Generational vs class divides

In a typically great post, Rick challenges the notion that people born between the mid-40s and mid-60s represent some kind of homogenous generation. I agree, and want to amplify his post in two ways.

First, one reason why there’s a massive difference between those born in the mid-40s and those in the mid-60s is that our formative years were very different. The mid-40s generation left school in the early 60s, a time of full employment when even the unqualified could walk into albeit unsatisfying work. My generation left school at a time of high and rising unemployment. This is the difference between Arthur Seaton and Damon Grant*.

In the early 80s, a typical domestic scene in declining industrial areas between my friends and contemporaries and their dads went as follows:

Dad: Get a job.

Son: What as – a unicorn farmer?

Dad: There are jobs if you’re willing to look.

Son: No there aren’t.

Exchange of Effing and Jeffing. Son storms out, to see his grandad who, having grown up in the 1930s, gives him a sympathetic hearing.

Shared formative experiences matter more than temporal closeness; there was/is therefore a big difference between the mid-40s and mid/late 60s generations.  

Academic research backs this up. A recent paper by Nathanael Vellekoop finds:

The more aggregate unemployment an individual has experienced during his or her lifetime, the lower the score on agreeableness, emotional stability, extraversion and openness.

This corroborates work (pdf) by Ulrike Malmendier and Stefan Nagel who have found that growing up in hard times makes people risk averse even decades later, and Henrik Cronqvist who has found that:

Investors with adverse macroeconomic experiences (e.g., growing up during the Great Depression or entering the labor market during an economic recession) or who grow up in a lower socioeconomic status rearing environment have a stronger value orientation several decades later.

There’s a common theme here. Recessions make us distrustful; we prefer the pound on the table to the promise of two down the road. Rick is bang right to highlight the massive gulf between hippies and my generation who have plain contempt for “all you need is love” drivel*. This gap is based upon diametrically opposite economic experiences.

But there’s something else. When Rick says that we 60s-born generation face a harder and shorter retirement than those born in the 40s, he’s describing a difference between averages. But of course averages conceal big variations. Some of us are considering retirement whilst many others are 15-20 years from it.

And herein, of course, lies the problem with any discussion of generational difference: it avoids the fact that there is a massive class divide. Both the right and some of the narcissistic left avoid this fact. But some things are true whether you believe them or not.

* Damon was slightly younger than me, but the point holds.

** I was a New Romantic, not a punk.

Comments

[Roy Lonergan]

@Chris

Kraftwerk were not New Romantics. Nothing wrong with New Romanticism as such but they just weren't/aren't. Neither were OMD (but you'll note that I've not put them in the same sentence as Kraftwerk). This falls way below your usual standards of accuracy.

[Dave Timoney]

I'm baffled how Kraftwerk crept into this, but just for the record, they enjoyed a UK vogue in the early 80s (hits with reissues of Computer Love and The Model) due to post-punk interest in electronic music, particularly that of German mid-70s bands (Neu, Can etc). This bled into New Romanticism (via Bowie) and synth-pop more generally.

[aragon]

Many people may be technologically retired in the not to distant future.

Apparently Polish Brickies are to be excluded from immigration restrictions.

Hasn't anyone heard of Sam and Hadrian, I am of course referring to S.A.M 100 and Hadrian X.

http://www.ukconstructionmedia.co.uk/news/robotic-hadrian-x-can-build-a-house-in-just-two-days/

Two days, is that fast?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP2AtqcitbQ

Apparently the Semi-Automated Mason, works three to four times as fast as a human. (Costs 330k)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/meet-sam-330000-robot-that-lays-bricks-four-times-faster-human-video-1519111

But Hadrian X makes SAM100 look crude.
http://inhabitat.com/brick-laying-robot-stacks-1000-bricks-an-hour-to-build-a-house-in-2-days/

As for the Zipper Truck, it creates arches by turning the scaffolding into a movable falsework
which allows the blocks to fall under gravity into compression.

http://inhabitat.com/crazy-zipper-truck-snaps-lego-like-bricks-together-to-build-a-14-mile-tunnel-in-24-hours/

Technology will allow us all to retire, but with the current crop of politicians in charge, it could be a bumpy ride for the people born in the sixties. As transitions often are.

[aragon]

The PR version of FBR's Hadrian X previous video was Hadrian 105 the prototype version.

https://youtu.be/5bW1vuCgEaA

They refer to process as 3D printing.

[chris]

@ Roy - Kraftwerk didn't self-identify as New Romantics; they both pre-dated & out-lived them. But New Romantics certainly saw them as such in the early 80s: The Model was adopted as a New Romantic song.
There's an analogy here with identity politics: some think that self-identity (eg as a woman or black) is sufficient definition of identity, whereas others don't. (The difference, of course, is that Kraftwerk are much more important than identity politics).

[Bill Posters]

I wouldn't infer too much from the life experience of Arthur Seaton. Last time I ran into him was at a hospital on the Costas, the liver damage had caught up with him. Claimed to have 33 grandchildren. A one off. I was out there putting up English signage in some of the local hospitals. Also Simon O'Brien ain't done too bad.

[Bonnemort]

Back in the 1981 day Kraftwerk, Roxy, Japan were always on at the New Romantic bar I patronised.

Chris - real median male wages are lower now than in 1997 (table 1 then apply the BoE inflation calculator)

http://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/ashe1997to2015selectedestimates

But since 1997

House prices more than doubled
Cost of university more than doubled
Final salary pensions almost vanished
Pension age risen

So you earn less, it costs more to rent/buy, you have greater debt, you have worse pensions, and you retire later.

As a commenter elsewhere said

"Wage rises are no longer tracking the cost of the most basic requirement - a roof over one's head.

Why ?

Because there is an abundance of people prepared to work for less.

Why the demand for housing ?

Because there is an abundance of people (prepared to work for less)"