Why generational theory shouldn't be blindly relied on

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The concept that opposes buzzers and boomers is sinful of generalizations and does not rely on evidence.

You've probably heard about the generational theory that divides people into boomers, boomers, and millennials. Scientific articles and popular science books are written on the basis of this idea, marketers, businessmen and HR specialists are trying to use it. The generational theory looks simple and attractive. But there are many flaws in it that are worth keeping in mind before relying on this concept. Let's figure out what the theory of generations is and how much you can trust it.

What is generational theory

In 1991, American writers William Strauss and Neil Howe published the book Generations, in which they analyzed the biographies of important historical figures in the United States since 1584. Based on this analysis, the authors suggested that people born in different generations are very different from each other. Conversely, those who belong to the same generation have common values, problems and behaviors. They developed their idea in the next book "The Fourth Transformation", published in 1997. And later they called their concept "The Theory of Generations".

Here are her main ideas.

• There is a generational change every 20 years.
• Generations are assigned symbols - usually by letters of the English alphabet. Among the generations living now, there are baby-boomers (for some reason, they do not have letters), X, Y (millennials) and Z (zoomers).
• People from the same generation are going through the same historical events, social and economic processes. Therefore, their worldview and behavioral patterns are very similar.
• Each generation is characterized by a certain set of qualities. For example, boomers born just after World War II are conservative and responsible. Millennials born in the late eighties are infantile, spoiled individualists. And their change, the buzzers, are creative, but dependent on smartphones and suffering from clip thinking people.
• History is cyclical, which means so are generations. Each "cycle" includes four generations, lasts approximately 80-100 years and fits into the pattern of "rise, awakening, decline, crisis". That is, baby boomers are the recovery generation, and the buzzers are the crisis generation.

Who needs a generational theory

It could be useful to anyone who works with different groups of people and wants to find a more individual approach to them. As a result, the theory gained the greatest popularity among marketers and HR specialists.

Large companies are trying to build their HR strategy for representatives of different generations - so that the indicators are higher and the turnover of personnel decreases.

Marketers are guided by the portraits of generations when launching advertising campaigns, creating a brand promotion strategy.

Also psychologists, teachers, businessmen, political strategists, sociologists sometimes turn to the theory of generations.

Why generational theory is often wrong

It sounds very neat and beautiful, but, unfortunately, it generalizes everything too much.

1. It does not take into account geography

The authors of the theory are Americans. Initially, they wrote specifically about the United States, and not about the whole world. Therefore, for residents of other countries, their concept is often irrelevant and requires significant revision.

Millennials from the United States and Russia are quite different, as they grew up in completely different conditions, went through different historical and economic events, and absorbed different values. The US millennial has not seen a coup in his country, and the Russian millennial has not faced a mortgage crisis, lifelong education loans, or school shootings.

Some countries offer their own classification of generations, based on internal characteristics. This was done, for example, in Malaysia. In Russia, there were also attempts to adapt the theory to local realities. For example, move the timeline for each generation forward a bit. Or to define their own generations, which are not found anywhere else in the world: the Perestroika generation, the Pepsi generation, the digital generation.

Researchers say that within the same company, the origin and ethnicity of an employee determine his characteristics to a greater extent than the year of birth.

There are significant differences between millennials from, for example, the US and Europe. And even in neighboring European countries, representatives of the same generations behave differently.

2. She does not outline a clear time frame

Researchers are still arguing about which year should be counted for each generation and which time interval - 15, 20 or 25 years - is considered correct. So the generations that Strauss and Howe singled out don't even have a definite framework on which to rely. Everything is too blurry.

3. She lacks an evidence base

Initially, Strauss and Howe were based on selected episodes of American history, their concept is not supported by serious sociological research. It is for this that the theory of generations is often criticized by historians and sociologists.

4. She relies on flawed comparisons

Comparing boomers and zoomers, between which the difference is more than 50 years, is wrong. It is logical that an elderly person and yesterday's teenager will have different outlooks on life, purchasing behavior, approaches to work or study. The point here is not only that they belong to different generations, but also in the peculiarities of health, age psychology, and different life experiences.

In order to understand how different generations really differ from each other, we need large-scale long-term studies that would compare boomers, millennials and zoomers in the same age range.

5. She misses a lot of factors

A person is formed not only by the date of his birth, but also by the environment in which he grows up, his upbringing, temperament, health, level of income and education. Critics of the theory draw attention to this. There is more gulf between a millennial who grew up in a complete wealthy family and his peer who spent his childhood with impoverished alcoholic parents than between the same millennial and a boomer.

6. It is not always confirmed in practice

Marketers, HR specialists; ""; "", Teachers have repeatedly noted that there are many gaps and inconsistencies in the theory of Strauss and Howe. In reality, each generation is too heterogeneous, and it is extremely ineffective to rely only on the year of birth of a person.

For example, teens who take an interest in a music history course are unlikely to appreciate the ambiguous and provocative slogans of some fast food restaurants, and fifty-year-olds may value flexible working hours and gamification of processes as much as buzzers and millennials.

7. It does not take into account the impact of the Internet

Social networks give people from different generations access to the same information, music, books and films. In addition, boomers and buzzers can freely communicate with each other and sometimes not even suspect how old the interlocutor is. As a result, people are less isolated in their age group and the differences between them become less noticeable.

8. She supports stereotypes

The theory of generations creates the basis for ageism - discrimination of a person by his age. And also for generalized and incorrect ideas about people, offensive jokes, mutual bullying. Some employers are reluctant to hire millennials and buzzers because they see them as irresponsible and unreliable. Others refuse older people - allegedly they are too conservative, not friendly with technology and do not get along well with younger colleagues.

Boomers criticize buzzers on the Internet, calling them infantile and self-centered. They respond with offensive memes like "". At the same time, a person's age does not define him as a person, and stereotypes are rarely supported by facts.

Is it possible to rely on the theory of generations

Only partly. It can help sketch out a portrait of the target audience, potential student, or employee. But this portrait will turn out to be very approximate and will in many ways be associated with the age psychology of people, and not with generational differences.

In order to understand well the people with whom you have to work, you will have to dig deeper and look not only at the year of birth, but also at the interests, income and education level, the environment in which they live, origin, gender, values in life.

However, some sociologists and marketers are quite positive about the theory of generations. And they believe that she, of course, is not perfect, but asks interesting questions and serves as a good starting point for further research.