Baby boomer

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For further information, see Post-World War II baby boom.

Baby boomer is an American-English term to describe a person born between 1946 and 1964. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom. The term is iconic and more properly capitalized as Baby Boomers. The terms "baby boomer" and "baby boom" along with others (e.g. "boomies" or "boomers") are also used in countries with demographics that did not mirror the sustained growth in American families over the same interval.[1]

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There is some disagreement as to the exact beginning and end dates of the baby boom, but the range most commonly accepted is as starting in 1946 and ending in 1965.[2][3][4] The problem with this definition is that this period may be too long for a cultural generation, even though it covers a time of increased births. If the gross number of births were the indicator, births began to decline from the peak in 1957 (4,300,000), but fluctuated or did not decline by much more than 40,000 (1959-1960) to 60,000 (1962-1963) until a sharp decline from 1964 (4,027,490) to 1965 (3,760,358). This sharp decline resulted from millions of women using birth control pills, which were introduced in 1960 in the U.S., and widely used by 1964. [5] This makes 1964 a good year to mark the end of the baby boom in the U.S.[6]

While 1946-1964 reflect the post-WWII demographic boom in births, there is a growing consensus among generational experts that two distinct cultural generations occupy these years. The conceptualization that has gained the most public acceptance is that of a 1942-1953 Baby Boom Generation, followed by a 1954-1965 Generation Jones. Boomers and Jonesers had dramatically different formative experiences which gave rise to dramatically different collective personalities. Other monikers have been sometimes used to describe the younger cohort, like "Trailing Edge Boomers", "Late Boomers", and "Shadow Boomers", but the moniker "Generation Jones" has achieved far more popularity than any of these other terms, and is the only moniker for this cohort that is commonly used in the media.

In his book Boomer Nation, Steve Gillon states that the baby boom began in 1946 and ends in 1960, but he breaks Baby Boomers into two groups: Boomers, born between 1945 and 1957; and Shadow Boomers born between 1958 and 1964.[7] Further, in Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers, author Brent Green defines Leading-Edge Boomers as those born between 1946 and 1955. This group is a self-defining generational cohort or unit because its members all reached their late teen years during the height of the Vietnam War era, the defining historical event of this coming-of-age period. Green describes the second half of the demographic baby boom, born from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s as either Trailing-Edge Boomers or Generation Jones. [8] In some cases the term Shadow Boomer is incorrectly applied to the children of the Baby Boomers; this group is more accurately referred to as Echo Boomers.

It can be argued that the defining event of early Baby Boomers was the Vietnam War and the protest over the draft, which ended in 1973. Since anyone born after 1955 was not subject to the draft, this argues for the ten years including 1946 to 1955 as defining the baby boomers. This would fit the thirtysomething demographic covered by the TV show of the same name which aired from 1987-1991. The cultural disaffinities of those born after 1955 (thereby missing the draft and being too young to be part of the 1960s) could be captured by the Gen X of Douglas Coupland in his book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. The term "X" has itself been transformed to cover a later cohort.

In the United States, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling is generally recognized as the nation's first baby boomer. She was born in Philadelphia on January 1, 1946, at 12:00:01 a.m. Casey-Kirschling applied for Social Security benefits on 15 October 2007, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World War II war generation. Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey, applied for benefits over the Internet at an event attended by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.[1]

In the United Kingdom, the pattern of birth rates was different. There was a sharp post-World War II peak in 1947, when more babies were born than in any year since the post-World War I peak in 1920. There was then a decline, followed by a broader but lower peak in the 1960s. Thus British Baby Boomers are younger than their American counterparts and had not risen to such prominence when the term was coined. The two peaks can clearly be seen in the age structure of England and Wales[9].

In the Soviet Union, members of the upswing in births born after World War II are called the Sputnik Generation after the Soviet-satellite launched in 1957. There was also competition on birth rate after the war. This was one of the many aspects of the Cold War.[10]

There is much debate that the 76 million American children born between 1945 and 1964 represent a cohort that is significant on account of its size. As of 2007, the term baby boomer is generally applied to anyone between the ages of 43 and 62. Boomers comprise nearly 28% of the adult US population.[11] In 2004, the UK baby boomers held 80% of the UK's wealth and bought 80% of all top of the range cars, 80% of cruises and 50% of skincare products.[12]

In addition to the size of the group, Steve Gillon has suggested that one thing that sets the baby boomers apart from other generational groups is the fact that "almost from the time they were conceived, Boomers were dissected, analyzed, and pitched to by modern marketers, who reinforced a sense of generational distinctiveness."[7] This is supported by the articles of the late 1940s identifying the increasing number of babies as an economic boom, such as in the Newsweek article of August 9, 1948, "Population: Babies Mean Business",[13] or Time article of February 9, 1948.[14] The effect of the baby boom continued to be analyzed and exploited throughout the 1950s and 60s.[15] One of the first books analyzing the baby boomers was Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation by Landon Y. Jones.[16]

Boomers have often found difficulty managing their time and money due to an issue that other generations have not had a problem with. Because the Baby Boomer's generation have found that their parents (due to modern technology) are living longer, their children are seeking a better and longer college education, and they themselves are having children later in life, the boomers have become "sandwiched" between generations. The "sandwich generation", coined in the 1980s, refers to baby boomers who must care for both elderly parents and young children at the same time.

The baby boomers were the first group to be raised with televisions in the home, and television has been identified as "the institution that solidified the sense of generational identity more than any other."[7] Starting in the 1940s, people in diverse geographic locations could watch the same shows, listen to the same news, laugh at the same jokes. Television shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver showed idealized family settings. Later, the boomers watched scenes from the Vietnam War and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy.

The boomers found that their music, most notably rock and roll, was another expression of their generational identity. Transistor radios were personal devices that allowed teenagers to listen to The Beatles and The Motown Sound.

In 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers. Citing Wade Clark Roof, a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the articles stated that about 42% of baby boomers were dropouts from formal religion, a third had never strayed from church, and one-fourth of boomers were returning to religious practice. The boomers returning to religion were "usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists. They are also more liberal, which deepens rifts over issues like abortion and homosexuality."[17]

It is jokingly said that, whatever year they were born, boomers were coming of age at the same time across the world; so that Britain was undergoing Beatlemania (which in fact occurred before the peak of the British baby boom in 1966) while people in the United States were driving over to Woodstock, organizing against the Vietnam War, or fighting and dying in the same war; boomers in Italy were dressing in mod clothes and "buying the world a Coke"; boomers in India were seeking new philosophical discoveries; American boomers in Canada had just found a new home after escaping the draft south of the border; Canadian Boomers were organizing support for Pierre Trudeau;. It is precisely these experiences why many believe that trailing boomers (those born in the 1960s) belong to another cohort, as events that defined their coming of age have nothing in common with leading or core boomers (which Daniel Yankelovich and other demographers made perfectly clear).

In the 1985 study of US generational cohorts by Schuman and Scott, a broad sample of adults was asked, "What world events over the past 50 years were especially important to them?"[18] For the baby boomers the results were:

  • Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from 1946 to 1954)
  • Baby Boomer cohort #2 (born from 1955 to 1964)
    • Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the Cold War, the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages
    • Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism

At some point, Baby Boomers will have a large impact on the health care industry (Funerals/Hospice/Cemeteries), but as a generation, they have tended to avoid discussions and planning for their demise and avoided much long term planning.[19]

Baby Boomers often experience high anxiety about aging and death, and live in denial of these realities of life. Many do not believe these events have to be a reality of life.[20][21][22][23]

Journalist Jeff Chang wrote in his book Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, "Boomers seem to have had great difficulty imagining what could come after themselves."[24]

One book, written by Colorado doctor Terry Grossman, titled "The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever," proposes how Baby Boomers might avoid death. On page 3 of the book, Grossman writes, unironically, "As an official member of the Baby Boomer Generation, I really and truly do not believe that it was intended for us to die. Death, if and when it occurs, clearly will represent a mistake of some kind."[25]

The humor publication The Onion published a satirical article celebrating the anticipated large-scale deaths of Baby Boomers in the upcoming years, quoting one fictional expert as saying the Boomers are "the most odious generation America has ever produced."[26]

One of the contributions made by the Boomer generation appears to be the expansion of individual freedom. Boomers often are associated with the civil rights movement, the feminist cause in the 1970s, gay rights, handicapped rights, and the right to privacy.[7]

Baby boomers presently make up the lion's share of the political, cultural, industrial, and academic leadership class in the United States. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, born within sixty days of each other in mid-1946, are the first and second Baby Boomer U.S. presidents, and their careers in office illustrate the wide, often diverging, spectrum of values and attitudes espoused by this largest American generational group to date. To date, baby boomers also have the highest median household incomes in the United States.[citation needed]

The boom generation has included, as of 2006, two Presidents of the United States:

  • Bill Clinton, born 1946, 1993-2001
  • George W. Bush, born 1946, 2001-incumbent

Other influential American politicians born during the post-war boom include:

It is estimated that the boom generation will hold a plurality in Congress until 2015, the White House until 2021, and will have a majority in the Supreme Court from 2010 to 2030.[citation needed]

Non-U.S. age-peers of the Boomers include:

In light of the generation gap and the poor state of the environment, Social Security, etc., Andrew Smith, in his novel Moondust, said that Baby Boomers have the unique distinction of "pissing off" both their parents' and their children's generations.[citation needed]

 This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

The Boom Generation has had many influential icons including:

Their cultural endowments have included the following:

Film
Music

  1. ^ Marchand, Philip, "Life Inside the Population Bulge: The scared, scrambling lives of the Boomies", Saturday Night Magazine, October 1979 retrieved from It Seems Like Yesterday e-zine on January 25, 2007
  2. ^ The Boomer Initiative retrieved 2007-01-25
  3. ^ Aging Hipsters retrieved 2007-01-25
  4. ^ It Seems Like Yesterday factoids retrieved 2007-01-25
  5. ^ http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/CONSUMER/CON00027.html
  6. ^ Birth numbers from the CDC, retrieved 2007-01-29
  7. ^ a b c d Gillon, Steve (2004) Boomer Nation: The Largest and Richest Generation Ever, and How It Changed America, Free Press, "Introduction", ISBN 0743229479
  8. ^ Green, Brent (2006) Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions, Paramount Market Books, ISBN 0976697351
  9. ^ Age Structure of England and Wales, UK Office for National Statistics UK population pyramids
  10. ^ Russian baby boomers of "Sputnik Generation" tell their stories in Donald J. Raleigh's book Russia's Sputnik Generation: Soviet Baby Boomers Talk about Their Lives
  11. ^ "About us", Boomj.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-05. 
  12. ^ Walker, Duncan (Sept 16, 2004) "Live Fast, Die Old", BBC News site, retrieved 2007-01-26.
  13. ^ "Population: Babies Mean Business", Newsweek, Aug 9, 1948 retrieved 2007-01-26
  14. ^ "Baby Boom", Time, Feb 9, 1948, retrieved 2007-01-26
  15. ^ Edsall, Richard,"Bouncing Birth Rate Will Mean Big Future Consumer Market", Canadian Business, February 1957retrieved from It Seems Like Yesterday e-zine on 2007-01-25
  16. ^ Jones, Landon Y., (1980 ed.), Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, Coward Mc Cann, 380 pages, ISBN 0698110498.
  17. ^ Ostling, Richard S., "The Church Search", 5 April 1993 Time article retrieved 2007-01-27
  18. ^ Schuman, H. and Scott, J. (1989), Generations and collective memories, American Psychological Review, vol. 54, 1989, pp. 359-81.
  19. ^ Baby boomers lag in preparing funerals, estates, et al The Business Journal of Milwaukee - December 18, 1998 by Robert Mullins retrieved 2007-06-18
  20. ^ Article in the New York Times, March 30, 1998
  21. ^ Article from the Associated Press, March 5, 2004
  22. ^ Article in the San Diego Union-Tribune
  23. ^ Article by Robert Samuelson
  24. ^ Excerpt from the book Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
  25. ^ Link to search the text of Terry Grossman's book The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever
  26. ^ Satirical article from The Onion

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Preceded by
Silent Generation
(1925-1941)		 Baby Boom Generation
(1942-1953)		 Succeeded by
Generation Jones
(1954-1965)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer"
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