Sociology Now, Census Update

Although they are often derided as slackers and whiners, gen-Xers really are worse
off economically than their boomer parents. The average individual income dropped
dramatically between the early 1970s and the 1990s, especially during the 1980s when
the first gen-Xers were entering the work world. Female income dropped less sharply
than the male (and actually increased a little during the 1980s), but this had more to
do with a sharp drop in men’s income than any rise in the women’s. The income decline
was compounded by race. Young African Americans lost three times more income than
Whites between 1972–1973 and 1984–1985, and four times more between 1984–1985
and 1994–1995 (Paulin and Riordan, 1998).
Gen-Xers also experienced a decline in educational opportunity and attainment
(Paulin and Riordan, 1998). In 1972–1973 over 50 percent of young unmarried per-
sons were college graduates, but by 1984–1985 this had dropped to 30 percent. More
X-ers were living at home after college, and more were going to college part-time,
combining working and education. The costs of independence were simply out of
reach of many, if not most, college-age people.

Generation Y (A Baby Boomlet)

The sheer number of baby boomers born at the end of the
baby boom meant that during their young adulthood,
between about 1975 and 1995, a new wave of births
occurred, a 60-million-strong “echo boom” or “baby boom-
let.” This cohort, known as generation Y,is three times the
size of generation X; they began to reach young adulthood
in the mid-1990s. They have received a lot of media atten-
tion, and many clever journalists have conjured up a variety
of names for them: “the millennial generation” (because most
will come of age after 2000), “generation next,” “nexters,”
“generation Y,” “boomlets.” In the United Kingdom, they are
the “new mills”; in Canada, “the echoes.”
A sizeable proportion of gen-Yers (35 percent) are minori-
ties (Figure 11.5). This trend, plus high rates of immigration,
will increase the proportion of minority children in America’s
schools, colleges, and workplaces in coming years (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2000).
Generation Y is the first generation to fully experience
the transformation of American households: Three in four
have working mothers, and one in four lives in a single-par-
ent household. (In 1965, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau, 25 percent of mothers were working, and 8 percent
of children lived in single-parent households.)
This is also the first generation to embrace the widening
impact of the information revolution. Generation Y grew up
with PCs at home. They can download music and play games
on the Internet, and they find Web surfing perfectly ordinary.
Today, 91 percent of college students, the leading edge of gen-
eration Y, own their own computers; 95 percent go online
regularly; and 36 percent own mobile Web-access devices
(Harris, 2004). They have instant messaging, cell phones,
Blackberries, and blogs. Baby boomers grew up with three
or four television stations; generation Y has hundreds.

BOOMERS, BUSTERS, AND BOOMLETS: THE GENERATIONS OF YOUTH 369

75%

White

65%

White

15%

Black

15%

Hispanic

15%

Black

9%

Hispanic

4% Asian <1% American Indian

1% American Indian

4%

Asian

BABY BOOM

PEOPLE AGE 31–49

BABY BOOMLET/

GEN Y

PEOPLE AGE 6

OR YOUNGER

FIGURE 11.5Racial and Ethnic Composition of

the Baby Boom and Baby Boomlet (Gen Y) Generations

Source:U. S. Census Bureau, 2000.