Talk:Generation

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Discrepancy

The lede in states that a generation is "the average period, generally considered to be about thirty years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children of their own" but all the examples given are closer to twenty years when averaged out:

• The Lost Generation: 17 years
• The Greatest Generation: 25 years
• The Silent Generation: 17 years
• Baby boomers: 18 years
• Generation X: 15 years
• Millennials: 15 years
• Generation Z: 15 years

Averaging all that gives us about 19.6 ((17+25+17+18+15+15+15+15)/7) years so what gives?--174.99.238.22 (talk) 04:50, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

You’re confusing the primary definition of generation with the special meaning of “social generation” (or “social cohort”) used here. A generation is still 25-30 years. Drsruli (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Name of current Generation

Experts on radio documentaries are referring to "Generation Covid", presumably this would start in 2020? Or come of age around now? IS it the same as "Generation Z"? 2.31.162.107 (talk) 12:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that could be added to Other terminology as a cultural generation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.166.32.205 (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Micro-generations/cultural generations do not belong in the List of named generations

The description for a Generation on this page is "generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years". Not 5-10 years.

They belong in the Other terminology section, where "The term generation is sometimes applied to a cultural movement, or more narrowly defined group than an entire demographic." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.166.32.205 (talk) 19:15, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Generation timeline.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Once removed

‘Once removed’ redirects here, but this article doesn't define it.

​Fixed (changed redirect). Dan Bloch (talk) 23:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Why was the span changed from 50 years?

The definition of a generation used to be 50 years, why did they change it in the last 15-20 years? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.55.242 (talk) 23:14, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm in my 70s and don't recall 50 years ever being the definition of a generation. Do you have a reliable source saying it was? HiLo48 (talk) 01:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I think that you really mean more like thirty years. It’s the difference between the primary definition of generation and the special meaning of “social generation” used here. The article also acknowledges that some definitions (observations) extend baby boomers by a few years. Drsruli (talk) 18:25, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Asking for consensus on pseudoscience

Anybody who thinks generational theory is not pseudoscience, please write here why. Safyrr 16:49, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Uses of this tag require strong sourcing that establishes that the topic is widely considered to be pseudoscience; I'm not seeing that here, and the idea of a "generation" is widely-used concept, not a branch of science. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

OhNoitsJamie It is widely understood that grouping people in 15-30 year cohorts and then assigning personnalities to these cohorts based on supposedly shared experiences is bogus at best, propogating harmful stereotypes at worst. Generational theory also wants us to believe that a person's generation is just as important a factor in people's perspectives and behaviours as other factors like social status, class, age, race or sex. Generational theory is popular, like the chinese zodiac or astrology signs, but just like them, they assign personnality traits to large swaths of people just based on the date of their birth. It has been researched, and there is no real scientific basis for the existence of generations. Differences between age cohorts are very slight and are often simply the result of age; people at certain ages value certain things, and their priorities and values will shift when they grow older. The practice of continuing to propagate generational theory is mostly done by marketers to sell things, journalists to get clicks, and teens on social media because they want an identity to latch on to.

The practice is called out in all kinds of journals, I've included a few from the last few years:. There is even an open letter to the Pew Research Center by more than 150 scientists of different universities to telling them to stop using these labels:

References

This is obviously pseudoscience and no one can deny that. That is why the template should be included. Maybe one would argue that the template shouldn't be included because they think it is not "widely believed to be pseudoscience". I think it is hard to empirically prove if most of the world's population believes generational theory to be pseudoscience because to my knowledge no poll like that has been conducted on the matter (and likely never will). However, I think if you went out on the street and asked: "Would you avoid talking with someone born in the year 1964 because they are a Baby Boomer and they ruined the economy for future generations, while having no issue socialising with someone born in 1965 because they're a Gen-X-er and they're chill and they like rock music?" most people would just laugh and say no because that is absolutely ridiculous. They do not actually believe in this being real or science. If most people actually believed in this, there would also not be backlash against using words like Millennial or Baby Boomer. Safyrr 18:16, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

"Flawed research" is not the same thing as "psuedoscience." I have no objections to the article discussing criticism of generational labeling, but it doesn't seem appropriate to tag "generation" with the same tag used for Palm reading. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 18:26, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

It’s often approaches the same level of credibility as palm reading though. Big demographic shifts (like the baby boom) are worthy of study and definitely have effects, but it makes no sense at all to extrapolate that to having compulsory generational cohorts every twenty years. That’s just complete and utter nonsense and is more likely to obscure than explain anything. Flawed research is a sure sign that we’re moving into pseudoscience, much like the whole ‘men are from mars’ industry which lost touch with actual science quite a while ago. ⚜ Moilleadóir ✍ 04:35, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Romania’s generation

Add the “decreței” generation that came when communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu gave the decree that no abortion can be done anymore (starting may 1966 until he died) 95.87.210.142 (talk) 17:06, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Western world Generation names

Who and when invented these Western world generation names? Calimero (talk) 19:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

The generation labels seems to be USA-based. I'm from the UK, and have never heard of most of them.

I've heard of "Boomer" onwards, becuase they've entered the popular discourse in recent years (and we know of Generation X from the 1990s Coupland book). Digging around on Wikipedia a bit, I see that the term "greatest generation" was "popularized in 1998" (not in the UK it wasn't). And we certainly don't say "generation GI" (we didn't have GIs).

The term "silent generation" was apparently in time magazine in the 1950s. It still isn't a well known term in the UK.

As far as I can tell, this article, and others relating to social generations, seem to take a heavily US slant, and assume that the rest of the "western world" uses these terms, and thinks of the generations in this way. Rg9320 (talk) 06:57, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I see that Baby boomers § Etymology says, "The term baby boom refers to a noticeable increase in the birth rate. The post-World War II population increase was described as a "boom" by various newspaper reporters, including Sylvia F. Porter in a column in the May 4, 1951, edition of the New York Post, based on the increase of 2,357,000 in the population of the U.S. from 1940 to 1950." and, "The first recorded use of "baby boomer" is in a January 1963 Daily Press article by Leslie J. Nason describing a massive surge of college enrollments approaching as the oldest boomers were coming of age. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the modern meaning of the term to a January 23, 1970, article in The Washington Post." Quoting from the Daily Press article cited there:

In March, the Pew Research Center revamped their definitions for who gets counted under what generation. But who decides what those generations are named, if they get a name at all? Surprisingly, there isn’t one single clearinghouse where these names are chosen.

In 1941, an issue of LIFE Magazine—discussing the increasing birthrate due to older couples having children after the Great Depression and the many marriages that came about because of the peacetime draft of 1940—proclaimed that “the U.S. baby boom is bad news for Hitler.” [...] The children who would come to be known as Baby Boomers, however, wouldn’t be born for a few more years as soldiers returned home from the war and the economy “boomed.”

Although the children born from 1946 to 1964 get the name Baby Boomers, that phrase wouldn’t appear until near the end of the generation.

That's clearly U.S.-centric.

I was born in 1943 and grew up in the U.S. during the Boomers generation. I noticed the usage as a teenager and came to think of myself generationally as a "pre-boomer".

Digging around a bit, I came across McCrindle, M.; Wolfinger, E. (2011). "Generations Defined". The ABC of XYZ: Understanding the Global Generations. UNSW Press., from Australia. Take a look at the image at the bottom of p.22 in there. Pre-boomer. that doesn't fit with the U.S./PEW picture. You say that the picture is different in the UK, and it is surely different in e.g., Germany and Japan; probably all of Europe, Asia, Africa. I wonder about South and Central America.

The article needs some revamping to tone down the U.S.-centrism. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

It certainly does. I'm an Australian, born in 1948, and can distinctly remember the term "baby boom" being used fairly commonly during my pre-teen years. MY parents used it. Until I discovered Wikipedia I was unaware of any other names for any other generations. That really is a US thing. HiLo48 (talk) 23:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Following up my comment above, I came across this article which has an interesting chart in it (the first figure shown there). There may be copyright issues re reproducing that chart in Wikipedia, but take a look at it there. As I read it, it shows a clear jump in births immediately following WW-II in the US, the UK Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada -- the only countries shown --, but also shows that it was a short-term increase followed by a decline everywhere but in the US (that's based on trying to imagine what the chart would look like for individual countries if each country's chart had a straight baseline), and a long-term increase in the US which buoyed up world totals. There's OR and guesswork in that, but it might be worth exploring in other sources to clarify how much US-centrism there might be in this and related WP articles.Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 17:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Zalphas

Would something about zalphas be warranted? Gamerwierdo100 (talk) 03:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Other Terminology

Baby Busters. Drsruli (talk) 18:05, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Photograph of multiple generations

The first picture in the article shows four generations of a family, a rather underwhelming number.

Is there any chance of having possibly the only verified photograph of seven generations as fair use?

Thanks, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 08:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Update with Gen Beta

An overwhelming majority of sites claim that Gen Alpha ends in 2024/5, to be replaced by Gen Beta in 2025/6. Is it time to update, and add it to navigation? There is already an article. Orastor (talk) 23:15, 1 February 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Oatsandcream, see investigation)

https://generationalpha.com/articles/who-comes-after/

https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-kids-gen-beta-social-media-realization-2023-8

https://mccrindle.com.au/article/topic/generation-alpha/generation-alpha-defined/

https://swz.it/the-next-generation-beta/

https://yr.media/identity/generation-gen-beta-alpha-z-noumaan-faiz/

https://dupeiwashokun.medium.com/the-next-generation-generation-beta-b79f2105c408 Orastor (talk) 23:19, 1 February 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Oatsandcream, see investigation)

Note that sites like generationalpha.com and medium.com most definitely do not meet WP:RS. McCrindle possibly, but probably not. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/generation-after-gen-z-named-alpha/606862/ Here's one. Orastor (talk) 00:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Oatsandcream, see investigation)

The Atlantic doesn't say that the generation will be called Gen Beta. It says "by McCrindle’s definition...". McCrindle is a market research company in Australia. They don't get to decide the name of the generation. It may well be beta, but there is no widespread consensus yet. As I said previously, see WP:CRYSTAL. Also note that the generationalpha.com website is owned by McCrindle. Dan Bloch (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Damn. Well, let me know when it eventually DOES become the generation. Do you think (and I want a personal answer, not neutral-wikipedia) it is 2025? 2030? For all I know, Gen Alpha is the cohort from 2012-2100. Orastor (talk) 01:30, 2 February 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Oatsandcream, see investigation)

Besides being very good at marketing (they invented the Gen Alpha name), what distinguishes McCrindle is that they say that all generations are exactly fifteen years long and have a start year ending in 0 or 5, so millennials are 1980-1994, Gen Z is 1995-2009, Gen Alpha is 2010-2024, and Gen Beta is 2025-2039. This actually has a lot to recommend it--it means all the generations are the same length, so data analysis is easier, and it means that you know the dates for all the generations instead of everyone having to come up with their own and hope for a consensus. But, they haven't convinced anyone else to use their system.

The most common non-McCrindle dates for Gen Z are 1997-2012. Using this as a starting point, this suggests that non-McCrindle Gen Alpha is most likely to be 2013-2028, and non-McCrindle Gen Beta will start in 2029. There's some slop in that, but I'd be very surprised if it was before 2027. But there's no way of knowing. Maybe McCrindle will do such a good job of marketing that they'll convince the media. Dan Bloch (talk) 03:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! 174.3.207.112 (talk) 04:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Thank you! Orastor (talk) 04:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)( Blocked sockpuppet of Oatsandcream, see investigation)

I think it's too early to write much about Gen Beta, or whatever it will eventually be known as. It's all speculation for now. Let's revisit it when mainstream news widely covers it. cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 08:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Social generations aren't very real, and are getting less real

The average age for someone to have their first child is around 25. That is what a generation is, not some "Millennial", "Zoomer", "Gen X" lingo. The official beginning of the Baby Boomers to the end of Gen Z is 66 years. How many 66 year old great-grandparents are there? I suggest major refactoring to the "Social generation" and "List of social generations" sections to emphasize the arbitrary nature of social generation divisions. 104.228.105.47 (talk) 12:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

"The average age for someone to have their first child is around 25. " This sounds too young to me. My father had his first child in his 29th year of life (1976), my maternal grandfather had his first child in his 30th year of life (1956), and my maternal great-grandmother had her first child in her 28th year of life (1934). Marriage in Greece typically took place after a couple of years of mandatory military service. Dimadick (talk) 12:17, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It differs by region, but not only is the age at which one has children lengthening, social generation labels are getting shorter. Consensus on the length of the social generation 'Baby Boomers' is about 18 years, whereas 'Gen X', 'Millennials' and 'Gen Z' are defined around 15 years. 104.228.105.47 (talk) 13:03, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Missionary Generation?

I’ve heard the name elsewhere for the Generation before the Lost Generation, and they’re sometimes considered the first culturally distinct one, coming of adulthood during the ‘Gay 90s’ or ‘Nifty 90s’ or just the ‘90s’ at the time(which was the first decade to get a cultural nickname, a trend which would follow into the 20th century with the Roaring 20s, Dirty Thirties, et cetera) 2604:3D09:1F80:CA00:CD6D:1808:EA8D:52AF (talk) 05:19, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know the Missionary Generation is specific to Strauss–Howe generational theory (which had named generations all the way back to 1433), and isn't used by sources other than Strauss and Howe. The Missionary Generation is described in that article, but I don't think they deserve wider mention unless you have other sources. Dan Bloch (talk) 06:03, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

New essay

I've written an essay, Wikipedia:Defining generations is hard, which may be of interest to readers of this page. Dan Bloch (talk) 05:43, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Do we include different definitions for the other generations such as the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers? Why do the Millennials and Generation Z sections have multiple defintions but not the others? I had believed that there was already a majority concensus over on the Millennial page (1981-1996), with there being only a tiny few citations that end it at 1994/1995 (around 5 at most). So why include these but not to the Baby Boomers? 2601:940:C100:3920:95B3:F2A6:8E01:676A (talk) 21:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Introduction should be rewritten

I am writing this after seeing that https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Generation&diff=prev&oldid=1248369723 got reverted.

The argument given in the edit summary appears is understandable: with the exception of the "Greatest Generation", social generations — which is what this article is mostly about, and why most people read this article, based on the edits by anonymous IPs — are 15-20 years long; not 20-30 years. From the article itself (and backed by numerous sources):

• "The Lost Generation is defined as the cohort born from 1883 to 1900" → 18 years
• "The Greatest Generation [...] were born from 1901 to 1927" → 27 years
• "The Silent Generation [...] were born from 1928 to 1945" → 18 years
• "Baby boomers [...] are the people born [...] from 1946 to 1964. " → 19 years
• "Generation X [...] is generally defined as people born between 1965 and 1980" → 16 years
• "Millennials [...] is generally defined as the people born from 1981 to 1996." → 16 years
• "Pew Research Center describes Generation Z as spanning from 1997 to 2012." → 16 years

What the American Marketing Association source from the introduction is describing are familial generations (which, by the way, is surprising, since in marketing the notion of social generation is more important; but that's not the point).

In my opinion the introduction is confusing / misleading. The very first sentence should be that word generation has several meanings, and that the two main ones are familial generation and social generation. Then a definition should be given for each.

Malparti (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)