I’ve been thinking more and more about how our times will be shaped by the gap in expectations, opportunities and acceptance of change between the Boomers and the Millennials. I wrote about it here.
I’d say we’re in for a pre-revolutionary period – not necessarily a violent one, but a time when the assumptions of a generation can be suddenly and decisively overturned. After all, why would those in their twenties put up with financing the Boomers end-life at the cost of their own beginnings? Why would they remain passive if they felt Boomers were taking them down even as they stood in the way of change.
Put that combination together – inequity in the present, disregard for the future and refusal to change – and you have the conditions that disrupted North American society in the late 60s and North Africa practically yesterday: young people with resentments, not much to lose and a lot of new ways to communicate.
Indeed, the Occupy Movement may be an early manifestation, as misdirected as it has become.
And evidence of the gap accumulates in the U.S.:
… households headed by adults age 65 or older possessed net worth 47 times greater than households headed by adults under the age of 35 — more than double the gap of six years ago and five times greater than 25 years ago.
The analysis here.
One thing that comes to mind –
Don’t just examine what people have (in their bank accounts) – but also examine how they got there.
Did those over 65s skrimp and save in their youth and younger days to build up a nest egg to rely on in their old age?
Compare that to the youth of today who demand (as of right it seems) for the latest update or upgrade to their current crop of expensive tech toys. How many max out their credit cards?
Did those youth take an interest in their eductaion and career path when they were growing up?
Add to that the unrealistic expectations created by living the “glam” life seen and promoted on television these days (fictitious and reality TV). One sure fire way to save money is to stop earting out in restaurants. Stop buying that suped-up morning coffee. Stop buying boozey drinks (that’s a big one!).
Are there any current TV shows that show “hard working” people – the Waltons and Little House on the Prairie come to mind. Or are there just whiners and posers?
People are quick to judge others who have money, yet many (not all of course) aren’t willing to make the sacrifices that may be necessary to get to the same place.
Thanks Ron for Exhibit A to Gordon’s post. I assume you have some heroic story to tell that is different than the typical baby boomer one…
I recall Gordon saying this a few weeks back:
“Because we happened to be born at the right time, in the right place, accumulating wealth has been as easy as breathing.”
Kids today, I tell you! No responsibility, no self-control!
Not like yesterday’s kids – no sir. Back then they knew how to work for a living, how to be responsible.
I mean, you never hear of boomers carrying debt they can’t afford, right? Who’s ever heard of a 65-year-old still paying off a mortgage because he irresponsibly bought a house he couldn’t afford?
Kids today are so ungrateful that their parents are handing them a world in such good shape. They should stop complaining about “growing social inequality” and “lack of jobs”. They should get out there and work hard, like their parents did, and earn their mortgages in the suburbs with their car loans in the driveway and their vacations to MasterCard-land.
And maybe, just maybe, if today’s kids figure out how to live within their means, then they’ll grow up to complain about their kids like we’ve been doing since the dawn of mankind.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap-in-economic-well-being/
“Housing has been the main driver of these divergent wealth trends. Rising home equity has been the linchpin of the higher wealth of older households in 2009 compared with their counterparts in 1984. Declining home equity has been one factor in the lower wealth held by young households in 2009 compared with their counterparts in 1984.”
It’s the real-estate and not the Waltons being canceled.
You don’t seem to accept that luck had something to do with your nest egg. For someone like me still early in my career, I make less money today than those doing the same job 30 years ago, fewer jobs are unionized, the pension plans at most companies are defined contribution, not defined benefit like you almost certainly enjoyed, and that’s if I’m lucky enough to get a job. I’m working contract employment at the moment where any day I could find myself unemployed with no EI eligibility, yet I have enough money saved up through scrimping that I can get by for a few months. And forget about owning a house or having kids – those things are simply not within the realm of possibility.
Yes, young people have fancy phones. That’s because phone technology has come down substantially in price. I know plenty of people with the latest phone and no food in the fridge, because (gasp) you need a phone to be able to work, and the phone comes with a plan. You can’t measure people’s quality of life by the phone in their pocket, not when they subsist on dried noodles and Mac n’ Cheese.
And while you’re at it, I hope you enjoy the health care I’m paying for. Too bad the majority of voters (read: older residents) refuse to vote for candidates that would give BC a front-end student grant program or reasonable tuition fees that might allow me to go back to school. Debt, more than anything, is caused by education – not fancy phones. Those education costs are something the older generation didn’t experience to anywhere near the same degree, and which older generations won’t help solve, and yet you say young people are in debt out of their own irresponsibility? For what, going to University?
Agreed with Kent. While I don’t wish to argue you have no right to post your comments, your comments are the poster case for the above post.
Of course the wealth tied up in housing equity is only potential until one cashes in and cashes out, and completely out of the market to perhaps a retirement hotspot somewhere in the US rust belt, where I gather one can still buy a house for under $200K. Otherwise, one may find that the cost of the downsize unit will pretty much take all of that apparent wealth.
ponder this over….
who benefits when pensions neglect to adjust their return assumptions?
when cmhc mortgage amortization periods extend and credit expands in the name of “affordability,” is this a gift for buyers or sellers?
why use sunset clauses in union agreements?
what impact does resource extraction/environmental degradation have on future prosperity?
why must today’s students pay more than double in real dollars to what their parents paid for post-secondary?
Please, let’s keep pointing to the iPads and blue jeans.
I do agree that there is inter-generational tension, mostly because of the size of the baby boom generation relative to others and the fact that they were born at the right time to have good jobs, and buy housing at the right time and in the right place (at least in Canada and the US 24 hour cities). (See allaboutcities.ca for more)
But I’m starting to become less convinced that this will not get largely resolved–we just need the boomers to get a few years older. Smart millennials will figure out how to extract all boomer wealth in return for healthcare and cool experiences in the coming years.
The labour shortage will allow millennials within 5 years to command much higher wages than they do today (although gen x may do even better in this regard).
It will be important to be in the right places with the right skills and ideas, certainly. But I think the opportunity will be there–but it won’t be the same industrial opportunities that fueled boomer economy and wealth. Good-paying union manufacturing jobs are unlikely to be the major engine of growth. It will be health care and experiences.
Even detached single family housing, particularly in the mature suburbs, may come down in price.
Intergenerational fairness is only now raising its head in the UK. Our organisation has been established to promote the rights of younger and future generations in the UK.
You might be interested in a forthcoming TEDx event on 20 Nov on intergenerational justice and sustainability where we aim to draw attention to the need for younger generations to be included in decision-making over pensions, taxation, the environment, education etc.
THE OLD WAYS are just that – old
This generation needs to build it’s own foundation for the future and the OLD guys should be supportive of changes they need. The new world is nothing like the OLD days.
Young adults do work their way through university and graduate without debt – still doesn’t guarantee you a job that will PROVIDE a living.
THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE