10.4: What do the generations look like?

Who makes up the generations of our day? Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows birth rates for each of the four most recent generations in the U.S. Notice the red and blue lines (blue is the top line and red is the bottom line). The red line represents the Crude Birth Rate (CBR) which is the number of births per 1,000 population in a given year. The Blue line represents the General Fertility Rate (GFR) which is the number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15-44. Both the CBR and GFR show a pattern of birth rates that were relatively high when the World-At-War Generation was first being born. Birth rates declined with the Great Depression until 1946 (the commencement of the Baby Boom). The Baby Boom represented a surge in birth rates from 1946 to 1964 and declined to pre-Boom rates in 1965. Generation X (born about 19651976) or "Gen X" represents the children of the Baby Boomers which spilled into Generation Y (born about 1977-1995) or the "Millennials." The latest generation is born 1996 or later and called variously iGen, Gen Z, or Centennials.

The World-At-War Generation is slowly disappearing from the U.S. population landscape. On June 18, 2008 the last living Veteran of World War I was honored by the White House and Congress. Frank W. Buckles fought in WWI and was held prisoner in Manila during World War II. The U.S. Veterans Bureau reported that there were about 500,000 WWII veterans as of 2017 (www.nationalww2museum.org/war/wwii-veteran-statistics).

The majority of the elderly today are women. If you consider the elderly as being divided into three life stages you can discern just how the elderly are comprised comparing males to females. The Young-old are 65-74 years; the Middle-old are 75-84 years; and the Old-old are 85+ years. In 2005 there were more females in all three age groups. This is because women, in most countries of the world, have a higher life expectancy than men. Life expectancy is the average numbers of years a person born today may expect to live.

According to the World Bank, the U.S. Life expectancy (2015) is 78.7 years in the U.S.. For females, it is 81.1 years and 76.3 years for males. Worldwide it is 70 years for females and 66 years for males (www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63 03.pdf). Life expectancies have increased dramatically over the last 50 years in the Western nations of Canada, United States, Australia, Japan, and Western Europe.

The sex ratio is the number of males per 100 females in a population. Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows selected sex ratios as of the 2000 census. A ratio of 105 means that there were 105 males aged 15-24 in the U.S. for every 100 females in that group. This didn't change much from 1990 when the ratio was 104.3. As you can see in the \(85+\) group there were only 40.7 males for every 100 females. This is up from 38.6 in 1990.

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) : Sex Ratio for U.S. Selected Age Groups and Total, 2000. ³

Group	Sex Ratio
US total	96.3
15-24	105.1
55-64	92.2
85+	40.7

The Baby Boomers represent 78.2 million U.S. citizens as of 1 July \(2005 .{ }^{16}\) This large cohort of society is moving en masse into the ranks of the elderly. A cohort is a group of people who share a statistical or demographic trait. The Baby Boomers are the largest birth cohort. Nearly 8,000 Baby Boomers turned 60 each day in 2006. The U.S. Census estimates that 57.8 million Baby Boomers will be retired in 2030. One issue for gerontologists is the financial strain the Baby Boomers will place on the rest of society once they are retired. Most speculate that Baby Boomers will not receive the same benefits from the Social Security Administration that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

The children of the Baby Boomers are called Generation X or the "Baby Bust" because they were born in post-boom low fertility rate years. They were different from their parents. They grew up with the computer age and came to computer technology much like an immigrant comes to a new country. This cohort grew up in an economic state of greater posterity than did previous generations.

Generation Y or Millennials are also called the "Internet Generation or Screenagers" because they grew up with TV, video games, cell phones, and PDAs. Each generation is culturally distinct compared to the previous ones even though much still remains in common. There is a good chance that the children of Generation Y parents will be better skilled than their parents with a technology that has not yet been invented. Such has been the case comparing the last three generations.

In Tables \(\PageIndex{2}\) and \(\PageIndex{3}\) you see increasing life expectancies in the U.S. and the world. Being born in the U.S. affords the average member of society a longer life. North American children are born with higher life expectancies than other children around the world.

Over the past half-century, both the worldwide drop in fertility and concurrent rise in life expectancy have led to the gradual aging of the world's population. Table 4 gives projected percentages of persons over 65 for selected regions of the world while figure 3 displays a map of the world illustrating the percentage of older members of each country's population in 2008. Most of Africa, with its high fertility rate and young life expectancies, has less than five percent of its population aged 65 and older. A good portion of Europe has \(15 \%\) or greater older population. The U.S. is at \(10-14 \%\). Since 1950 , the share of persons ages 65 and older has risen from five to seven percent worldwide. As the map shows, Europe and Japan have led the way, with North America, Australia, and New Zealand close behind. However, older persons are now more than five percent of the inhabitants in many developing countries and by 2050 are expected to be \(19 \%\) of Latin America's population and \(18 \%\) of Asia's. Notice that the developing countries have the lowest percentages of over 65 populations. This is due to continued high fertility rates (births) and high mortality rates (deaths).

Table \(\PageIndex{2}\) : Three Lowest and Three Highest Life Expectancies ⁴

Region	Life Expectancy
World	71.40
Chad	49.81
Guinea-Bissau	50.23
Afghanistan	50.87
Singapore	84.68
Japan	84.74
Monaco	89.52

Table \(\PageIndex{3}\): Regional Life Expectancies. ⁵

Year	Total	Male	Female
1970	70.8	67.1	74.7
1980	73.7	70.0	77.4
1990	75.4	71.8	78.8
2000	77.0	74.3	79.7
2010	78.5	75.6	81.4
2015	79.2	76.2	82.2

Footnotes

1. (www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj)

2. (www.census.gov/ipc)

3. (www1.va.gov/vetdata/docs/4X6_spring08_sharepoint.pdf) 119 | Inti mate Relationships and Families – SOCI 103

4. (www.prb.org)

5. (www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-9.pdf)