Continuing with our look at Generational snapshots to begin 2013. When you get to the core of what people in a generation have in common—their shared experiences as a collective—you begin to see the big picture of why, as a generation, people do what they do, why they see the world as they see it, and how/why they lead, or micro-manage a project, relationship, or team. This week’s snapshot features Generation X.
Natural Realities in a Nutshell
Born: 1964-1979
Names: Generation X, Xers, The Thirteenth Generation, Baby Buster Generation
Archetype: Nomad
Mood: Individualism
Focus: Leadership failures, Latchkey Kids, Consumer Boomers (Yuppies, DINKS)
Technology: PC/Computers, MTV, video games
Shifts: Politically Correct Language, AIDS Epidemic, Rising Divorce Rates, Title IX
Beliefs: The world is not safe. If it’s to be, it’s up to me. Trust yourself; everyone else is suspect. Loyalty is an antiquated notion.
Anchor Points: Watergate, Stagflation, 1973 Oil Crisis, AIDS, Challenger Disaster, Wall Street frenzy, Dot-Com, Persian Gulf
People: Bill Gates, Quentin Tarantino, Madonna, Michael Jordan, O.J. Simpson, Johnny Depp, Barack Obama
Places: Iran Hostage Crisis, Cannes Chernobyl, Iraq, Wall Street, Check Point Charlie
Events: Crack, AIDS, Desert Storm, Watergate, Berlin Wall Falls
Natural Realities Explained:
Only 44 million born Xers make up 29 percent of the workforce today and are in their peak earning and young family years. Xers were the children of the first wave of Baby Boomers who work twenty hours a day and bled company colors. Both mom and dad were in the workforce, so these adult, former latchkey kids, don’t want their children to have the same lonely childhoods. As a result, they’re looking for a balance between their career goals and their family goals.
Gen Xers survived a hurried childhood of benign neglect and low expectations. Growing up in the long shadow of the Baby Boomers, Xers were largely ignored or criticized for not being more like theBoomers. With an Awakening social mood in high swing, the priority had shifted away from fostering the child and was firmly mesmerized by the rants and chants of idealistic young adult boomers. With both men and women entering the workforce at nearly equal rates, this was the first generation whose parents openly tried to prevent pregnancies by taking a “pill” approved by the FDA in 1960.
Economic freedom for women was on the rise. Divorce rates tripled to over 50 percent, and soon nearly 40 percent of Xers were raised in single-parent households. Xers were four to five times more likely to have experienced divorce in their families than their Boomer predecessors. With social programs and after-school activities lagging behind the
need, Gen Xer latchkey kids went home after school to an empty house to fend for themselves. Leaders and institutions were no longer to be blindly trusted; now it was each man, woman, and CHILD left to watch out for him- or herself. These factors shaped the Gen Xers that are in the workforce today.
