United States Baby
BOOMERS...
There is some agreement 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 1964.
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 makes 1964 a good
year to mark the end of the baby boom in the U.S.
In his book Boomer Nation, Steve Gillon states
that the baby boom began in 1946 and ends in 1964, but
he breaks Baby Boomers into two groups: Boomers, born
between 1945 and 1957; and Shadow Boomers born between
1958 and 1964.
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. 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.
William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book
Generations, include those conceived by
soldiers on leave during the war, putting the
generation's birth years at 1943 to 1960. Howe and
Strauss argue that people born between 1961 and 1964
have political and cultural patterns very different from
those born between 1955 and 1960 and fit into what those
writers term the Thirteenth Generation or
Generation X (also known as the Cold War generation)
born between 1961 and 1981.
The definition of
boomers as born from 1943-1960 has become more accepted
as the influence of Strauss and Howe has grown. There
are others who put the dates at 1946 to 1963, because of
the number of significant "Gen-X" figures born in 1964.
There were over 79 million babies born during that
generation.
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 a
ten-year range of 1946 to 1955 as defining the baby
boomers.
This would fit the
thirtysomethings demographic covered by the TV show
of the same name which aired from 1987-1991. This would
mean that those born in the years 1956 to 1965 would be
Generation X and
in the late 1980s would have been called twentysomethings. The cultural
disaffiliates
of those born after 1957 (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.
Further complicating the definition of the baby
boomer generation is the new
Generation Jones which has been defined
as 1954-1965.
This definition was created because of the vastly
different experiences of the children born during the
nineteen years traditionally defined as the baby boom.
Source:
Wikipedia |
