Professor Niraj Dawar is advancing a new theory that could change the way we think about generations. He argues in the Harvard Business Review that labels such as ‘millennial,’ ‘Gen-Xer,’ and ‘Baby Boomer,’ are defined only by dates and not by shared traits – so that the terms have lost their descriptive meaning.
These ever-shifting age brackets came into the vernacular as a quick way to describe the way huge groups of people live, spend, and vote. But Dawar argues that the labels now only signify age, and group members may not have any shared traits (besides being born within a certain span of years).
“This segmentation scheme is perhaps marketers’ most successful product. And it is, unfortunately, mostly nonsense,” Dawar explains. “For example, is it more informative to say 30–40 year olds or Gen Xers? Calling them Gen Xers presumes that there is something generational about their characteristics that will remain constant as they traverse different age groups. But most often the label is used as a substitute for an age bracket.”
In short, all millennials started the game of LIFE around the same time, but we are now scattered across the playing board. If you are, for instance, on a square that says “change career path, draw new card” – you have more in common with others on that same space (no matter when they started playing) than you do with the people who started playing when you did.
No categorization system is perfect. Dawar notes that “the cutoff dates for the generations…are entirely arbitrary.” A 34-year-old is considered a millennial, but is that person more similar to a 35-year-old Gen-Xer or another millennial who is ten years their junior?
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04.28.2024