax</a>, but also opened the door for <a href="https://www.ratm.com/">Rage Against The Machine</a>, <a href="https://linkinpark.com/">Linkin Park</a> and <a href="http://www.paparoach.com/">Papa Roach</a>. </p>
<h2>The ills of television</h2>
<p>The track appears second on side two, after the serene yet curt non-rap “Show ‘Em Whatcha Got”, and follows Flav’s intro speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re blind baby, you’re blind from the facts</p>
<p>oh, y'are 'cause you’re watching that garbage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so, successive to a brief five seconds of white noise, a metal-laden foray strikes on the ills of television. Four bars of bellicose guitars sampled from the intense “Angel of Death” by American thrash metal band <a href="https://www.slayer.net/">Slayer</a> underpinned with sharp metallic samples and purposely muffled TV snippets construct the atmosphere for Chuck D’s contextual assault:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The woman makes the men all pause</p>
<p>And if you got a woman she might make you forget yours</p>
<p>There’s a five letter word to describe her character </p>
<p>But her brains being washed by an actor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chuck D constructs a narrative about a woman who is addicted to soap operas. She becomes wholly obsessed with certain characters in the shows. This obsession damages her ability to distinguish between real life and television representation. As she becomes more overcome by “osmosis” through her television sceeen, desperation sets in as she channel-surfs “cold lookin’ for that hero”. </p>
<p>As broadcasts across channels meld into one, she could be watching any channel. And so she does indeed “watch channel zero”, amplifying the emptiness of all television channels. The song’s timing was highly apposite; the Baby Boomers were seduced by soap operas and Generation X sucked into MTV, and the message here is twofold. The song’s message is that the TV watcher, under the illusion that the heroes she seeks do not exist in reality, she ostracises herself from the realities of life, including her family: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>But her children</p>
<p>Don’t mean as much as the show, I mean</p>
<p>Watch her worship the screen.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She measures herself and her desires against this “perfect” world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And she hopes the soaps are for real</p>
<p>she learns that it ain’t true, nope…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, she still denies the real and continues her futile diversion. </p>
<p>After Chuck’s first verse, Flav reappears, this time taking the traditional role of the male partner:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yo baby, you got to cut that garbage off</p>
<p>Yo! I want to watch the game</p>
<p>Hey yo, lemmie tell you a little sommin’: </p>
<p>I’m'a take all your soaps</p>
<p>An’ then I’m gonna hang ‘em on a rope.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The male antagonist here also longs to watch television, resorting to threats if he too can’t consume his televised ball game.</p>
<h2>Hostile drone</h2>
<p>Repeated no less than 24 times throughout the song, the phrase “she watch” morphs into the music’s relentlessly repetitive yet hostile drone, echoing the experience of television addiction. It’s a metaphor for the process of hyperreality. This story of course, is representational of broader and even current society. Whilst the song’s elements are conventional, the dialogues and sonics reveal the ominousness of screen dependence, the second facet of the song’s message.</p>
<p>French philosopher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/07/guardianobituaries.france">Jean Baudrillard</a>’s notion of <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-9/">“hyperreality”</a> is a valuable theory to explore this situation. Within the frame of hyperreality, the idea of the simulacra or likenesses replaces that of reality. Characters on TV shows, or indeed, stage sets, film locations and sometimes the actors themselves become signs which can consume and distort one’s sense of reality.</p>
<p>When these signs become more important than the real, one’s real relationships break down. Signs and reality are no longer juxtaposed; rather the sign supplants the real. Once the real disappears, positioning the imaginary against the everyday becomes impossible, leading to problematic social engagement. </p>
<p>Following the explosion of screen-based personal devices such as smartphones and tablets, currently perceived as essential components of contemporary life, the risk of users slipping into hyperreality has multiplied enormously since the television age. As a result the Boomers and Generation X have become highly critical of Millennials (born between 1979 and 1991) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-be-worried-about-generation-z-joining-the-workforce-heres-why-not-81038">Generation Z</a> (people born after 1992), and anxious for anyone born after 2010 – <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/generation-alpha-2014-7-2?IR=T">Generation Alpha</a> – and their future of living life through a screen. </p>
<p>However, we need to remember that the simulacra that have resulted in this way of life started way before the arrival of the smartphone. The message in “She Watch Channel Zero?!” is more pertinent today than ever, and not only for young people.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a series featuring Songs of Protest from across the world, genres and generations.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Following the explosion of screen-based personal devices, the risk of users slipping into hyper reality has multiplied enormously since the television age.Adam de Paor-Evans, Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / Research and Innovation Lead, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822192017-08-17T10:02:42Z2017-08-17T10:02:42ZWhy we keep playing the Generation Blame Game … and why we need to stop<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182388/original/file-20170817-13469-6ii46v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All smiles?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=iMKqB8Bx-bGFIxwJ-n4heA-1-46">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Successive generations’ healthy disregard of the previous generation’s tastes, habits and customs is a necessary ingredient of human progress. But there is something about the current carving up of the population into ever smaller generational slices of entitlement and opprobrium – from baby boomers and Generation X to millennials and Generation Z – that borders on unhealthy obsession. Part of this is a growing awareness of a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Generational_Intelligence.html?id=eVHfAQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">“shift in the demographic map”</a>. </p>
<p>This is particularly marked in the northern Hemisphere and is accompanied by other profound social, economic and cultural changes – rising economic prosperity and inequality and insecurity, declining political support for state organised welfare, shifts in the make-up of family, decreased deference to hierarchy. Together these challenge how we live, work, consume, and care for and support each other. </p>
<p>Generational roles and expectations can no longer be taken for granted and we are no longer certain about where we stand in the emerging order. Anxieties abound – and projecting these onto imprecise categories of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Generational_Intelligence.html?id=eVHfAQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">“age others”</a> bolsters a vague sense of <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49483/">shared injustice</a> among those of a certain age – and provides “generations” with another age group to blame. What this generation blame game misses, however, are the ways in which these dubious generational categories mask the profound differences between the people swept into them.</p>
<h2>Back to the ‘baby boom’</h2>
<p>One label that has become symbolically powerful, even if it remains relatively meaningless, over the last decade is the “baby boomer”. This is applied loosely to those born during the post-World War II “baby boom” who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Commentators have cast the category in a variety of ways, but one of the most egregious examples of the rhetorical gymnastics required to construct the stereotype is Philip Inman’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/feb/28/baby-boomers-secret-millionaires">“secret baby boomer millionaires”</a>. </p>
<p>According to this, anybody who has an income of £35,000 a year and a work-based pension, enjoys retirement for a full 25 years and is in possession of housing asset wealth of £300,000 is – or will be – a millionaire baby boomer. The implication is that they are cossetted and in need of cutting down to size. </p>
<p>But there are, in fact, many factors that might impede the royal road to this exalted status in retirement that play out over a lifetime, from class, health and disability, to gender, race and ethnicity. These complications, however, are conveniently effaced in the <a href="https://ageingissues.wordpress.com">selfish boomer narrative</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182390/original/file-20170817-13441-ezdqw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Don’t blame … support.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=iMKqB8Bx-bGFIxwJ-n4heA-1-46">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent research carried out by Karen Glaser and <a href="https://ageingissues.wordpress.com">Debbie Price</a>, president of the British Society of Gerontology, and others, points, for example, to a very deep and persistent <a href="http://www.pensionspolicyinstitute.org.uk/briefing-notes/briefing-note-84---how-do-female-lifecourses-affect-retirement">gender division in retirement</a>. The gender pay gap means that median income-earning women have considerably worse pensions than men, and if they take any kind of career break (to look after children or others), will be even worse off in retirement. This a gender issue, not a generational one.</p>
<p>Indeed, it isn’t easy finding evidence of Inman’s millionaire baby boomers among the retirement income statistics of median income-earning women, and even harder among the three quarters of the female population who have taken “career breaks”. But the problem is not just that real lives more often than not diverge from the stereotype of the protected baby boomer, but that the model of the coping, smug, self-sufficient retiree who does not need state support has become the policy archetype. </p>
<p>This has very pernicious consequences when it comes to the generation currently entering care and dependency. Unlike baby boomers and millennials, this group doesn’t have a label of its own in the public imagination, but gerontologists increasingly refer to the “fourth age”; <a href="https://he.palgrave.com/page/detail/rethinking-old-age-paul-higgs/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137383983">people in deep old age</a>, who, when crossing the threshold of independence can be abandoned into a wholly inadequate system of social care. </p>
<p>Moreover, in the absence of family, neighbourly or state support, and inadequate and inappropriate services (public or private), having financial resources doesn’t necessarily help. Masking these age differences gives rise to a deep ageism that makes the state’s abandonment of the fourth age acceptable.</p>
<h2>Generational ‘war’</h2>
<p>If the generation blame game masks difference, it also masks how overlapping experiences can act as the basis for intergenerational solidarity and resistance. As US cultural critic <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo3625122.html">Margaret Morganroth Gullette</a> observed, throughout the 1990s, a contrived war between baby boomers and the following Generation Xers, born in the 1960s and 1970s, was waged in media and political discussions. In this war of words, younger US citizens were taught that they should no longer expect the pay and rewards that the bloated and selfish baby boom generation had. </p>
<p>The shattering of the American Dream to accumulate wealth over a lifetime happened under the cover of generational injustice. It wasn’t blamed on economics or politics, but on older people. And the same talk of a “war” is now happening between <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-38560226/generation-war-baby-boomers-v-millennials">millennials and baby boomers</a>. </p>
<p>What is entirely missed in the UK and Europe’s more recent embrace of phoney generational politics is this general degradation of lifetime expectations for all. It is not, as the UK’s most enthusiastic cheerleader of strict intergenerational accounting, the <a href="http://www.if.org.uk">Intergenerational Foundation</a>, would have us believe, that economic and social order will miraculously be restored once we have worked out the correct proportions of public and private wealth to which each generation is rightfully entitled. The real problem is that ordinary folk of all generations are being conned – and coached to blame it on each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen West is a member of the British Society of Gerontology</span></em></p>The generational ‘war’ is a con, designed to hide a darker truth.Karen West, Reader and Head of the Sociology and Policy Department, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/810382017-07-20T17:58:00Z2017-07-20T17:58:00ZShould we be worried about Generation Z joining the workforce? Here’s why not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178792/original/file-20170719-13606-j0nzwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gen Z is the first generation born into a fully technological environment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the next year or two, the workplace faces an unprecedented situation where for the first time, due to the fact that we’re all living longer, five generations may be working side by side: Veterans (pre-World War II); the Baby Boomers (World War II – 1960s); Generation X (mid-60s – late 1970s); Millennials (aka Generation Y) (1979 – 1991); and last, but not least, the largely unknown factor: Generation Z, born after 1992.</p>
<p>It’s estimated that there are <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/get-ready-for-generation-z/">more than 2 billion</a> of Gen Z worldwide. In South Africa, a third of the population is <a href="http://www.childrencount.org.za/indicator.php?id=1&indicator=1">under the age of 21</a>. </p>
<p>It may be too soon to be definitive about the characteristics of this generation, but they are <a href="http://www.jennings-solutions.com/international/JasonJennings-BusinessToday.pdf">said to be</a> realistic, cause and value driven, entrepreneurial, financially prudent, and have boundless curiosity. </p>
<p>This is the first generation born into a fully technological environment - a world of being connected, being digital, and having mobile phones or tablets as a <a href="https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/06/30/debunking-the-four-myths-of-generation-z/">matter of course </a>. They’re therefore more advanced in searching for information and figuring things out on their own. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2015/10/13/how-to-attract-talent-for-jobs-that-dont-yet-exist/#7182b1767726">said</a> that Generation Z will have jobs that have not even been created yet. But that’s not the only thing we aren’t sure of. Although there’s some indication of who they are and the influences shaping them, their characters are still forming and their role in the workplace is yet to take shape. </p>
<p>And, let’s face it: organisations are still struggling to analyse the challenge that Millennials pose in the workplace. These include fitting in with organisational culture, their communication style preferences and negative stereotypes of each generation. All these need <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6609-multigenerational-workforce-challenges.html">to be managed</a> in the workplace.</p>
<p>What exactly are they going to do when Generation Z arrives?</p>
<h2>Business as usual</h2>
<p>Popular wisdom argues for a fairly predictable <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenhigginbottom/2016/03/17/the-challenges-of-managing-a-multi-generational-workforce/&refURL=&referrer=">set of approaches</a> – all of which are wise. And increasingly people are understanding that while there are important <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2017/01/25/how-to-manage-generational-differences-in-the-workplace/&refURL=&referrer=">differences</a> between generations, they can be complementary and there is a significant opportunity for both ends of the age spectrum to learn from each other. </p>
<p>Listed staffing agency <a href="https://www.roberthalf.com/about-us">Robert Half</a> <a href="https://www.roberthalf.com/workplace-research/get-ready-for-generation-z">asked</a> chief financial offices where the biggest differences (and therefore opportunities for learning) lay between generations in the workplace. Thirty percent said “communication skills”, 26% said “adapting to change”, 23% said “technical skills”, 14% said “cross-departmental collaboration”, and 7% noted “no differences”. </p>
<p>The gist of tried and tested approaches is to: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>encourage collaboration between generations;</p></li>
<li><p>facilitate mentoring; </p></li>
<li><p>allow for a cross-pollination of knowledge, where older employees share their experience, and younger employees contribute technological know-how, newer techniques and innovation. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>It has also been well argued that managers should take the lead in <a href="http://guides.wsj.com/management/managing-your-people/how-to-manage-different-generations/">adapting</a> their management style rather than expecting staff to change.</p>
<h2>The crucial bridge for Generation Z</h2>
<p>But just how different will Generation Z really be? The Millennials (aka Generation Y) has been described more than once as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/managing-different-generations-in-the-workplace-2011-2">“Generation X on steroids”</a>. All indications are that Generation Z will take this up a notch. Emma Davies, Human Resources Manager for South African construction company ALEC, <a href="http://www.alec.ae/">says</a> the organisation has already experienced this to some extent with work experience students:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They are a very politically aware generation, and they have been taught to question everything, but to do so respectfully. The toddler stage of asking ‘why?’ does not end!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both inside and outside the workplace, listening skills, patience, tolerance and humility will become more and more crucial for older generations. And two-way mentorship will become even more important than it has been with Millennials.</p>
<p>Generation Y has already pointed to some important changes that need to happen. Because they want involvement and feedback and are generally outspoken they have played a role in creating a more inclusive workplace as teamwork has become central to their work life.</p>
<p>This will be a crucial tool in making the most of the skills of Generation Z. This, combined with their strong communication skills and self-awareness, will emphasise the importance of teamwork.</p>
<p>These integration skills may prove crucial in helping to manage Generation Zs. Millennials, in this sense, may function as a bridge. This isn’t to say it will all be plain sailing, even if older employees are patient and ready to learn from the youngsters.</p>
<p>Generation Y and Z’s desire for connectedness and relationships on the part can be used for more successful mentorships. A desire for learning could also help alleviate tension with Generation Xs, Baby Boomers and Veterans, who may otherwise experience them as disrespectful or arrogant.</p>
<h2>Focus on the similarities</h2>
<p>But stereotyping needs to be avoided. South African organisations are very familiar with the effects that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-racism-and-a-lack-of-diversity-can-harm-productivity-in-our-workplaces-73119">negative racial stereotyping</a> can have on teams and productivity. They need to guard against the same thing happening with different generations. By <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/05/hitting-the-intergenerational">fixating</a> on minor differences and taking them out of context, and by failing to appreciate similarities, organisations could be missing an opportunity.</p>
<p>More than that, the differences between generations might be smaller than we think. Research from the University of North Carolina showed that Millennials <a href="http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/executive-development/about/%7E/media/C8FC09AEF03743BE91112418FEE286D0.ashx">want the same things</a> as Generation X and Baby Boomers: challenging, meaningful work; opportunities for learning, development and advancement; support to successfully integrate work and personal life; fair treatment and competitive compensation. </p>
<p>And all three generations agreed on the characteristics of an ideal leader – a person who leads by example, is accessible, acts as a coach and mentor, helps employees see how their roles contribute to the organisation, and challenges others and holds them accountable. </p>
<p>The chances are, Generation Z won’t be too far off this mark either.</p>
<h2>Respect and common sense is key</h2>
<p>Implicit in this list of characteristics of the ideal leader is respect – of self and others. In business, as in life, the fundamentals of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenmakovsky/2014/04/10/the-respect-factor/&refURL=&referrer=">mutual respect</a> go a long way in building positive workplace cultures. Respect will be key in managing multiple generations too. </p>
<p>All that’s really <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/managing-different-generations-in-the-workplace-2011-2">needed</a> is a commonsense approach that maintains a focus on individual needs, honours each person’s contribution, and strives to keep older workers engaged alongside newer hires so as to avoid losing institutional knowledge. </p>
<p>It may also help to remember that each generational shift evolves organically – and so, too, will the workplace, if we are open to allowing it to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Ronnie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Managers have barely got to grips with the challenges posed by Millennials. What are they going to do with Generation Z?Linda Ronnie, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour and People Management, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806792017-07-12T04:57:49Z2017-07-12T04:57:49ZFrom Boomers to Xennials: we love talking about our generations, but must recognise their limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177816/original/file-20170712-8283-j4b4ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do you remember these?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all know the names: Boomers, Gen X and Millennials. Now we can add the “Xennials”, a cross-over generation between X-ers and Millennials that recently took the <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/xennial-generation/">internet by storm</a>. </p>
<p>The “Xennials” are supposedly a group born between the late 1970s and early 1980s who entered the labour market well after the recession of the early 1990s, but before the Global Financial Crisis. They had an analogue childhood, but <a href="https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/">digital young adulthood</a>. </p>
<p>However, the “Xennials” must be taken with several grains of salt. There isn’t yet any strong academic evidence for the grouping, although clearly the idea resonates with a lot of people who felt left out by the usual categorisations.</p>
<p>I am a sociologist of youth and generations, who tracks Australians through young <a href="http://education.unimelb.edu.au/yrc/projects/current/life_patterns">adulthood</a>. There is some truth to generations talk, as our lives are shaped by the times in which we grow up. But the labels are blunt, homogenising, underplay inequality, and often function as nasty stereotypes.</p>
<h2>Who are the Xennials?</h2>
<p>The idea of a <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2011/10/generation_catalano_the_generation_stuck_between_gen_x_and_the_m.html">cross-over generation</a> between Gen X and Millennials (who used to get called Gen Y) has been kicking around for a while. The term “Xennial” appears to have been coined in a <a href="https://www.good.is/articles/generation-xennials">2014 article for Good magazine</a> by Sarah Stankorb and Jed Oelbaum. </p>
<p>I (inadvertently) helped popularise the term when journalist Rachel Curtis recently asked me if it would <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/xennial-generation/">make sense to cut the generations differently</a> in an article that soon captured the internet’s attention. </p>
<p>I thought this sounded plausible. The divisions we use aren’t particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/talkin-bout-your-generation-oral-history-tells-the-story-of-ages-3685?sa=google&sq=generations&sr=35">robust</a>. They tend to be imported from North America without much thought, built arbitrarily around the Boomers, and capture changes that often don’t have <a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-in-the-workplace-not-as-different-as-you-think-74107">clear inflection points</a>, so dates can vary from pundit to pundit. The oldest Millennials and the youngest Gen X-ers probably had similar experiences. I was clear that this was speculative, and that the usual caveats apply. </p>
<p>The theory goes that the Xennials dated, and often formed ongoing relationships, pre-social media. They usually weren’t on Tinder or Grindr, for their first go at dating at least. They called up their friends and the person they wanted to ask out on a landline phone, hoping that it wasn’t their intended date’s parent who picked up. </p>
<p>They remember being around their late teens when the first of their peers, usually the rich kids, got a mobile phone but the only person they could really call was their mum. Yet they hit the digital revolution at an age when they easily embraced it.</p>
<p>They get described as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7xKzUxGBKA">golden mean</a> between the cynicism attributed in generational stereotypes to Gen X and the optimism and over-confidence of the Millennials. In a world where labels are regularly invoked for generation <a href="http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=age&kw=Woodman&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=10years&so=relevance&sf=author&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=AGE110310R675U78KRAL">bashing</a>, with even the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/17/generation-sociopaths-review-trump-baby-boomers-ruined-world">Boomers</a> copping it recently, the Xennials come out looking rather lovely.</p>
<h2>Why we should be sceptical</h2>
<p>No generation should be characterised as if they have one personality type, with a single set of dispositions and attitudes, even if it is nice. Verging on astrology, this type of generational research is increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-at-work-dont-see-themselves-as-millennials-58994">challenged</a>. Generational claims, such as “the Millennials are narcissistic”, aren’t completely <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-know-the-millennial-generation-exists-look-at-the-data-77768">evidence</a>-free, but are heavily <a href="http://blogs.cofc.edu/writing/files/2012/08/Arnett-Twenge.pdf">critiqued</a> for often making too much of small average changes in attitudes, turning them into group-defining oppositions, and ignoring more significant changes.</p>
<p>We need a healthy dose of scepticism towards the generational snake-oil sellers, who tell us that they have discovered a group alien in attitude. Particularly if they then say we need to pay for their expertise to work with them, or sell to them.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/youth-and-generation/book239558">Youth and Generation</a> (with Johanna Wyn) I argue that a convincing sociological account of generations will have to do three things: specify the changed social conditions, relative to previous generations, that will have effects beyond youth; identify the multiple ways that people respond to and shape these conditions; and show how the generation is not homogeneous. The term “Xennials” is yet to meet these criteria.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13676261.2015.1048206?journalCode=cjys20">approach</a> is to use the concept of generations to think about how inequalities (by class, race, gender, etc) are being made anew in changing times. I have focused mainly on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/04/there-is-no-boomers-v-milennials-generational-war-but-there-is-a-class-struggle?CMP=soc_567#comments">class</a>. The decades that shaped the young adulthoods of Gen X, the “Xennials” and Millennials have been times of rapid changes in Australian society, with unequal effects. For navigating school and the entry to work, building a career and particularly getting into the housing market, access to family resources has become progressively more important than it was for the Boomers.</p>
<p>Barbara Risman, a sociologist in the US, provides a good recent <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2017/06/20/millennials-changing-binaries-in-more-ways-than-one-of-course/">example</a> focused on gender. She shows that attitudes have changed rapidly, but there is much variation, from rebels rejecting any material manifestation of gender difference to a new type of conservatism among some Millennials. </p>
<p>Happily, many of the articles on the Xennials that have appeared over the past three weeks do mention some of the limitations I cover here, that they can demonise particular cohorts, or distract us from the other things that separate people’s experience.</p>
<p>Our urge to understand how we are shaped by our times is one of the great drivers of the pop-sociological phenomenon of generational labels and, I think, of the recent interest in Xennials. Talking about these labels is a way for academics to contribute to public debates, hopefully adding some critical nuance. When it’s not being used to stereotype and belittle, generations talk can also make for some fun and rather nostalgic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/27/are-you-a-xennial-take-the-quiz">quizzes</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Woodman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The “Xennials” are supposedly a group born between the late 1970s and early 1980s, who were born analogue and became digital adults. But the evidence for their existence isn’t as clear-cut as we might hope.Dan Woodman, TR Ashworth Associate Professor in Sociology, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777682017-05-23T03:47:40Z2017-05-23T03:47:40ZHow do we know the millennial generation exists? Look at the data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169609/original/file-20170516-11929-a4rd6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean Twenge</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cultures change, and new generations are born out of those changes. For many, this might sound obvious.</p>
<p>All you have to do is think about transporting a 25-year-old to 1965. Even after she got over the shock of losing her smartphone, she’d probably still be baffled. Why are so many women her age married with two kids already? Why is everyone wearing suits? And where did all of the gay and lesbian people go?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it’s recently become fashionable to suggest that generations don’t exist at all. According to some, one generation in particular – millennials (those roughly between the ages of 23 and 37) – is a fabricated or arbitrary category.</p>
<p>A talk titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ&t=902s">Millennials Don’t Exist</a>” has garnered two million views on YouTube. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/11/millennial-myth/100982920/">A recent USA Today article</a> declared millennials are a “malignant myth,” with media studies professor Sida Vaidhyanathana declaring, “I don’t think generations exist.” And author Jessica Kriegel had argued that generational designations simply <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/why-generational-stereotypes-are-bad-for-business/">lead to stereotyping</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve researched generational differences and cultural change for 20 years, summarizing findings on 11 million young people in books such as “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476755566">Generation Me</a>” and the forthcoming “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/iGen-Super-Connected-Rebellious-Happy-Adulthood-ebook/dp/B01N6ACK3B/">iGen</a>.” Although it’s true that some people peddle ideas about generations based on questionable data, advances in research methods now allow social scientists to pinpoint generational and cultural changes with a surprising degree of accuracy.</p>
<h2>Blurry dividing lines</h2>
<p>Critiques about generations often begin by noting the lack of agreement around birth years. For example, some place the beginning of the millennial generation with those born in 1980 or even 1977, while others argue for 1982. Vaidhyanathana calls the variation in the cutoffs “suspicious.” Some <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/industrial-and-organizational-psychology/article/generationally-based-differences-in-the-workplace-is-there-a-there-there/251272D1414CD51F8586ECBAF197E70C">academic articles have argued</a> this lack of precision calls the entire idea of generations into question.</p>
<p>It’s true that the dividing lines between generations are debated and somewhat arbitrary. However, saying generations don’t exist because the birth year cutoffs are arbitrary is like saying that teenagers don’t exist because the age cutoffs are arbitrary. Moving the cutoffs around doesn’t change the critical mass of data showing that millennials differ from previous generations in, for example, <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/for-first-time-in-modern-era-living-with-parents-edges-out-other-living-arrangements-for-18-to-34-year-olds/">living situations</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244016638133">religious beliefs</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25940736">sexual behaviors</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0149206309352246">attitudes toward work-life balance</a> and <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/">support for same-sex marriage</a>. </p>
<p>Critics of generations also point out that generational differences are averages, and that considerable variation exists within each generation. </p>
<p>That’s true, but it’s also true of any comparison of groups of people. Teenagers aren’t all the same, but everyone would agree that teenagers, as a whole, differ from older adults. Americans vary, but Americans differ from Saudis. Millennials vary, but the average millennial differs from the average Gen Xer. If someone overgeneralizes and assumes all millennials are the same, the issue is with his approach, not with the data.</p>
<p>An article about the “myth” of millennials <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/05/11/millennial-myth/100982920/">quotes journalism professor Todd Gitlin</a>, who says, “The notion that an 18-year-old in East Kentucky growing up in a coal-mining hollow has a great deal in common with somebody growing up on the Upper East Side of New York…is ridiculous. It doesn’t pass the laugh test.” </p>
<p>Gitlin seems to be saying that because class differences exist, generational differences can’t exist. But that’s like saying because age differences exist, gender differences can’t exist. That definitely doesn’t pass the laugh test. Nor does the idea that a Kentucky 18-year-old in 1965 would be exactly the same as a Kentucky 18-year-old in 2017.</p>
<h2>The real truth about generations</h2>
<p>It’s not completely surprising that the idea of generations has gotten a bad rap. </p>
<p>Many authors and consultants trot out <a href="http://www.genzguru.com/genz/">one-time polls of young people</a> that have no comparison group, making it impossible to draw any conclusions about generational differences. For example, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/11/11/study-millennials-are-the-true-entrepreneur-generation/#1e0d8df273dc">one poll of millennials</a> found that 67 percent want to start their own business. But older people might feel that way, too. Or perhaps they felt the same way when they were younger (and in fact, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/workar/article/3/2/130/2997409/Fuzzy-But-Useful-Constructs-Making-Sense-of-the">they did</a>). </p>
<p>Fortunately, research on generational differences has come a long way, and it’s no longer necessary to rely on such shaky data. Most peer-reviewed studies now use <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868310377395">data collected over several decades</a>, eliminating the effect of age and zeroing in on the effects of cultural change. A survey of U.S. 18-year-olds every year since 1976 shows significant differences in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/workar/article/doi/10.1093/workar/wax001/2997409/Fuzzy-But-Useful-Constructs-Making-Sense-of-the">workplace preferences</a>, <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-102-5-1045.pdf">life goals</a>, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121454">religious participation</a>, <a href="http://www.monitoringthefuture.org//pressreleases/16drugpr_complete.pdf">alcohol and drug use</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614545133">trust in institutions</a>. The General Social Survey of U.S. adults, which began in 1972, has inspired a long tradition of research from <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/658853">sociologists</a> and <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/209945">economists</a> finding changes in attitudes toward work, gender roles and politics. </p>
<p>Data sets like these have another strength: They use samples representative of the nation as a whole. That means the data on millennials are not, as Kriegel told USA Today, based on “a middle-income, white, American person.” They’re based on those of every race, income level and background. Nearly all of the generational trends appear across all groups, not just some. </p>
<p>Such data also negate the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-matt/millennial-stereotypes_b_4261064.html">oft-made claim</a> that generational differences are “stereotyping,” which seems to imply that notions of how millennials act and what they want are nothing more than guesses. Instead, these data reveal what young people say about themselves, compared to what previous generations said when they were young. That’s not stereotyping; that’s listening. </p>
<p>Nor are the differences small, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-in-the-workplace-not-as-different-as-you-think-74107">others have claimed</a>. In the <a href="https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends">General Social Survey</a>, young adults’ approval of same-sex relationships soared from 14 percent in 1987 to 66 percent in 2016. In the <a href="http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/">yearly survey of American 18-year-olds</a>, 39 percent of respondents in 1976 said they expected work to be a central part of their lives. In 2014, it was only 25 percent, which means that young people today favor more work-life balance – a difference managers are sure to notice.</p>
<p>Managers and educators can rest easy: It’s not just you; young adults really are different than they were a few decades ago. Generations do exist – we just need to keep mining the best data to understand them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Twenge has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, and the Russell Sage Foundation.</span></em></p>It’s become fashionable to suggest that generational designations are arbitrary or a ‘myth.’ But social scientists can pinpoint generational and cultural changes with a surprising degree of accuracy.Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750742017-04-11T14:07:53Z2017-04-11T14:07:53ZWork contracts are a complex web of social and cultural dynamics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162655/original/image-20170327-3283-1sxqc1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without loyalty, employees don't go the extra mile that's needed to make a business competitive.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.businessballs.com/psychological-contracts-theory.htm">Psychological contracts</a> in the workplace are fragile bonds. This is true all over the world. In South Africa they come with their own set of unique challenges largely due to the country’s history of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">racial discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>A psychological contract is the unwritten set of expectations between employer and employee – as well as between workers. Along with the formal employment contract, it underpins all workplace relationships. </p>
<p>Breaching the contract can damage relationships irreparably and lead to a number of undesirable outcomes. For example, it can have a negative impact on employee loyalty. Without loyalty, employees don’t go the extra mile that’s needed to make a business competitive. </p>
<p>But when properly nurtured, psychological contracts can <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-psychological-contract-the-ties-that-bind-companies-and-employees/">unlock productivity</a> and boost growth. Organisational behaviour researcher <a href="http://www.ie.edu/business-school/faculty-research/faculty/margarita-mayo/">Margarita Mayo</a> <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-psychological-contract-the-ties-that-bind-companies-and-employees/">argues that</a> employees only go beyond what’s expected in the labour contract when there’s an emotional relationship based on employee loyalty and the identification of the employee with the company and its mission. </p>
<p>For loyalty and identification to flourish, employees – particularly the younger generation – are increasingly needing <a href="http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/employee-voice-is-a-key-to-a-successful-business-says-nita-clarke">recognition</a> and a voice when it comes to their employment conditions and workplace relationships. This is particularly important in South Africa. The country’s apartheid history deliberately deprived people of their voice. Employers who don’t acknowledge this are treading on dangerous ground.</p>
<h2>Communication is key</h2>
<p>World-renowned expert and scholar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Rousseau">Denise Rousseau</a> has described psychological contracts as motivating workers to fulfil commitments made to employers. But they only work when workers are confident that employers will deliver something in return. </p>
<p>Psychological contracts include an intricate and complex web of social and cultural dynamics. These go beyond simply setting workplace expectations or maintaining strong team bonds between peers. </p>
<p>But the difficulty with these contracts is that very often key aspects aren’t clearly communicated. And in South Africa diverse cultural and personal needs must be taken into account. For example, people from different social backgrounds might have different communication styles which can be influenced by language. Organisations that don’t deal with these complexities face a greater risk of causing misunderstandings in the work place.</p>
<h2>Generational differences</h2>
<p>On top of this South Africa is recovering from a unique set of historical circumstances and inequalities. Change is often perceived differently by different generations. </p>
<p>Beyond the usual <a href="http://www.smesouthafrica.co.za/Bridging-the-generational-gap-in-the-workplace/">differences between</a> Baby Boomers – those born during the post–World War II years – and Millennials, South Africa’s inter-generational differences carry their own <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/egm11/EGM_Expert_Paper_Monde_Makiwane.pdf">unique stamp</a>. This is because of the country’s history. For example those born after 1994, or the “born frees”, have a vastly different experience to their parents of their place in the country – what is known as inter-generational disjuncture. </p>
<p>In South Africa generational differences play out in a number of areas. They can affect, for example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>people’s attitude towards employment equity policies; </p></li>
<li><p>what constitutes a reasonable work-life balance, and </p></li>
<li><p>different understandings of when time off should be given for cultural observances. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Generally, Baby Boomers prefer teamwork where they’re in charge. Generation X, a generation that came after the baby boomers, tends to favour teams where individual contribution is valued.</p>
<p>The Millenials, the generation typically born in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, show <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html">little allegiance</a> to their employers, but higher levels of loyalty to their work and their peers.</p>
<p>This underlines the need for new approaches as this generation increasingly moves through the workforce. Building sound relationships between all parties within the workplace becomes more important than ever to foster loyalty. </p>
<h2>Uniquely South African solutions</h2>
<p>The good news is that there are uniquely local solutions to these challenges. For example, the African philosophy of <a href="https://www.enca.com/media/video/ubuntu-shaping-current-workplace-african-wisdom">Ubuntu</a>, has a key role to play in achieving more humane and productive workplaces. </p>
<p>Ubuntu is underpinned by values of generosity, hospitality, friendliness, care and compassion as well as accessibility and affirmation. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-African-management-Lovemore-Mbigi/dp/1874997144">Lovemore Mbigi</a>, renowned South African author, argues that within the organisational setting, Ubuntu means remaining focused on caring about people and the environment around them. That links well with the expectations that Millenials have <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html">globally</a>.</p>
<p>Human resource professionals are also probing the opportunities that the inter-generational offers in terms of relationship building. A system of ‘reverse mentorship’, for example, allows for skills transfer between generations. A Baby Boomer or Generation X colleague may offer a Millenial experience and insight. The Millenial, in turn, might bring new knowledge of updated skills or technologies. </p>
<p>Additionally, bringing Ubuntu into the workplace can build and consolidate interpersonal relationships where effective cross-generational collaborations can flourish.</p>
<h2>Start at the beginning</h2>
<p>All workplace challenges can be navigated more easily if well-understood psychological contracts are in place. But their often unspoken nature makes this tricky. And it starts even before the job interview. Prospective recruits form expectations based on branding, and the wording of job advertisements.</p>
<p>It’s therefore crucial for managers to ensure that communication is clear, considerate and respectful. And that mutual understandings are clarified to avoid the breakdown of trust. </p>
<p>If employee relationships are at the heart of retaining the competitive advantage, then successfully navigating the complex territory of a psychological contract in South Africa is central to this. The success of companies depends on mastering an intricate navigation of demographics. With focus, respect and clear communication, it can be done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Ronnie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Breach of a psychological contract in the workplace can irreparably damage relationships and produce a number of undesirable outcomes.Linda Ronnie, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour and People Management, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/741582017-03-15T19:16:11Z2017-03-15T19:16:11ZTwo decades after Gangland, the precariat is ageing and cultural scapegoating thrives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160880/original/image-20170315-11525-f3k0kb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cultural scapegoating 'still functions as a proxy for economic marginalisation'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hartwig HKD/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the second of our articles examining the influential book Gangland 20 years on, its author Mark Davis reflects on the cultural landscape today.</em> </p>
<p>“Has anything changed?” Two decades after I published my book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21796288-gangland">Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism</a>, about the domination of the “generation of ‘68” in Australian cultural life, I still get asked that question.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sure, many of the personages who I had a bit of fun with in the book are still around. Phillip Adams still rules on Late Night Live and has a column, apparently, somewhere behind the Murdoch paywall. Ray Martin pops up on TV from time to time. Anne Summers is still a strong voice for feminism. I still see literary critic Peter Craven’s byline on reviews and commentary from time to time. Alan Jones still thunders away on talkback. Helen Garner still writes books. But others have retreated from public life — Beatrice Faust, David Williamson, George Negus. And others who starred in the book — Christopher Pearson, Paddy McGuiness — have slipped away entirely.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a new group of movers and shakers has come into the media spotlight: Waleed Aly; Maxine Beneba Clarke; Mariam Veiszadeh; Tim Soutphommasane; Susan Carland; Anita Heiss; Yassmin Abdel-Magied. And that’s just off the top of my head. Now, many of them, ahem, aren’t exactly the voice of youth. But hey, they’re a new guard.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miranda Devine in 2014: part of the ‘conservative flotilla’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And then there’s the conservative flotilla that has arrived since the late 1990s. Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Tim Wilson, Rita Panahi, Janet Albrechtsen, Tim Blair, Chris Kenny. A whole book could be written about how they take up lots of prime media real estate but pretend to be beleaguered by the left.</p>
<p>But the roll call of people who took up a lot of airtime was only half the story.</p>
<p>Actually, Gangland was a book about a lot of things. (Though not actual gun-toting gangsters, which is where it got filed in some bookshops, with Chopper Read.) </p>
<p>It was a book about the culture wars and the theory wars. About second versus third wave feminism, and the myths of “victim feminism”. About panics about “political correctness” and the easy adoption of anti-PC speak by members of the “generation of 68” who should have known better. It was about piercings, tattoos, and anxieties about technological change, seen in “spotter’s guides” to youth subcultures that appeared in the media (“know your Goth”), and hoary staples of 1990s journalism, like young people are only useful to have around when you need to program a VCR.</p>
<p>My aim was to talk about the cultural issues impacting Australia at the time, and ask why they were so often expressed through the prism of generational difference even as the voices of young people were relatively absent in public commentary.</p>
<p>I also wanted to talk about intergenerational inequality. It seemed to me that young people were being set up for a fall. Moral panics about young people in the mainstream media, and their relative absence in that media other than as a spectacle of unworthiness, made it easy to cast them as scapegoats for their own disenfranchisement.</p>
<p>In this respect not much has changed at all. You could write the same book right now. Negative gearing for investors. Rampant housing speculation. Astronomical rents. Attacks on penalty rates. Fee-paying degrees. TAFE cutbacks. A lack of full-time, full wage jobs. Inaction on global warming. Lockout laws. The transforming of welfare and employment agencies into organisations of social punishment. All impact disproportionately on the young and many are straightforward intergenerational theft.</p>
<p>The institutional lockout of young people, as others have said, is an analogue for a <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/march/1456750800/richard-cooke/boomer-supremacy">larger cultural and psychic lockout</a>.</p>
<p>Cultural scapegoating, meanwhile, still functions as a proxy for economic marginalisation. We all know the media stereotypes about how “gen y/millennials” are <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/gen-x-perceptions-a-workplace-challenge-for-gen-y-20150610-ghl8dm.html">“lazy” and “entitled”</a> brats who need to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/gen-x-and-y-its-time-to-toughen-up-20150305-13wjy2">“toughen up”</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/money/planning/staying-at-home-for-longer-leaves-parents-counting-the-costs-20170215-gue1f4.html">sponge off their parents</a>, are <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/another-brick-in-the-wall-of-gen-y-cultural-decline-20140106-30dg4.html">degrading the culture</a>, lack “hunger” <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/why-oh-why-does-gen-y-not-get-it-20131016-2vn4u.html">on the sporting field</a>, and are <a href="http://junkee.com/new-breed-gen-y-bludgers-destroying-australia-according-daily-telegraph/85377">destroying the economy</a> with their “bludging” ways. And how they need to be treated differently at work because they’re <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/continuous-candidates-how-gen-y-changed-the-employment-game/news-story/d190c3515d0546e4b8e42cb60627f17d">unreliable “job-hoppers”</a> with <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/generation-unprepared-the-school-and-university-leavers-with-no-skills-to-work-at-all/news-story/0e91ba570511643e5e223910aecf9616">no work ethic</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"829118284192690178"}"></div></p>
<p>All of which <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace-relations/university-of-sydney-research-busts-myths-about-gen-y-and-millennials-20160609-gpfti1.html">recent research</a> <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/five-facts-which-show-gen-y-has-it-worse-than-baby-boomers/7644186">shows</a> to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-in-the-workplace-not-as-different-as-you-think-74107">simply untrue</a>, not to mention out of touch with <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/events/generation-less-exploring-the-economic-challenge-for-young-australians/">economic reality</a>. Meanwhile some demographer pays $22 for <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/moralisers-we-need-you/news-story/6bdb24f77572be68330bd306c14ee8a3">smashed avo</a> at his local hipster café (it’s $17 at my local) and <a href="http://mashable.com/2016/10/17/millennials-respond-to-smashed-avocado-criticism/#CcTBUYNOJaq6">starts</a> a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3849462/Columnist-Bernard-Salt-causes-outrage-smashed-avocado-housing-affordability.html">media</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/sold-to-the-kid-eating-avo-toast?utm_term=.ombly3ZpX#.kied6eD8R">storm</a> with talk about how if young people didn’t waste their money on such indulgences they’d be able to afford a deposit on a house. Um, yeah, sure.</p>
<p>But this is no longer just about young people. In the 1990s, young people were at the cutting edge of economic reform, guinea pigs for waves of workplace casualisation, the privatisation of education, attacks on welfare, and the watering down of workplace protections.</p>
<p>Young people, along with women and working class men, have been the tryout audience for a new <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Precariat-New-Dangerous-Class/dp/1472536169">economic precarity</a> that is now working its way up the social strata into the middle classes. Even old age pensioners now, are having to deal with cutbacks once unthinkable.</p>
<p>Intergenerational warfare isn’t the answer to any of this.</p>
<p>Nor is the far-right populism currently sweeping the world. As I said back in the 1990s, the plight of young people said a lot about failed political leadership and failed economic orthodoxies. Not much, then, has changed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Smashed avo storms, news stories about lazy millennials … Has anything changed in the 20 years since Mark Davis wrote his influential book Gangland?Mark Davis, Lecturer in Publishing and Communications, University of Melbourne, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/729532017-03-15T03:34:53Z2017-03-15T03:34:53ZYoung people, the media and Gangland 20 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160667/original/image-20170314-10716-qm58jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clementine Ford: one of the younger voices more visible now in mainstream media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen and Unwin/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1997, Mark Davis published <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/current-affairs-politics/Gangland-Mark-Davis-9781864483406">Gangland: Cultural elites and the new generationalism</a>. The book analysed some of the ways in which “young people” were being misrepresented and/or underrepresented in Australian media and intellectual circles circa the 1990s.</p>
<p>Davis’ work was (in his words) “unashamedly provocative”. “Younger people just can’t get it right,” he wrote, in his witty and upfront style. “They’re either full of piercings or complete prudes. Whatever the case, they just aren’t it.” The book received a lively critical reception - one <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/144078339903500106">reviewer</a> wrote of exclaiming “that’s so true!” as she read it – and generated a robust debate about cultural gatekeepers and media cliques. </p>
<p>Ten years after Gangland’s publication, Davis <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/general/turf-war/2007/05/17/1178995321422.html?page=4">suggested</a> not much had changed. The mainstream media, he wrote, was still <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/exhibita/battle-of-the-generations/3239856">dominated by baby boomers</a> and a new gang of conservatives such as Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine now dominated the political agenda in newspaper columns and from behind their microphones. </p>
<p>It’s now, of course, 2017. How does Gangland stand up 20 years later? Are Davis’ insights still relevant in a radically different media sphere and socio-political context? The answer to that latter question, I’d argue, is “yes” – to some extent.</p>
<p>In 2017, young people here still face social inequalities. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/youth-unemployment-hotspots-persist-in-regional-rural-australia/7246418">Youth unemployment remains high</a>, particularly in rural and regional areas, and young people are finding it <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-20/how-can-you-actually-get-into-the-housing-market/7946668">increasingly difficult</a> to break into the housing market.</p>
<p>They are still, too, the subjects of media-fuelled moral panics: witness the recent press coverage of <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/a/34396093/revellers-attacked-robbed-as-rampaging-teens-storm-festival/#page1">“rampaging teen mobs”</a> in Melbourne’s outer western suburbs, or of the <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/social-media-can-damage-young-peoples-mental-health-research-shows/news-story/e8762527e460b0a0093b9373e8330869">“dangers”</a> to young people’s mental health on social media. </p>
<p>In saying this, the rise of social media over the last decade or so has had some advantages for young people. For instance, a <a href="https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-016-0366-0">2016 study</a> showed that Indigenous youth have used social media to share knowledge and experiences with one another, and “challenge stereotypes”. (Despite their also experiencing incidences of cyber bullying and cyber racism.) </p>
<p>Equally, in recent years, young people have become more visible in “traditional” media (e.g. television, newspapers). Think of Clementine Ford, Josh Thomas, Nazeem Hussain, Jessica Mauboy, Hunter Page-Lochard and Benjamin Law, to list just a few names. Many of these individuals also have a vibrant social media presence.</p>
<p>By devoting an entire book to the concept of “generationalism”, it might seem that Davis was tacitly endorsing this notion. I suggest that it’s more accurate to read Gangland as exploring the forms that “generationalism” took in 1990s Australia, and trying to understand why this phenomena was (and, indeed, still is) so problematic. </p>
<p>In order to fix a problem, one must name it - that is what I see Davis doing in his book. </p>
<p>Labels, such as Gen X or Gen Y or whatever, conceal as much as they reveal; glossing over the diversity that will exist within any social group and erasing the differences that exist within social movements. For instance, the term “millenial feminism” supposedly encompasses feminists who have come of age in the 21st century but while Lena Dunham (creator and star of the HBO series <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_(TV_series)">Girls</a>) has been branded a “millenial feminist”, her gender politics have been <a href="http://thetab.com/us/2016/12/23/notmyfeminism-lena-dunham-not-millennial-feminist-champion-57154">disputed</a> by other young feminists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160831/original/image-20170314-10163-o10j90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lena Dunham campaigning for Hillary Clinton last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Frank/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conversely, “generationalism” can conceal similarities between political and artistic activities undertaken in different historical periods. </p>
<p>In 2017, Australian “young people” are playing more active roles in the media. Nevertheless, they continue to face issues such as unemployment and media misrepresentation. Young people are frequently overlooked by politicians, who seem more fixated (at least at the level of rhetoric) on “families” (recall the ALP’s beloved <a href="https://theconversation.com/working-families-tonys-tradies-what-will-this-years-budget-soundbite-be-57354">“working families”</a> from a few years back, and there are many other examples).</p>
<p>And so, I wonder, do we need a Gangland for the 21st century? What would such a book look like? Would it have the same cultural impact as Davis’ text did 20 years ago? </p>
<p>With “generationalism” still alive in 2017, I would suggest that a new Gangland-style book is, at the very least, a good idea. </p>
<p><em>Tomorrow: Mark Davis writes on his book, two decades on.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Daniel Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is 20 years since author Mark Davis wrote his influential book Gangland exploring the domination of baby boomers in public life. Is it time for a fresh exploration of ‘generationalism’ today?Jay Daniel Thompson, Lecturer and Tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.