Millennials versus baby boomers
Au Royaume-Uni, la guerre est déclarée entre la génération Y et les Baby-boomers.
La génération milléniale ou « Génération Y », née entre les années 1980 et 1990, est diverse et protéiforme. Désignée comme paresseuse et difficile à manager par certains, créative et ambitieuse par d’autres, souvent technophile, parfois consommatrice, tout fait débat, jusqu’à son nom même. Pourtant, au Royaume-Uni, il semblerait qu’une définition mette tout le monde d'accord : elle est l’antithèse de la génération dorée des Baby Boomers.
The late 1940s were about bombsites, rationing, loss and mourning, but amid the gloom a new generation was emerging. In the grim, grey aftermath of war, children were born on an unprecedented scale in a population explosion: the baby boomers – born between 1946 and the mid-60s – had arrived. It was time for a new life. It was time for the young to grow up with faith in a better tomorrow. When we baby boomers reached adolescence, creating the teenager in the process, it was as if the floodlights had been switched on, revealing a colourful, contrary, anti-authoritarian Britain. In our teens, with rock’n’roll if not much cash, we were the lucky, cocky generation.
CHANGING SOCIETY
2. Anthropologist Helen Fisher inelegantly described the maturing of this huge postwar bulge in the population as “like a pig moving through a python”, changing society as we grew older on a scale never known before. We challenged the Victorian puritanism, censorship, class snobbery and inhibitions of the establishment. Full employment put money in the pockets of managers and factory workers alike. 3. Yet today, “baby boomer” is a toxic phrase, shorthand for greed and selfishness, for denying the benefits we took for granted to subsequent generations, notably beleaguered millennials, who reached adulthood in the early years of this century. So, where did it all go so very wrong?
SABOTAGING THEIR CHILDREN’S FUTURE?
4. It may have been due partly to our irritating habit of hogging the cultural limelight. But there are a much more serious set of charges, too. We were – and are – accused of sabotaging our children’s future, hoarding power and money while expecting those with the least to foot the potentially hefty bills as we march towards our 90s. Leading the flood of critics has been David Willetts, author in 2010 of The Pinch, a book that sparked a flood of furious debate.
5. [On 8 May] the Resolution Foundation’s intergenerational commission published its groundbreaking two-year investigation into millennial Britain. The commission rightly says that intergenerational fairness is a major issue, but so too are the troubling inequalities within the generations.
REMODELLING THE WELFARE STATE
6. The commission signals that it is time to remodel the welfare state, which was crafted at a time when a pension was only expected to last a handful of years before death took its toll. Young people are deeply anxious about housing, jobs and pensions, while those who are older are concerned about health, social care, the fragility of the welfare state – and the future of their own children.
7. The commission has already revealed a profound cross-generational pessimism about the prospects of the young. The escalator that for
6. to remodel transformer / welfare state Etatprovidence / to craft forger / pension retraite (perçue) / handful poignée, quelques / to take, took, taken one's toll ici, frapper / housing logement / social care protection sociale. 7. prospects perspectives d’avenir / escalator ici, ascenseur social / decades ensured the younger generation had a better standard of living than their parents has stalled – and that has ramifications for life. Britain – along with Greece – is now the most pessimistic among the advanced economic countries, a mood that has potentially catastrophic implications for a country’s wellbeing and resilience.
PESSIMISM AMONG THE YOUNG
8. Pessimism is not new. In the 1970s and 80s, inflation reached 21%, three million people were on the dole, poverty was soaring and Thatcherism had laid waste to manufacturing and industry. On a full grant, and from a working-class background, I was one of the 8% who went to university. My best friend had left school at 16 and moved up the managerial ladder, earning what our mothers called “a good wage”. Pessimism was the national trait but we all had hope. I was 28 and single when I put a deposit on a tiny flat; my parents were in their late 40s before they took out a hefty mortgage on a modest bungalow. That escalator in action.
POLITICIANS’ FAILURE
9. Life, money and opportunities had an elasticity that they lack today. A minority of millennials are rich but the majority are definitely not, while almost two million older pensioners, mainly female – the silent generation – live in deep poverty. The Resolution Foundation has provided forensic detail of how this has come about – and why. A complex mix of reasons includes the financial crisis, austerity and reluctance by successive governments to radically tackle the challenges of housing, health, social care, employment and a woefully deregulated market at a time when people are living so much longer – but no baby-boomer banditry.
LIFE FOR THE AVERAGE MILLENNIAL
10. So, according to the foundation, what is life like for the average millennial, in and outside London? For some, including women, ethnic minorities and LGBT groups, progress has come in terms of rights and personal freedoms. However, even at a time when unemployment is at its lowest and inflation minimal, aspirations of having a home, a fulfilling job and a higher income than the generation before are being extinguished. Only a third of millennials own their own home, compared with almost two-thirds of baby boomers at the same age. Low wages are also endemic. Two out of five non-graduate jobs are filled by people with degrees, so the less qualified are pushed into self-employment, zero hours and agency work that suits some but not all.
11. The intergenerational commission’s invaluable work exposes how urgently capitalism has to be brought under control. It’s time to restore fairness to the contributory principle at the heart of a renewed welfare state and re-establish social justice.