3

The Ever-So-Important Delineation of the Generations

COUNTING PEOPLE IS the easy part. Figuring them out takes work. It’s one thing to say that according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were roughly 320 million people living in the United States as of 2015. It’s a whole other thing to explain exactly who these people are. Some of the ways in which we can describe these people are by sex, age, race, ethnicity, state of residence. Or we could get into religion, employment, income levels, or even sexual preference. Essentially, any group that can constitute a distinct population can be used. But I tend to focus primarily on age, or, more specifically, the age cohorts known as generations. Thus, I am considered a “generational demographer.”

On the one hand this is quite effective because people can easily relate to the different U.S. generations, especially given that “Baby Boomers” have been making news since they were first described as a “boom” by Sylvia F. Porter in a 1951 New York Post article, and Generation Y has been making news since researchers decided in about the early 1990s that Gen X was no longer worth talking about. Plus, generations, which tend to have distinct personalities all on their own, are fun to write and speak about.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of generational demographics is mitigated by the fact that there are no clearly established and universally accepted birth-date ranges or age spans that specifically delineate the different generations. Next time you read an article about Gen Y, take note of whether the author has bothered to delineate its members by noting their age span or birth-date range. If so, try to compare that delineation with another source from a different article. I’ll bet you’ll find that they are different and, more likely than not, many years apart. I’ve seen Generation Y described as being born between 1980 and 2000, or 1985 to 2006, and even 1977 to 1994. They usually get a twenty-year time span, and sometimes less, but rarely get more. In fact, I recently noticed that the U.S. Census Bureau has apparently given Gen Y an eighteen-year span, calling them born between 1982 and 2000. The Bureau delineates Boomers as having a twenty-year span, so why would it shortchange the Ys? I just don’t get it.

When I first started examining the generations, I noticed that poor Generation X, already being maligned for all kinds of shortcomings, was usually shortchanged by researchers who granted them only a ten- to fifteen-year span. It made me want to scream then, and I still want to scream today every time I see Gen X short-changed by a researcher who gives the generation only ten years, yet gives the other generations twenty. How can a generation span only ten or fifteen years? It’s not like they started having babies at age 10. I mean, really!

I think part of the reason there is no universally accepted delineation is because researchers and marketers like it that way. It lets them move the goalposts in case they need to shift populations in order to fit a particular preconceived premise. And, actually, I must confess guilt to sometimes moving the goalposts, though not for the purposes of making population numbers fit a preconceived notion, but because it makes sense.

For example, I adopted the twenty-year time frame to delineate the generations because the traditional view of a generation holds it to be roughly twenty years—the time between the birth of the parents and the birth of their offspring. However, in my book The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, I attempted to give Generation Y a twenty-five-year span, based on the fact that North Americans are delaying childbirth and that twenty-five years is now a much more realistic time frame between the birth of parents and their offspring. However, I abandoned this delineation with its attendant oversize numbers soon after the book came out because a twenty-year Gen Y span was big enough on its own right without the additional population of five more years. Those extra years and resultant additional people just weren’t fair to the earlier generations. And, as a public speaker, having to explain Gen Y’s abrupt delineation change to audiences disrupted the smooth flow of my generational descriptions.

Nevertheless, I still believe that generations should now be delineated with twenty-five-year time frames going forward—maybe we can push this through with Generation Z as it continues to usher in this still new century.

TABLE 3.1

THE U.S. GENERATIONS DELINEATED

With my standard generational delineation, as utilized for my books and speaking, I selected the most accurate generational chronology that I felt defined the Baby Boomers. The baby boom began in 1945/1946 and represents the large population boom that developed as the soldiers returned home from World War II. Among the most common delineation of the Baby Boomer years is 1945 to 1964. This being established, it was easy to align the Silent Generation, G.I. Generation, Generation X, Generation Y, and the oncoming Generation Z into twenty-year segments.

I have also worked with the delineation based on the Baby Boomer years being 1946 to 1965—not to make the generational numbers fit a particular preconceived notion, but in order to better align the generations with the U.S. Census Bureau’s five-year counts, so as to provide clients with the most accurate counts of smaller age cohorts within the specific generations. With the exception of the Boomer population, this one-year shift does not significantly change the overall birth numbers of each generation. For the Boomers, this one-year shift forward increases their birth population by 1.4 million. This shift also adds 300,000 to Generation Y, but decreases the Silent Generation by 100,000.

Numbers aside, it is important to always remember that generations are markets and these generations are always on the move because they are aging. You can’t slow aging down, you can’t speed it up, and you can’t pretend, like Hollywood, that aging doesn’t happen. Think of a parade of customers/generations marching past your business. Some have passed you by, completed the parade route, and are already disbanding. Some customers are marching in place directly in front of you and you are selling them your goods and services. They are buying your goods and services because this is the stage of their lives when they consume your particular goods and services. Most goods and services have an age-related sweet spot. For example, babies consume formula and diapers; children under 10 consume clothing, candy, and Coco-Puffs; teens consume fashion, soft drinks, and video games; people in their 20s consume entertainment, cosmetics, and more fashion because they are looking for mates; thirtysomethings consume houses, household items, insurance, baby products, and automobiles; folks in their 40s consume houses, legal services, boats, and more automobiles; 50-year-olds are at their peak earnings and consume everything, including second homes, bigger boats, bigger cars, expensive divorces, and travel; 60-year-olds consume cruises, pharmaceuticals, and retirement; 70-year-olds consume more pharmaceuticals and one-story living; 80-plus-year-olds are just happy to be alive and consume assisted living and funerals. OK, so this is a bit simplistic, but I think you get the point. Your future customers are aging toward you and the youngest are just now forming and joining the parade at the fairground. Thus, it is important that you understand the sizes of the different generations no matter how they’ve been delineated so that you can plan accordingly.

So now that you better understand the generations and how they are delineated, let’s take a closer look at the U.S. generations, and the U.S. population as a whole.