From Baby Boomers: busting the myths being launched Friday 12th April:
Why baby boomers?
Australia, like many other nations, experienced a baby boom following the Second World War, as soldiers returned home, married and started families. Higher than average birth rates continued throughout the 1950s and early 1960s and then fell again, while immigration soared. Now those post-war babies are beginning to reach their mid-sixties, the population aged sixty-five and over will increase from 13.5 per cent in June 2010 to 23 per cent in 2050, and at the same time the proportion of working-age people (those aged 15 to 64 years) in the total population is expected to fall by seven per cent to 60 per cent. The change has governments worried.
Meanwhile, life expectancy has increased dramatically. In 1943, it was calculated that someone born in that year would likely die at the age of 70. By 2010, this same person was expected to live to 80 or more. That is, there would be an additional ten years of life in which this person is not earning an income or paying income tax, and possibly drawing a part or full pension as well. There is an expectation that these Australians will use more health and care services as they age, and this, too, costs.
It’s hard to believe, but for a long time governments didn’t seem to see the problem coming—at least not to its full extent. Indeed, in the 1980s and early 1990s, with the manufacturing industry in decline and the job market looking unhealthy, early retirement looked like a good thing—a way of opening up job opportunities for young people. But by the late 1990s, this changed: birth and death rates were lower than predicted, the future aged population was going to be larger than expected. The economy was in better shape, with more demand for labour.
The degree of attention being paid to the issues of ageing shifted. Suddenly, the picture looked dire: the future was one in which working-age Australians supported growing numbers of the aged and infirm, with the costs of providing pensions, aged care and health care becoming prohibitive.
In 2002, Treasury produced the first of its Intergenerational Reports. The tone was measured but it placed the baby boomers as the looming cause of younger generations facing an unfair tax burden. And the negativity built from there. It became commonplace in government reports and the media to read or hear that baby boomers were associated with trouble and greed. They were a burden on society. Political commentator Michelle Grattan was taken with what the then ANZ Bank chief economist was saying:
Mr Eslake paints the baby boomers as a tough, greedy, self-indulgent lot who have not only failed to look out for their children but have not bred enough of them to sustain the nation’s tax and public spending base.
Michelle Grattan, ‘Gen X losing the wealth race to boomers’, The Age, 16 November 2003
By 2010 the Intergenerational Report claimed that: ‘Failure to act now to tackle intergenerational challenges [would] result in severe economic, fiscal and environmental consequences’.
Boomers mythologised
Clearly, there will be problems associated with the ageing of a larger than usual generation, and they do require the close attention of policy makers. The quarrel I have is not with this but with the widespread and careless use of the term ‘baby boomer’. It is a term that comes with baggage.
Its origins are found in the work of American historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. In their 1991 book, Generations: the history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069, they identify a recurring generational cycle in the grand sweep of American history, moving repeatedly through four periods. First there is crisis and upheaval, then a high period of recovery; next comes an awakening or time of spiritual growth and thence the unravelling accompanied by a weakening of institutions. They introduce the ‘boom’—soon to be ‘boomer’—generation as following on from the crisis era of the Second World War and the spiritual awakening in its immediate aftermath.
This is not the place for an exploration or critique of the theory; suffice it to say that it is regarded by many respectable academics as woolly and unscientific. Nevertheless, it has allure. Popularised and simplified versions proliferate. They are even more questionable and, mostly, they focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. The central idea is that each generation experiences decisive historical events in their childhood, adolescence and early adulthood that significantly shape their attitudes, values and behaviour in a way that distinguishes them from those of earlier or later generations. The commonalities between individuals within a generation are greater than any differences. The influences of class, gender, race and culture disappear into the background.
By taking the focus back to the boomers as an example, the immediate appeal is evident. For boomers themselves, it can conjure up the excitement of a cultural and sexual revolution: rock and roll; drive-in picture theatres; television; The Beatles; greater education and work opportunities; a new wave of feminism; the freedom riders protesting against discrimination against Aboriginal Australians; new opportunities for young people to travel overseas; and the anti-Vietnam moratorium marches. There is a fascination in seeing aspects of oneself reflected as part of a larger and seemingly cohesive group. There is a sense of nostalgia. For younger generations, there is an opportunity to have a dig at parental figures. The apparently clear-cut generational categories claim our attention, provide shorthand descriptions and seek to bind diverse members of a generation together.
It may all seem harmless enough but this is the stuff of myth-making. Not as grand myth with a narrative or story designed to explain and illuminate crucial existential issues of humankind and the relationship of man or woman to the world, but as something with less honourable intentions. It purports to give explanation and clarify reality when, in fact, what is being said is wrong, deceitful or deceptive. This is political myth-making, and it is powerful. The appealing simplicity overrides and hides what was, and is, the reality of different lives and the complexity of those differences. To quote Brian Musgrove writing in Contemporary Australian politics, the boomer myths ‘obliterate the fractious contradictions and pains of lived experience’. But more than that, they are not neutral: they express a point of view and claim a priority place for this point of view.
The boomer generation becomes highly visible, an actor seemingly with enormous power. Meanwhile, the powerful decision makers and interest groups, the real political actors in our society, are hidden from view. It is easy to be distracted from close critical examination of policy decisions, who benefits and who loses. Complex issues to do with ageing, health care, employment and education that deserve attention as issues relevant to society as a whole become problems created by the baby boomers themselves, acting as though they were one, in their own interests and against the interests of others. Baby boomers are to blame. ‘They’ are the cause of the high cost of housing. ‘They’ can bring down the economy. ‘They’ make younger generations pay. If ‘they’ want jobs, the jobs will be there. With such simplistic framing of the situation, it is easy to assume there will be clear and simple solutions.
Such myths constrain the way in which issues are identified and discussed, how policy is framed, and indeed, the policy agenda. Carol Bacci, in her work on understanding and influencing policy, writes of the dangers associated with the way in which policy language and discourse can set limits on what can be said, how it places boundaries around the discussion. Oft-repeated words and phrases describing an issue or problem establish a way of seeing that is difficult to step back from. Things are over-simplified or missed and policy risks are being hijacked.
For me, Bacci’s analysis brought into focus a powerful sense of unease at the widespread acceptance of what I call the ‘boomer myths’—popular catchphrases purporting to describe what boomers are like and how they will behave. What is needed, it seems, is a systematic taking apart of the myths and reconsideration of policy directions. This work takes a small step in that direction.
BABY BOOMERS 