Baby boomers

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American Baby Boomers
Total population
76 million (2010)
Standard American, American English dialects, American Spanish
Related ethnic groups

Baby boomers are the demographic group born during the post–World War II baby boom, approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. This includes people who are between 53 and 71 years old in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.[1] However, according to the Strauss–Howe generational theory, baby boomers are defined as people born between 1943 and 1960, which would include people who are between 57 and 74 years old in 2017.

The term "baby boomer" is also used in a cultural context, so it is difficult to achieve broad consensus of a precise date definition. Different people, organizations, and scholars have varying opinions on who is a baby boomer, both technically and culturally. Ascribing universal attributes to such a generation is difficult, and some believe it is inherently impossible, but many have attempted to determine their cultural similarities and historical impact, and the term has thus gained widespread popular usage.

Baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values. Many commentators, however, 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 widespread government subsidies in post-war housing and education, and increasing affluence.[2]

As a group, baby boomers were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to the era in which they arrived, and were amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.[3] They were also the generation that received peak levels of income; they could therefore reap the benefits of abundant levels of food, apparel, retirement programs, and sometimes even "midlife crisis" products. The increased consumerism for this generation has been regularly criticized as excessive.[4]

One feature of the boomers was that they have 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 changes 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"[2] and as "the pig in the python."[3]

The term "Generation Jones" is sometimes used to describe those born between 1954 and 1965. The term is typically used to refer to the later half of the Baby boomer cohort and the early years of Generation X.[6][7]


United States birth rate (births per 1,000 population). The segment for the years 1946 to 1964 is highlighted in red, with birth rates peaking in 1949 and dropping steadily around 1958 reaching pre-war depression era levels in 1963.[8]




In Ontario, Canada, one attempt to define the boom came from David Foot, author of Boom, Bust and Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st century (1997). 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]



Another definition for the baby boom is the decade after the Second World War, that is 1946 to 1955.[citation needed] This date range in the US correlates with some of the strongest cultural identifiers of the boomer generation, i.e., the involvement of the US in the Vietnam War and the draft.,[19] the U.S. both ended its draft and moved to an all volunteer army (the other services were already volunteer only) and ended its military activity in Vietnam. Of course, males born from 1953 to 1955 could not have foreseen the end of the draft or the war, and "came of age" fully internalizing those events.


Size and economic impact[edit]

76 million American children were born between 1946 and 1964, representing a cohort that is significant on account of its size alone. In 2004, the British 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.[20]

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".[21] This is supported by the articles of the late 1940s identifying the increasing number of babies as an economic boom, such as a 1948 Newsweek article whose title proclaimed "Babies Mean Business",[22] or a 1948 Time magazine article called "Baby Boom".[23]

The age wave theory suggests an economic slowdown when the boomers started retiring during 2007–2009.[24] Projections for the aging U.S. workforce suggest that by 2020, 25% of employees will be at least 55 years old.[25]


A survey found that nearly a third of baby boomers polled in the United States would prefer to pass on their inheritance to charities rather than pass it down to their children. Fifty-seven percent of these boomers believed it was important for each generation to earn their own money ; fifty four percent believed it was more important to invest in their children while they were growing up. [26]

Cultural identity[edit]

Boomers grew up at a time of dramatic social change. In the United States, that change marked the generation with a strong cultural cleavage, between the proponents of change and the more conservative individuals. 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.[27][28] Starting in the 1980s, the boomers became more conservative, many of them regretting the cultural changes they brought in their youth.[29]


The early and mid-boomers were coming of age at the same time across the world, so that they experienced events like Beatlemania and 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.[citation needed] Some American boomers in Canada had found a new home after escaping 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.[original research?] Politically, early Boomers in the United States tend to be Democrats, while later boomers tend to be Republicans. [31]

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, the The Motown Sound, and other new musical directions and artists.[citation needed]

In the west, baby boomers comprised the first generation to grow up with the television; some popular Boomer-era shows included Howdy Doody, The Mickey Mouse Club, Captain Video, The Soupy Sales Show, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, The Twilight Zone, Batman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, The Ed Sullivan Show, All in the Family and Happy Days.[citation needed]

In the 1985 study of U.S. 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?"[32] For the baby boomers the results were:

There is often debate regarding the generational identity of those born from 1961 to 1964. Some demographers and researchers consider these individuals to be part of the younger demographic cohort, Generation X.[33][34][35][36]

Aging and end-of-life issues[edit]

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.[37] 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.[38] 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. According to the 2011 Associated Press and surveys:

  • 60% lost value in investments because of the economic crisis
  • 42% are delaying retirement
  • 25% claim they will never retire (currently still working)[39][40]


Impact on history and culture[edit]

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 in this author's opinion.[41]

Boomers are often associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and the "second-wave" feminist cause of the 1970s. Conversely, many trended in moderate to conservative directions opposite to the counterculture, especially those making professional careers in the military (officer and enlisted), law enforcement, business, blue collar trades, and Republican Party politics. They are also associated with the spending trends and narcissism of the "Me" generation.


Baby boomers are still having a big effect on politics, as the United States presidential election, 2016 came down to two controversial candidates in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both boomers, with a majority of Trump's support coming from the Baby Boomer generation.[46][47] Three American presidents were born in 1946; Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

See also[edit]



  6. ^ FNP Interactive - (December 19, 2008). "The Frederick News-Post Online – Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper". Archived from the original on February 6, 2009. Retrieved 2010-08-02. 
  9. ^ Reader's Digest August 1951 pg. 5
  14. ^ Canada (June 24, 2006). "By definition: Boom, bust, X and why". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved 2010-08-27. [dead link]
  17. ^ [2] Archived March 5, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  19. ^ On 30 April 1975
  22. ^ "Population: Babies Mean Business", Newsweek, August 9, 1948. Retrieved 2007-01-26.[dead link]
  24. ^ Economy faces bigger bust without Boomers, Reuters, Jan 31, 2008
  26. ^ Half of Baby Boomers to Leave Inheritance to Kids
  27. ^ Sullivan, Andrew (November 6, 2007). "Goodbye to all of that". Archived from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-27. 
  31. ^
  33. ^ Howe, Neil (27 August 2014). "Generation X: Once Xtreme, Now Exhausted". Forbes. Retrieved 6 August 2016. 
  34. ^ Miller, Jon (Fall 2011). "The Generation X Report: Active, Balanced, and Happy" (PDF). Longitudinal Study of American Youth – University Of Michigan. p. 1. Retrieved 2013-05-29. 
  35. ^ "National Geographic Channel's Six-Part Limited Series "Generation X," Narrated by Christian Slater, Premieres Sunday, Feb. 14, at 10/9c". Multichannel News. 29 January 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016. 
  36. ^ "Generation X Employees Struggle the Most Financially, Most Likely to Dip into Retirement Savings, According to PwC Study". PrincewaterhouseCoopers. 18 June 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2016. 
  38. ^ Article in the New York Times, March 30, 1998[dead link]
  42. ^ Isabel Sawhill, Ph.D; John E. Morton (2007). "Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 29, 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2013. 
  44. ^ Economic Mobility Project
  46. ^ Beutler, Brian (2016-09-20). "Don't Blame Millennials for This Scarily Close Election. Blame Baby Boomers.". New Republic. Retrieved 2016-09-27. 
  47. ^ Metcalf, Stephen (1 May 2016). "Donald Trump, Baby Boomer". Slate. Retrieved 28 January 2017. 

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