20 May 2006

Members of the U.S. "Baby Boom" Turn 60

Generation that defined American youth culture faces retirement

First lady Laura Bush belongs to the Boomer generation's leading edge.

By Elizabeth Kelleher
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The 78 million baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, who strained U.S. school systems as children, challenged authority as teens and swamped the labor force as young adults, are getting old.

The generation’s leading edge, which includes Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, first lady Laura Bush, tycoon Donald Trump, director Steven Spielberg and punk-rocker Patti Smith, turns 60 in 2006.

“Boomers broke the mold in every earlier life cycle,” said demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.  They will approach old age differently too.

In fact, they plan to skip it.  In a poll by research firm Yankelovich Inc., boomers were asked, “At what age does old age start?”  Their answer:  three years after the average American dies.

Such optimism is typical of the generation that established youth culture in the United States, according to demographers.  “The size of the generation itself created pressure for them to rebel against authority,” said Cheryl Russell, demographer and director of New Strategist Publications.  When they were young, in the 1960s, sizeable numbers of boomers protested the Vietnam War and took part in the civil rights movement, which advanced the rights of African Americans.

For some, protesting against established rules included a “hippie” lifestyle -- from blue jeans and beads to community living and folk music -- and antics that shocked the older generation in the summer of 1969 at the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York.  According to J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich, the boomers, as a group, have tended to approach life with a sense of adventure.  “They break rules and challenge authority,” he said.

Boomer women entered the work force in droves during the 1970s.  Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History, said that women's changing roles and the rapid passage of “no-fault divorce laws” in the states during the 1970s combined to cause a spike in divorce rates.  Today, one-third of baby boomers are moving into old age as singles, due to divorce, being widowed or never marrying. 

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, and the 1968 assassinations of his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. shaped the boomers’ desire for idealistic leaders, according to Russell. 

Boomers divide into two distinct groups, according to Russell.  The older boomers (ages 51-60) are financially better off.  They bought houses at earlier ages than the younger boomers (ages 42-50), accumulated more wealth and landed better jobs.  “Anxiety describes younger boomers,” Russell said.

GENERATION GAP AT WORK

The baby boom resulted from a fertility spike after soldiers returned from World War II. It was a period of economic prosperity in the United States, when families were settling into newly developed suburbs.  For 18 years there were roughly 4 million births per year.

A “baby bust” followed, from 1965 to 1976.  Members of this smaller cohort, called “Generation X,” are now in their 30s and early 40s, prime working ages.

Employment experts see a “generation gap” between boomers and Gen X-ers.  According to Elizabeth MacGillivray, of Organization Resources Counselors Inc., younger workers communicate by instant messaging or cell phones.  They type with their thumbs on personal digital assistants.  Meanwhile, she said, “some older managers don’t even like to get e-mails.”

“The classic age-discrimination case happens when someone says an older worker is a ‘techno-dinosaur,’” said attorney Nancy Delogu of Littler Mendelson, a San Francisco employment law firm. 

An April survey by Randstat USA finds younger workers “do not seek out guidance from employees over age 50.”

Meanwhile, Delogu said, older bosses, grappling with workers in their 20s and 30s are asking, “Why are they not here at the office?”  Younger workers, who value flexibility and technology, want to work from home or a coffee shop.

WILL THEY EVER RETIRE?

Boomers have a stronger connection to the labor force than any previous generation, largely due to an influx of women during the 1970s and 1980s.  Because a large labor force is vital to economic prosperity, economists worry about boomers’ impending retirements.  The Labor Department predicts growth in the labor force in the 2020s (when boomers will be exiting) will be only one-fourth what it is projected to be in the first decade of the 21st century.

There will be an almost doubling in the number of Social Security beneficiaries in the next 25 years.  The federal retirement system is a “pay-as-you-go” plan to provide retirees with income.  Today, there are three workers who pay taxes to cover every one beneficiary.  By 2030, that ratio will be 2-to-1.

Strains on the system will come from increased life expectancy too.  Kenneth Manton, a Duke University demographer, estimates younger boomers will stay active for 16 years after age 65.  That compares to nine years when the Social Security system began in 1935.

Workers should save money for retirement to supplement Social Security, but “from a financial standpoint, [boomers] are almost illiterate,” said Maddy Dychtwald, of Age Wave, a consulting company.

Employers have moved from offering defined-benefit pensions toward investment accounts into which workers can put salary dollars, which employers often match.  Hewitt Associates reports that one-fourth of boomers are not contributing anything to these accounts. Some companies plan to make contributions automatic, to nudge savings.

Boomers’ good health combined with their low marks for retirement saving might end up bolstering the labor market.  Boomers will work into their 70s – some will want to, and some will have to.

Recent changes in Social Security will encourage this.  The age to collect Social Security benefits is ratcheting up to 67, and the government has scrapped a policy of reducing benefits for high-earners working past that age. 

Meanwhile, companies that want to prevent a “brain drain” are joining forces.  Procter & Gamble Co. and Eli Lilly and Company founded a program called YourEncore in which their retired scientists form a pool available to member companies for short-term work.

According to MacGillivray, keeping boomers working in the coming years will be a  “business necessity.”

For more information about life in the United States, see U.S. Life and Culture.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)