Oh Those Generations!
By Wendy Douglass, Colorado State University
Extension Technology
August 2002
Every time you pick up a copy of a publication or watch a news show, there is
a mention of the “Baby Boomers” or the Net Generation or the “Xers.” Who are
these people? How do you know ‘who is what’? The Census Bureau doesn’t categorize
generations (and overlapping generations) with catchy names, so most are
created by popular culture, book authors or marketers and picked up as common
terms. A “generation” is composed of people whose common location in history
lends them a collective persona. The span of one generation is roughly the length of
a phase of life. David L. Morgan, in an article: “The Aging of the Baby Boom” in
Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging” said, “When we slice out a particular
set of birth cohorts, such as the baby boom, and label them a generation, this
requires us to locate ‘watersheds’ those events and patterns that mark the generation
as distinctively different from the ones that precede and follow it.”
Bill Murray, on his Web site “The Time Page,” noted that “when a major social
trauma occurs, such as a war or famine, each of the generational groups react to the
crisis according to the phase of life they are in. As time passes, the lasting effect of
the event, or events, tends to mold each group’s personality differently. As each
group moves into a new phase of life, they carry a different perspective from the
previous generation and carry on the role in their own distinctive way. At any given
time the various social roles are being played by unique personality alignments, which
in turn shape ongoing events. This feedback system tends to repeat itself every four
generations.” (Read more about it in Strauss and Howe’s book, The Fourth Turning:
An American Prophecy.)
Using a bit of Internet research (which included some conflicting dates), I have
provided a brief glimpse of today’s generations that should provide an estimated
guideline to help us all sort out those X’ers and Y’ers, oldsters and others:
Generation terms (& birth
dates): Ages
today:
Approx how many:
(estimates available)
*Matures (people
born before 1946) 57+ 57
million
Subset: The
Interbellum
92-101 850
thousand
Generation
(1901-1910)
Subset: G.I.
Generation (1911-1924)
78-91
15 million
Subset: Silent
Generation (1925-1942)
60-77 30
million
*Baby Boomers
(1946-1964)
38-56 77-80
million
Subset: Generation
Jones
(1954-1964) 38-48 48
million
*Thirteenth Generation—also known
as
21-41
100 million
Generation
(1961-1981)
Subset:
Generation Re-Run
(1965-1976) 26-37 48
million
Subset:
Post-Busters
(1969-1980)
22-33 46
million
*Millennial Generation
(1982-2002)
0-20
80 million
*Generation Y or Net Generation (1977-1997)
5-25 80
million
Subset:
Generation Xceptional (1976-1986)
16-26 44
million
Subset: Echo Boomers
(1981-1990)
12-21 40
million
Subset: Generation Now
(1984-1991)
11-18
40 million
Subset: Generation
M
(1987-1997)
5-15 41 million
*To be named
(2002-2222) 0 and so on
Sites to See
For more information, contact the
Communications and Technology staff.
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