The Pew Research Center is known for their detailed reporting and analysis on social trends, a self-proclaimed, “nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public on issues and attitudes and trends shaping the world.” Now, these long-time trend watchers may be starting a trend of their own. The group publicly announced in mid-2023 a commitment to drop generation labels like Millennials, Gen-X, Boomers, or the Silent Generation unless it is statistically significant. Kim Parker, Director of Social Trends Research said in an online article, “By choosing not to use the standard generational labels where they’re not appropriate, we can avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes or oversimplifying people’s complex lived experience.”
Researchers and academics have been debating the concept of generational labels for many years, making the shift with the Pew Research Center a notable one. Critics advocate that people cannot be placed in groups based on the period of time they were born alone to find consensus on world views, behaviors, and perspectives in general.
Instead, a multitude of experiences and factors should be heavily weighed. Certainly, there are nationally shared moments that can shape a generation who were firsthand witnesses. Consider milestone events like wars, pandemics, and economic crisis as examples. Innovations in technology, along with social change can have a similar impact on a generation. There is no doubt, it would be comparing apples and oranges to contrast the perspectives of a person who has seen war firsthand with those who have not. You would most assuredly find a gap in understanding one another. Equally true, there may be a gap between those who have lost a beloved partner and those who have not. Between those who have moved across country multiple times and those who lived in one town their whole life. Those who have struggled with chronic illness and those who have not. None of which are generationally significant. Life happens to the old and the young, celebration and suffering seem to find us all.
Perhaps the Pew Research Center is right to do away with labels based on age alone. The practice seems to place a greater significance on the nationally shared, high impact events as the dominant factor in how one forms their views and develops their behaviors while invalidating the other factors that may shape how one relates to the world around them.
Today, 79% of Americans say there is a generational gap, believing that there is a divide in how the young and the old see and relate to the world. Did the long-accepted practice of labeling groups of people by age cause this? Maybe. Maybe not. It seems there is so much to cause division between people groups in today’s world, perhaps a world that no longer draws a line between the young and old could be a better one. Sure, there will always be differences between the generations, there is no doubt, but there may be far more similarities we have yet to discover. A popular quote from Cyd Charisse sums up the idea perfectly, “It’s like comparing apples and oranges; they’re both delicious."
