The generation of children born after the Second World War is the generation that gave the world flower power, hippies, environmentalism, feminism, student activism and a whole range of radical ideas.
However, the UK-Government-funded Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) have found that they are failing to break new ground as they face up to growing older.
Baby Boomers' Plans for Retirement
The research, undertaken by Dr Rebecca Leach and Prof Chris Phillipson of Keele University and Prof Simon Biggs of King’s College’ London shows that most members of the post-war baby boom generation have modest ideas with regard to their retirement. Most plan to spend their time watching TV and films, listening to the radio or going for long walks. This contrast with the relative few that have larger retirement projects in mind, projects such as travelling or developing a second home.
Types of Baby Boomer
The research shows that baby boomers, who are widely characterised as being highly individualistic, tend to fall into one of the following four types.
- The baby bulge group. Baby boomers aware of being in competing with many others for places at school and jobs.
- The burden group. Baby boomers who worried about their future because their generation is being followed by a smaller one.
- The lucky generation. Baby boomers who believed that they had benefited most from a long period of economic growth since WW2 and from the health and social care provided by the welfare state.
- The political generation. Baby boomers who thought of themselves as lifelong trailblazers, as people who had taken the initiatives that had produced the social and cultural change associated with the Swinging Sixties.
The researchers asked people whether they thought of themselves as ‘baby boomers and only two-fifths did so.
Who are the Baby Boomers?
The baby boomer generation constitutes about 17 per cent of the UK population and were born at a time of austerity in the years immediately following the Second World War (1945-54). They then grew up in the period in the late 1950s and 1960s when, as Harold MacMillan, the UK Prime Minister said, people had ‘never had it so good.’
Most baby boomers have relatively modest aspirations and this may be reinforced by the fact that almost half still have at least one child still living at home, and a third have financial responsibility for other members of the family. Rising life expectancy also means that many more of the baby boomer generation have living parents than would have been the case for previous generations. Encouragingly, almost three-quarters of baby boomers think that age is unimportant and that they felt younger than their biological age.
The Myth of the Radical Baby Boomers
Dr Rebecca Leach, one of the authors of the research, summarised the importance of the research, saying: “There are lots of assumptions about baby boomers: that they are wealthy, radical individuals who are spending the kids’ inheritance; but this research shows that the reality is much more complex and ordinary – some of what it means to be a ‘boomer’ is because of shared life experiences but some of it is driven by the same challenges (health, wealth, jobs and family) as those faced by all of us.”
Further information can be found at the project’s web pages.
