I thought I was at the very tail end of the Boomers, born in 1964, and my younger brother, born in 1966, was Gen X. Not that there was any difference between our upbringing, education etc, though.
Don't be too rigid about the dividing line--even Nick acknowledges that. The key is which generation your parents came from. If your parents were born after 45 they would be classed as Boomers. That would make both of you Gen X. If they had been born during WWII, that makes it more fuzzy. A two year spread between you and your brother does not make you a generation apart.
In Canada the baby boom is usually defined as occurring from 1947 to 1966. Canadian soldiers were repatriated later than American servicemen, and Canada's birthrate did not start to rise until 1947. Most Canadian demographers prefer to use the later date of 1966 as the boom's end year in that country. The later end to the boom in Canada than in the US has been ascribed to a later adoption of birth control pills.
But, remember that's for the US - in different nations the generational identifiers may well be different as would the defining events, and of course the birth date ranges for people in those generations - for example, in Europe the equivalent to the Silent Generation tends to extend into the early 1950s as a result of post-War reconstruction and rationing extending the cultural values associated with the Depression and War later.
Also, in the UK the demographics of the post-war baby boom are different from the US:
In the United Kingdom the baby boom occurred in two waves. After a short first wave of the baby boom during the war and immediately after, peaking in 1946, the United Kingdom experienced a second wave during the 1960s, with a peak in births in 1964 and a rapid fall after the Abortion Act 1967 came into force.
While the UK births were peaking in 1964, births in the US were on a long slide that started in the late 50s and continued well into the 70s, with a brief little blip up in the early 70s. My experience as a child of the second half of the American baby boom generation was that everything was contracting -- all the things that had been built up to accommodate the large numbers of kids born ahead of me were shrinking. I don't know if the UK accommodated the surge in births in the 60s the way the US had a decade earlier, but either way, the experience would have been different just because of the numbers.
Out here in South Africa, the generation who came of age during the Soweto Uprisings of 1976 were known as the Struggle Generation or the Lost Generation because they had to leave the country in exile or were thrown into prison and never able to get an education.
Those born after 1994 are known as Born Frees, the first generation who would not experience apartheid. It was an optimistic term now used with bitterness and disappointment because so many of their dreams remained unfulfilled.
In Canada the baby boom is usually defined as occurring from 1947 to 1966. Canadian soldiers were repatriated later than American servicemen, and Canada's birthrate did not start to rise until 1947. Most Canadian demographers prefer to use the later date of 1966 as the boom's end year in that country. The later end to the boom in Canada than in the US has been ascribed to a later adoption of birth control pills.
But, remember that's for the US - in different nations the generational identifiers may well be different as would the defining events, and of course the birth date ranges for people in those generations - for example, in Europe the equivalent to the Silent Generation tends to extend into the early 1950s as a result of post-War reconstruction and rationing extending the cultural values associated with the Depression and War later.
Also, in the UK the demographics of the post-war baby boom are different from the US:
In the United Kingdom the baby boom occurred in two waves. After a short first wave of the baby boom during the war and immediately after, peaking in 1946, the United Kingdom experienced a second wave during the 1960s, with a peak in births in 1964 and a rapid fall after the Abortion Act 1967 came into force.
While the UK births were peaking in 1964, births in the US were on a long slide that started in the late 50s and continued well into the 70s, with a brief little blip up in the early 70s. My experience as a child of the second half of the American baby boom generation was that everything was contracting -- all the things that had been built up to accommodate the large numbers of kids born ahead of me were shrinking. I don't know if the UK accommodated the surge in births in the 60s the way the US had a decade earlier, but either way, the experience would have been different just because of the numbers.
I'd say there were parallels rather than exact equivalents.
If that makes sense.
It may be simplistic but I tend to see the UK as somewhere in the middle, as it were, on a whole range of things between the US on the one hand and Scandinavian countries, say, on the other.
Comments
Don't be too rigid about the dividing line--even Nick acknowledges that. The key is which generation your parents came from. If your parents were born after 45 they would be classed as Boomers. That would make both of you Gen X. If they had been born during WWII, that makes it more fuzzy. A two year spread between you and your brother does not make you a generation apart.
Not in Canada:
Also, in the UK the demographics of the post-war baby boom are different from the US:
While the UK births were peaking in 1964, births in the US were on a long slide that started in the late 50s and continued well into the 70s, with a brief little blip up in the early 70s. My experience as a child of the second half of the American baby boom generation was that everything was contracting -- all the things that had been built up to accommodate the large numbers of kids born ahead of me were shrinking. I don't know if the UK accommodated the surge in births in the 60s the way the US had a decade earlier, but either way, the experience would have been different just because of the numbers.
Those born after 1994 are known as Born Frees, the first generation who would not experience apartheid. It was an optimistic term now used with bitterness and disappointment because so many of their dreams remained unfulfilled.
I'd say there were parallels rather than exact equivalents.
If that makes sense.
It may be simplistic but I tend to see the UK as somewhere in the middle, as it were, on a whole range of things between the US on the one hand and Scandinavian countries, say, on the other.
Southern Europe different again.
The Southern Hemisphere very different again.