How to understand demographic information
March 20, 2016 11:27 AM Subscribe
Does anyone know and/or understand how demographic guidelines are created? I have been thinking a lot lately about how much every marketer and their cousin are stumbling over themselves to market to millennials. But my question could apply to any cohort.
Most data says that millennials are considered those born between 1980, or so, to 2000. Before that was Gen X and then the Boomers. I was born at the tail of the Boomers and though I always have identified a great deal more with Gen X, that particular group seems to only get about 14 years in its frame. So there appears to be some randomness to this.
I am trying to understand who or what decides where the cutoffs are for the various groups?
Is it some government agency? Think tanks? Marketing firms themselves? And moreover upon what do they base the decisions? Is it simply age? Or some supposed shared values? It seems that once the guidelines are decided then everyone accepts them as fact and hence there is a whole onslaught of marketing aimed at the group considered most valuable. Any demographers out there who can shed some light on this for me?
Is it some government agency? Think tanks? Marketing firms themselves? And moreover upon what do they base the decisions? Is it simply age? Or some supposed shared values? It seems that once the guidelines are decided then everyone accepts them as fact and hence there is a whole onslaught of marketing aimed at the group considered most valuable. Any demographers out there who can shed some light on this for me?
The answer is kind if "yes," or more specifically that this is a matter of a lot of different people (sociology, marketing, journalism, etc.) talking a lot at each other a lot until a vague consensus sort of emerges.
Historians think it's pretty silly, but then again look at how they tried to define, e.g., Reconstruction. The core of the problem is that they're giving a single name to something no one can prove actually exists; psychology has the same problem with giving names to diseases.
Which is why none of these people are given access to the engineering department's supply cabinet.
posted by SMPA at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2016
Historians think it's pretty silly, but then again look at how they tried to define, e.g., Reconstruction. The core of the problem is that they're giving a single name to something no one can prove actually exists; psychology has the same problem with giving names to diseases.
Which is why none of these people are given access to the engineering department's supply cabinet.
posted by SMPA at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2016
Vague consensus is the correct answer. That said, the real basis of the categories is the the baby boom that followed the end of the WWII, then the relatively lower birthrates following the baby boom (Gen X) and the echo of the baby boom that followed when all the Boomers had children. So, the general idea of the birth years is to capture the shifts in birth rates. From those age cohorts, the typical characteristics and supposed shared value of the generation emerge from many sources and form a sort of cultural consensus.
posted by ssg at 11:55 AM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ssg at 11:55 AM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
My best understanding is that the end of World War II was a global watershed moment on a number of fronts. This helped foster a baby boom and a widespread comfortable middle class like the world had never before seen. This inspired the naming of the Baby Boomers, who were an identifiable cohort experiencing something new and widespread.
I have seen no evidence that suggests that we did this "naming generations" thing before the Baby Boomers. But naming that generation seems to have set a precedent and we seem to think we now need to do this for "every generation." In some sense, we kind of do. Television introduced the ability to talk to everyone about stuff in a way that didn't previously exist, and the Internet has only made that more entrenched, plus more of a discussion (back and forth, as opposed to just broadcasting). So, it is useful to have names of things that weren't historically labeled beyond "the older generation" and "the younger generation."
We do talk about previous eras, such as Victorian times or San Diego has "The Gaslamp District" which dates to the gas lamp era (roughly 1880s and 1890s), but we don't say "The Victorian Generation" or "The Gaslamp Generation."
So, I think there was a watershed moment that naturally inspired a label. I think the label evolved organically as people talked about the kids born during the baby boom, often on radio or television. We don't really have strict rules as to what milestones create an end point or new beginning point and I don't think this was a tradition prior to talking about The Boomers. So, I think we kind of futz around and feel like following generations need to be named and defined, but, really, I think there is no compelling reason for that. Dramatic, global watershed moments are a rarity. You will not necessarily see some "defining moment of an entire generation" every ...x years so as to conveniently define when a "generational cohort" begins or ends.
posted by Michele in California at 12:38 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have seen no evidence that suggests that we did this "naming generations" thing before the Baby Boomers. But naming that generation seems to have set a precedent and we seem to think we now need to do this for "every generation." In some sense, we kind of do. Television introduced the ability to talk to everyone about stuff in a way that didn't previously exist, and the Internet has only made that more entrenched, plus more of a discussion (back and forth, as opposed to just broadcasting). So, it is useful to have names of things that weren't historically labeled beyond "the older generation" and "the younger generation."
We do talk about previous eras, such as Victorian times or San Diego has "The Gaslamp District" which dates to the gas lamp era (roughly 1880s and 1890s), but we don't say "The Victorian Generation" or "The Gaslamp Generation."
So, I think there was a watershed moment that naturally inspired a label. I think the label evolved organically as people talked about the kids born during the baby boom, often on radio or television. We don't really have strict rules as to what milestones create an end point or new beginning point and I don't think this was a tradition prior to talking about The Boomers. So, I think we kind of futz around and feel like following generations need to be named and defined, but, really, I think there is no compelling reason for that. Dramatic, global watershed moments are a rarity. You will not necessarily see some "defining moment of an entire generation" every ...x years so as to conveniently define when a "generational cohort" begins or ends.
posted by Michele in California at 12:38 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
You might be interested in Statistics Canada page on demographics. They are a government agency and one of, if not THE, most respected institutions in the area of demographics/statistics.
posted by saucysault at 1:09 PM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by saucysault at 1:09 PM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've always liked Joshua Glenn's generational distinctions on HiLoBrow. He has a category that goes from '54-'63 he calls "Original Generation X" making a distinction between early and late baby boomers.
posted by ljshapiro at 1:13 PM on March 20, 2016
posted by ljshapiro at 1:13 PM on March 20, 2016
Actually, before the baby boomers, the generation that came of age during World War I was called the Lost Generation. Supposedly, Gertrude Stein heard an auto mechanic use the term and elaborated on the concept - she was referring to people who served in the war. Hemingway popularized the phrase. It seems to have a different sense to me than the labels we use now, but I have no real information on how people of the time viewed that phrase (probably in lots of different ways - generalizations about what people of a particular age think are always kind of ridiculous).
I will be interested to see if actual demographers weigh in because these generational names just seem like convenient fictions to me. The idea that baby boomers waltzed into cushy jobs and easily became financially successful is no more true than suggestions that millenials are lazy and entitled. I don't understand why ageism is so widely accepted.
posted by FencingGal at 1:23 PM on March 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I will be interested to see if actual demographers weigh in because these generational names just seem like convenient fictions to me. The idea that baby boomers waltzed into cushy jobs and easily became financially successful is no more true than suggestions that millenials are lazy and entitled. I don't understand why ageism is so widely accepted.
posted by FencingGal at 1:23 PM on March 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm at the absolute last gasp of the baby boom. (1962). Trust and believe that I'm more Gen X in mind-set than boomer.
Marketers market VERY narrowly. In 5 year increments for some things and down to years for media. Disney probably breaks it down by months.
The more data-mining and algorithms take over and the more data is collected, it won't just be age. It's going to be, geo, job-type, etc. Hell, Facebook and Google have been target-marketing for years now.
Nielsen Bought Claritas's Prizm zip code market segmentation software. I've been fascinated with it for over 20 years. Take it for a spin, see what I'm talking about.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:56 PM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Marketers market VERY narrowly. In 5 year increments for some things and down to years for media. Disney probably breaks it down by months.
The more data-mining and algorithms take over and the more data is collected, it won't just be age. It's going to be, geo, job-type, etc. Hell, Facebook and Google have been target-marketing for years now.
Nielsen Bought Claritas's Prizm zip code market segmentation software. I've been fascinated with it for over 20 years. Take it for a spin, see what I'm talking about.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:56 PM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Historians think it's pretty silly,
Not entirely. Generational theory is something that is a cultural product, created by what was called above a general, vague consensus of sociologists, historians, demographers, statisticians, psychologists, etc. But some of the main proponents of the theories have been William Strauss and Neil Howe, both of them historians, whose work on the interaction of generational demographics with events in American history has been pretty influential, at least in applied/public history if not fully in academia. Their conclusions have so thoroughly been absorbed into contemporary thinking about generations that much of the way people think about generational dynamics is based on their work, even if they aren't aware of it.
posted by Miko at 3:00 PM on March 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
Not entirely. Generational theory is something that is a cultural product, created by what was called above a general, vague consensus of sociologists, historians, demographers, statisticians, psychologists, etc. But some of the main proponents of the theories have been William Strauss and Neil Howe, both of them historians, whose work on the interaction of generational demographics with events in American history has been pretty influential, at least in applied/public history if not fully in academia. Their conclusions have so thoroughly been absorbed into contemporary thinking about generations that much of the way people think about generational dynamics is based on their work, even if they aren't aware of it.
posted by Miko at 3:00 PM on March 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
I read part of that book and generational theory is a thing and it isn't silly. But, all of the history I have studied suggests that thinking about specific generations in the way we talk about The Baby Boomers and Millennials (etc) these days is a recent phenomenon. You can go back and superimpose a pattern on history, as the book does, retroactively. And I am not saying the book just made stuff up or that this is not valid. But I am saying this is a relatively new concept.
The book is from 1991 and was apparently developed starting in the 1980s. It appears to have been born of the fact that "The Baby Boomers" became a widely used phrase. In fact, the Wikipedia page lists the boomers as part of the inspiration for the book:
They wondered why Boomers and G.I.s had developed such different ways of looking at the world, and what it was about these generations’ growing up experiences that prompted their different outlooks.
So, although history has long had names for specific time frames and events or cultures, such as The Victorian Era or Pre World War I or The Middle Ages or The Dark Ages etc, from what I understand, this trend of naming generations and viewing things in terms of specific generations while they are still alive largely grows out of the phenomenon of "The Baby Boomers" becoming a concept and a phrase.
Yes, I have seen expressions like "The Lost Generation" and I have seen a phrase (I don't recall what) and definition of the group that preceded the Boomer generation, but we do not routinely see those things used in history books or media or other sources. It is not "common knowledge" what to call the generation before the Baby Boomers. Apparently because The Baby Boomers was the first generation that got talked about as a generation routinely in the media and got named that way and so on.
Things were different before TV and movies etc etc etc. The reason Roman money had the emperor's face on it was because it let everyone know who he was and what he looked like everywhere in the empire. There was no other good way to publicize that information. If someone showed up in town looking like the guy on your money, you better show your respects because he is the man in charge of your world. There was no TV, radio, billboards, etc to let people know that.
So, there are just a lot of things happening currently that simply could not have happened not all that long ago and we sometimes fail to have that context that this was just not really a discussion or concept we could have possibly had until relatively recently.
posted by Michele in California at 3:16 PM on March 20, 2016
The book is from 1991 and was apparently developed starting in the 1980s. It appears to have been born of the fact that "The Baby Boomers" became a widely used phrase. In fact, the Wikipedia page lists the boomers as part of the inspiration for the book:
They wondered why Boomers and G.I.s had developed such different ways of looking at the world, and what it was about these generations’ growing up experiences that prompted their different outlooks.
So, although history has long had names for specific time frames and events or cultures, such as The Victorian Era or Pre World War I or The Middle Ages or The Dark Ages etc, from what I understand, this trend of naming generations and viewing things in terms of specific generations while they are still alive largely grows out of the phenomenon of "The Baby Boomers" becoming a concept and a phrase.
Yes, I have seen expressions like "The Lost Generation" and I have seen a phrase (I don't recall what) and definition of the group that preceded the Boomer generation, but we do not routinely see those things used in history books or media or other sources. It is not "common knowledge" what to call the generation before the Baby Boomers. Apparently because The Baby Boomers was the first generation that got talked about as a generation routinely in the media and got named that way and so on.
Things were different before TV and movies etc etc etc. The reason Roman money had the emperor's face on it was because it let everyone know who he was and what he looked like everywhere in the empire. There was no other good way to publicize that information. If someone showed up in town looking like the guy on your money, you better show your respects because he is the man in charge of your world. There was no TV, radio, billboards, etc to let people know that.
So, there are just a lot of things happening currently that simply could not have happened not all that long ago and we sometimes fail to have that context that this was just not really a discussion or concept we could have possibly had until relatively recently.
posted by Michele in California at 3:16 PM on March 20, 2016
There is a fairly lengthy list of "cultural generations" on Wikipedia.
posted by flug at 4:08 PM on March 20, 2016
posted by flug at 4:08 PM on March 20, 2016
And everybody forgets my group, the War Babies, that is, those of us born during WW II. I was born in 1943, but my brother was born in 1946, so he's on the leading edge of Baby Boomers, but I'm not. I don't that we War Babies are a large enough cohort to have defining characteristics, but I always feel sort of left out when people start talking demographics and go right from the Lost Generation to the Boomers.
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:50 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by MovableBookLady at 6:50 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
his trend of naming generations and viewing things in terms of specific generations while they are still alive largely grows out of the phenomenon of "The Baby Boomers" becoming a concept and a phrase.
The Boomers certainly prompted the contemporary discussion about named generational taxonomies. But primary sources from the past two centuries do show a constant concern with generational distinctions. You can find it in educational theory (what the "rising generation" needs to know because they and their technological world are different from us), theology (the notion of generations is even central to the Old Testament), earlier American historical writing (for some reason we aren't as amazing as generations past like the Founders) prescriptive advice literature, etc. Also, if you think of it in terms of commentary on the "youth," it's much more common to see characterizations of rising generations offered from the late 18th century on. I actually played with the two terms "Generation" and "youth" in the NGram Viewer, and it was 1956 when they crossed, suggesting to me that one essentially replaced the other as a means of talking about difference among people in different age cohorts. So while I agree that it's an obsession of the twentieth century, as a concept it is not unique to that century but has a longer history.
posted by Miko at 7:35 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
The Boomers certainly prompted the contemporary discussion about named generational taxonomies. But primary sources from the past two centuries do show a constant concern with generational distinctions. You can find it in educational theory (what the "rising generation" needs to know because they and their technological world are different from us), theology (the notion of generations is even central to the Old Testament), earlier American historical writing (for some reason we aren't as amazing as generations past like the Founders) prescriptive advice literature, etc. Also, if you think of it in terms of commentary on the "youth," it's much more common to see characterizations of rising generations offered from the late 18th century on. I actually played with the two terms "Generation" and "youth" in the NGram Viewer, and it was 1956 when they crossed, suggesting to me that one essentially replaced the other as a means of talking about difference among people in different age cohorts. So while I agree that it's an obsession of the twentieth century, as a concept it is not unique to that century but has a longer history.
posted by Miko at 7:35 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Gen X is actually a meme. The concept was invented by Canadian writer Douglas Coupland in his novel Generation X from (I think) 1988.
Interesting, Coupland's novel Generation X features the same complaints that so-called "Millenials" have now: back in 1988 all the best jobs were taken by Boomers, leaving low-paid work.
The complaints of OWS a few years ago and Millenials today are nothing new. Nothing they are experiencing right now as 20-somethings is new.
Twenty-five years ago there was 10% unemployment and a housing crash. Thirty-five years ago there was ten percent unemployment and a housing crash.
So the stuff we read every day, day after day, about the challenges Millenials face is old news for us Gen Xers.
The reason why we read so much about Millenials is because it is their Boomer parents who have the cushy columnist jobs in the papers. "Write what you know," etc.
But nothing new really.
posted by My Dad at 11:40 AM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]