This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you
hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. Doctor Jane Twingey is a PhD and professor
of psychology at San Diego State University, author of more than one hundred scientific
publications, the latest of which is really easy to understand, and I think
it's important that you do understand it. It's called Generations, the real differences
between Gen Z Millennials, Gen X Boomers, and silence and what they mean
for America's future. Doctor Jeane Twingey. I love this kind of stuff because
I study it all the time in my business, and I think you've taken
this and made it more manageable for people to understand. Yeah, that's that's
really the goal here is to help the generations understand each other better by trying
to find as much information as possible and what those differences really are, not
going on the mists or the observations, but really digging into it. Lovely
wife and I have an argument all the time, and that is she was
born in nineteen sixty four, I nineteen sixty six. She loves to claim
that she is a baby boomer, and I have to tell her, well,
yeah, technically you are, but you have the sensibilities of a gen
xer like me. Let's get into you know, how these generations are defined
and why. Yeah, so it is true that by the technical definition,
baby boomers are those born between nineteen forty six nineteen sixty four, and then
Gen X nineteen sixty five to nineteen seventy nine. But of course you're right,
you know, depending on where you grow up, and especially if you're
right near one of those caught offs, you may have more of the characteristics
of the other generation. Yeah. For instance, a lovely wife doesn't remember
watching Gilligan's Island in prime time, but that's because she was in her family
was stationed over in Europe for the first ten years of her life. Yeah,
but does she remember the Brady Bunch? That's what we are. Ah,
yes, yes, I remember the Brady Bunch. But I was small
when I when I saw the Brady Bunch. So Jean twenty is with us.
She is the author of the book Generations, The Real Differences between Gen
Z Millennials, gen X Boomers, and Silence. Let's get into what these
silence are as. The silence are born nineteen twenty five to nineteen forty five,
so they were the leaders of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement.
So Martin Luther King Junior, Ruth Vader Ginsberger two members of that generation.
So their name is a little bit of a misnomer. Well, how
do they differ then, from the greatest Generation? So the greatest generation is
those born nineteen o one to nineteen twenty four, So they were the ones
who fought World War two and save the world from save the world from destruction
in many ways. Absolutely, there are very few of them, laughed.
So now our senior citizens are the silent generation and the upper our older end
of the Baby Boomers. So then the baby Boomers, that's the one that
seems to get all the attention, at least up until a few years ago.
Yeah. So baby Boomers are just the very large generation. That's what
they get their name from, and as a result, they have really dominated
the culture at at pretty much every stage of their life cycle. But they're
starting to retire. It's starting to change some although a lot of our political
leaders are still boomers, who then usually gave birth to the gen xers,
but also millennials. Because I keep seeing studies that the boomers are the first
generation to have multiple families. Well, it is true, the divorce eight
is fairly high for boomers. That has really started by the Silent generation,
and just yeah, a lot of a lot of more instability in relationships that
started to occur, especially with during the nineteen sixties nineteen seventies, and then
millennials, contrary to popular perception, have higher household incomes. But I would
I would say that's because they are getting paid more than the boomers did for
the same kind of work. Well, we can look at say median household
income collected by the US Census, and yeah, twenty five to forty four
year olds are have higher incomes even corrected for inflation. So that takes into
account the cost of housing and healthcare and TVs and cars and everything. And
that's partially because after to the Great Recession, which is very tough on millennials,
the economy really rowed back. And now now we have a labor shortage
because a lot of the baby boomers are retiring. So even though inflation has
also been high, a lot of young people have been able to get very
good, high paying jobs. Well, and then there's this interesting thing about
the gen xers because there's fewer of them than the boomers and fewer of them
than millennials. Yep. So gen X is nineteen sixty five to nineteen seventy
nine and often forgotten. Gen X is the middle child of generation sandwiches between
boomers and millennials, often having to mediate between those two mediate in which ways.
Well, a lot of times in the workplace, gen X kind of
can understand the perspective of both the boomers and the millennials. Sometimes in politics,
with a lot of Boomer leaders and Gen X coming up and with a
lot of the younger millennials, so there's some political gaps there which are already
interesting will become more so. I also wonder if the millennial generation has more
income because they don't seem to spend a lot of money on material things.
For instance, China patterns for a wedding present. You don't see the millennials
buying those. You don't see millennials buying expensive jewelry. You don't see millennials
spending lots of money on a car. Well, they do, they do
buy cars that just about the same rate. But I think a lot of
millennials will tell you they're they're spending that money on rent or you know,
saving up for a house, although others would say, you know, I
want to spend my money on experiences instead of on things. And as far
as the workplace right now, are we we're seeing boomers come back into the
workplace from retirement because of our work shortage or are we seeing more gen xers?
Are we seeing more millennials? Well, we're seeing some of both.
I mean the so called Great Resignation which has taken place over the last two
years. A lot of that was boomers retiring on the early side, and
a few of them have come back because of the labor shortages that we have.
But really what that's done has opened up a lot of opportunities, particularly
for millennials. And we haven't talked about gen Z. What did your study
of these generations come across with gen Z? So gen zs those born nineteen
ninety five to twenty twelve, So they're kids, teens, young adults,
and they are the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of
the smartphone, and that had a lot of rip effects across many areas of
their lives. So they also spend less time with friends in person, and
that might be one reason why they have very high levels of anxiety and depression.
Doctor Jean Twine is with us and the Bookist Generations, the real differences
between Gen Z Millennials, gen X Boomers, and Silence and what they mean
for America's future. It's a fascinating read and if you want to understand pop
culture and today's world, I would highly recommend it, at least as a
summer read. I thank you for joining us, Thank you thanks for listening
to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen
to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and I Hearts Media presentation