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Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

bloomberg.com

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Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#51

Post by roymurdock »

sdegutis wrote: post #20
roymurdock wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't work in marketing/advertising. Companies need to segment populations of consumers with similar characteristics to effectively advertise, tailor products, and sell to them. One of the most common demographic dividers is age. Different "generations" are grouped together because the members of their population exhibit similar income and expenditure patterns on average.

Generations has been a concept long before marketing. I do wonder about who draws the line for where a generation begins/ends, but the concept is pretty clear: you are one generation, your children another, your parents another, your grandparents another. Hence the base word "generate".

Market research agencies draw the line nowadays and their terms get picked up in general lingo

Philosophers, novelists, sociologists, anthropologists, and economists used to define, study, and critique generational divides before advertising became such a pervasive part of the modern economy

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#52

Post by enraged_camel »

twoodfin wrote: post #31
enraged_camel wrote: post #22

It's good to see a study that quantifies what we have suspected for a while now: millennials aren't doing as well as their parents were at any given age. This is why certain "life thresholds" such as getting married or buying a house are delayed, sometimes significantly. The annoying thing is that this is typically blamed on imaginary negative traits that millennials possess, such as laziness or spite borne out of fe…

Or on average they stayed in school longer than their parents, which tends to delay everything, including high earnings years.

Maybe, but it's worth noting that college is tremendously more expensive today than it was back when Boomers were attending it. We're talking an order of magnitude or more.

edit: not multiple orders of magnitude

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#53

Post by klodolph »

lucisferre wrote: post #37
klodolph wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. It's just an arbitrary label for people born in a certain period of history. These people generally have shared experiences that are different from the experiences of other generations. > Who draws a line between generations and why? Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes. It's sometimes a useful distinction so people remember it and use it. > People do…

> > Who draws a line between generations and why? > Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes I mean, I doubt it is really the exact same people who do this. At the very least it is a separate department that does the lemon-lime distincting.

You might be surprised. Ernest Hemingway, an avid drinker, coined the term "lime" so he could distinguish it from other types of citrus in the Daiquiri, one of his favorite drinks. He also popularized the term Lost Generation, generally regarded as the first generational cohort with a name, although the term was originally coined by Gertrude Stein.

(Ohyyfuvg.)

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#55

Post by beaconstudios »

acconrad wrote: post #18

It's painful to see that younger people are worse off - poorer and life expectancy I see is down again. I thought we were trying to give our children a better life? How did we become so narcissistic that we don't even want to make future generations better off?

I think it's largely related to the housing bubble. House prices have risen sharply in the last few decades and more people buy houses as investment.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#56

Post by hkmurakami »

iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

There concept is widely used in Japan as well fwiw. "The sexless generation" etc.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

acconrad wrote: post #18

It's painful to see that younger people are worse off - poorer and life expectancy I see is down again. I thought we were trying to give our children a better life? How did we become so narcissistic that we don't even want to make future generations better off?

Everyone is trying to give their children a better life, not everyone else's children a better life.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#58

Post by maccard »

AlphaSite wrote: post #41
iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

Its q uniquely american thing. It doesn't exist in the UK to the best of my knowledge.

Definitely not. Look at any UK based news paper, and you'll find articles comparing Millenials to Boomers - [0][1] are two articles I found within 30 seconds. Looking at places like /r/unitedkingdom, you'll find it full of people talking about other generations being selfish etc, where we're just trying to get by..

[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/baby-boomers-v-millennial... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-...

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#59

Post by beaconstudios »

enraged_camel wrote: post #52
twoodfin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or on average they stayed in school longer than their parents, which tends to delay everything, including high earnings years.

Maybe, but it's worth noting that college is tremendously more expensive today than it was back when Boomers were attending it. We're talking an order of magnitude or more. edit: not multiple orders of magnitude

also, more people are attending college. College didn't used to be something everyone went to. With the proliferation of student loans, universities have no reason to keep fees down.
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