Baby Boomers

According to the United States Census Bureau, baby boomers are an entire generation born between the end of World War II and 1964. During this 19 year post-war baby boom, there were 78.2 million babies born in the United States alone. There are differing opinions among demographers as to the precise time frame, and there is evidence to show that those born at the end of this generation do not easily identify themselves as baby boomers. This generation views themselves as radically different from preceding generations, as they are highly educated and adorned with entitlements and visions of a prosperous life.

Baby boomers around the world entered their teens and early twenties in the cultural turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s. They began to define their morals and attitudes by defying the norms of earlier generations. Their music was rock n’ roll and their voice was heard in loud demonstrations against a culturally immoral Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Baby boomer attitudes were experimental with respect to drugs and a sexual revolution that brought women’s rights to the forefront of politics. Baby boomers were also conservative in large numbers, particularly when it came to classical education that gave large numbers of them access to traditional careers in the corporate business world.

Political and economic cycles of boom and bust have shaped and defined the baby boomer generation. Upheavals such as Watergate, the 9/11 attacks, and the current economic recession have changed the trust and confidence in both government and economic leadership. Baby boomers have come to define what is both good and evil in society among younger generations, just as the generations before the baby boomers condemned the acts they once partook in.