# Thirtysomethings: an age group with no generational affiliation **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 26, 2015, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609 "2015-11-26T05:38:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609/101 "2016-11-07T11:22:51Z")
I think that cynical opinion is bullshit. If you didn’t have these labels, people would still be interested in reading stories reporting on the experiences and attitudes of people in similar age cohorts. Constantly saying “people born in the Truman and Eisenhower years” is much more awkward than the shorthand “Boomers”. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609/102 "2016-11-08T05:22:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think that cynical opinion is bullshit. If you didn’t have these labels, people would still be interested in reading stories reporting on the experiences and attitudes of people in similar age cohorts. Constantly saying “people born in the Truman and Eisenhower years” is much more awkward than the shorthand “Boomers”. The problem with the term “Boomers” is that people want to extend it to “people born in the Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson years” and then all notion of cohesion and shared experience is gone. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609/103 "2016-11-08T05:35:05Z")
I think you’re exaggerating a bit. I have seen 1964 included in the “Boom”, but never LBJ’s second term years which are the vast majority of his time in office. The problem with cutting off boomers earlier is that it was originally intended to describe a period of time called the “baby boom”, and by that definition the early 1960s definitely qualifies. The peak years for fertility were actually pretty late: the very end of the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609/104 "2016-11-08T05:56:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think you’re exaggerating a bit. I have seen 1964 included in the “Boom”, but never LBJ’s second term years which are the vast majority of his time in office. Well, [here’s what Wikipedia’s sources have to say](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_boom): > [@](#): > > The exact beginning and end of the baby boom can be debated. In the United States, demographers usually use mid-1946 to mid-1964,[3] although the U.S. birthrate began to shoot up in 1941 and to decline after 1957. By 1958, the US population increase was back to the pre-Depression increase rate of about 1.5% per year. Some sources place the beginning as early as 1944.[4] Regardless of definition (1946 to 1964, or 1941 to 1957, with the 1946 to 1964 span being commonly used), it’s a twenty-year span. You can’t have generational cohesion if the oldest members were in college or getting careers when the youngest were in diapers. There’s no guarantees of shared experience, other than the stuff practically everyone born in late Twentieth Century America knows about. So you can make a generation out of that demographic event, or you can make a generation out of a small enough span of years the people in that generation feel like they have nontrivial things in common with each other they don’t share with people born earlier or later. You can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609/105 "2016-11-08T07:16:48Z")
I hear you, but OTOH if you make the generations too small, you end up with too many people on the borders and too few in the “heart” of the generation. I would say 15 years is a nice length. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thirtysomethings-an-age-group-with-no-generational-affiliation/738609.md?page=5)