A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964.[1] The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even within a given territory. Different groups, organizations, individuals, and scholars may have widely varying opinions on what constitutes a baby boomer, both technically and culturally. Ascribing universal attributes to a broad generation is difficult, and some observers believe that it is inherently impossible. Nonetheless, many people have attempted to determine the broad cultural similarities and historical impact of the generation, and thus the term has gained widespread popular usage. In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence.[3] As a group, they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.[4]
One feature of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about.[5] This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon.
The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave"[3] and as "the pig in the python."[4] By the sheer force of its numbers, the boomers were a demographic bulge which remodeled society as it passed through it.
The term Generation Jones has sometimes been used to distinguish those born from 1954 onward from the earlier Baby Boomers.[6][7][8]
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The United States Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964.[9]
Landon Jones, who coined the term "baby boomer" in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1943 through 1960, when annual births increased over 4,000,000. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, well known for their generational theory, define the social generation of Boomers as the cohorts born from 1943 to 1960, who were too young to have any personal memory of World War II, but old enough to remember the postwar American High.[10]
The Golden Boomers are Baby Boomers who are retired or will retire from an occupation or profession.[11] As the Baby Boomers are defined in different ways, the Golden Boomers can also be defined differently. The characteristics pertaining to the Golden Boomers are unique compared to those of the Traditionalist, the Generation X, and the Generation Y in population studies. In particular, with January 1, 2011 which "officially" started the Era of the Golden Boomers," the term "the Golden Boomers" began to generate significant impact on worldwide populations.[12] Marketing firms and professionals have begun to use the phrase "Golden Boomers" in describing the particular segment of the market as the size of older population grows and the potentials for business activities around the Golden Boomers by many industries are recognized.[13]
In Ontario, Canada, one influential attempt to define the boom came from David Foot, author of Boom, Bust and Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century, published in 1997 and 2000. He defines a Canadian boomer as someone born from 1947 to 1966, the years that more than 400,000 babies were born. However, he acknowledges that is a demographic definition, and that culturally it may not be as clear-cut.[14] Doug Owram argues that the Canadian boom took place from 1943 to 1960, but that culturally boomers (everywhere) were born between the late war years and about 1955 or 1956. He notes that those born in the years before the actual boom were often the most influential people among boomers; for example, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and writers like Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg who were considerably older than the boomer generation. Those born in the 1960s might well feel disconnected from the cultural identifiers of the earlier boomers.[15]
Bernard Salt places the Australian baby boom between 1943 and 1960.[16][17]
Another definition for the Baby Boom is the decade after the Second World War, that is 1946 to 1955.
Boomers are more distant from their parents than their children, Generation Y, are to them. While many Boomers are doting helicopter parents to their Gen Y children; back in 1974, 40% of Boomers said that their life would be better without their parents, according to one poll.
Seventy-six million American children were born between 1945 and 1964, representing a cohort that is significant on account of its size alone. 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.[18]
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."[19] 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",[20] or Time article of February 9, 1948.[21] The effect of the baby boom continued to be analyzed and exploited throughout the 1950s and 60s.[22]
The age wave theory suggests an economic slowdown when the boomers start retiring during 2007–2009.[23]
Baby Boomers control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power., July 2011 They are responsible for more than half of all consumer spending, buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of OTC medication and 80% of all leisure travel., July 2011
Boomers grew up at a time of dramatic social change. In the United States, that social change marked the generation with a strong cultural cleavage, between the proponents of social change and the more conservative. Some analysts believe this cleavage played out politically since the time of the Vietnam War to the mid-2000s, to some extent defining the political landscape and division in the country.[24][25]
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."[26]
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 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 and escaped the draft; Canadian Boomers were organizing support for Pierre Trudeau. It is precisely because of these experiences that many believe those born in the second half of the birth boom belong to another generation, as events that defined their coming of age have little in common with leading or core boomers.
The baby 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.
The Baby Boomers were the first generation, at least in Western countries, to grow up with television; some of the most popular shows during the Boomer era were The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, The Twilight Zone, The Ed Sullivan Show and Happy Days.
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?"[27] For the baby boomers the results were:
As of 1998, it was reported that, as a generation, boomers had tended to avoid discussions and planning for their demise and avoided much long-term planning.[32] However, beginning at least as early as that year, there has been a growing dialogue on how to manage aging and end-of-life issues as the generation ages.[33] In particular, a number of commentators have argued that Baby Boomers are in a state of denial regarding their own aging and death and are leaving an undue economic burden on their children for their retirement and care.[34][35][36] According to the 2011 Associated Press and LifeGoesStrong.com surveys:
An indication of the importance put on the impact of the boomer was the selection by Time magazine of the Baby Boom Generation as its 1966 "Man of the Year". As Claire Raines points out in ‘Beyond Generation X’, “never before in history had youth been so idealized as they were at this moment.” When Generation X came along it had much to live up to and to some degree has always lived in the shadow of the Boomers, more often criticized (‘slackers’, ‘whiners’ and ‘the doom generation’) than not.[39] 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.[19]
Willetts, David, The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took their Children's Future and How They Can Give it Back, Atlantic, 2010.
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