There has been growing criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular, ... [+]
Last year a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, Dr. Philip N. Cohen, sent an open letter to Pew Research Center imploring them to stop using generational labels as part of their research. He argued that labels are misleading and don’t align with the scientific principles of social research. Then he gave six reasons why.
Pew responded with a comment from Kim Parker, director of social trends. In the statement, Parker wrote, “Generations are one of many analytical lenses researchers use to understand societal change and differences across groups.”
Almost a year later, Pew has finally released their new stance on generational labeling.
Is Generational Research Clickbait?
Almost always.
“Generational research has become a crowded arena,” Pew writes. “The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology. There’s also been a growing chorus of criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular.”
Labels perpetuate bias and stereotyping. In the workplace, age experts encourage leaders to eliminate using generational labels, which can create exclusion and disengagement. The trivial assignment of characteristics to age cohorts is misleading and can lead to generation-bashing and finger-pointing, creating mistrust, disengagement and talent loss.
But, after a year of review and consultations with leading experts, Pew weighed the pros and cons and published a decision.
“We’ll only do generational analysis when we have historical data that allows us to compare generations at similar stages of life,” they wrote.
In other words, when researchers want to look at people born around the same time, they won’t be looking at whether young adults today are different from middle-aged or older adults, but how young adults today compared to young adults previously.
“For example, we can contrast a 25-year-old respondent in 2020 (who would be a Millennial) with a 25-year-old in 2000 (a Gen Xer) and a 25-year-old in 1980 (a Baby Boomer).”
The question is, will they ditch the labels?
Reexamination of Past Reports Shows False Conclusion
On the same day that Pew released the article on how they will treat generational labels moving forward, they also released Assessing the effects of generation using age-period-cohort analysis, demonstrating a model of research that decouples generation from age and period.
Using nearly 50-plus years of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (ages reported in 5-year groups until 85+), the article explained how Census data could be used to look at ages over time.
The article goes on to discuss other data collection methods and provides an example of how previous Pew research was misleading. Citing the report, Millennials were less likely to move than prior generations of young adults, a reexamination of the data using the new model showed a different conclusion.
“In this case, there are no clear differences or trend across the generations, with overlapping intervals for the estimated share who moved in the past year. This suggests that the apparent differences between the generations are better explained by other factors in the model, not generation,” the authors wrote.
Although a link was provided, the report was not available on Pew’s website at the time of this writing.
The report cited that inaccurately pointed to generational differences was no longer available.
The second report published two years ago, As Millennials Near 40, They’re Approaching Family Life Differently Than Previous Generations, reported that three-in-ten Millennials lived with a spouse and child compared with four-in-ten of Gen Xers at a comparable age. A reexamine confirmed “evidence of an enduring effect associated with one’s generation,” according to the authors
But what else was at play?
Race and ethnicity? Looks like it.
Black Millennials were far less likely to be married than Millennials in other racial and ethnic groups: 24% compared with 51% of Asian, 48% of white and 42% of Hispanic Millennials.
Economics? Absolutely.
At the time of the report, 14% of Millennials lived with their parents, and another 14% lived with other family members. In both cases, these shares are higher than other generations when they were in their 20s and 30s.
What’s the Point?
Pew openly admits that changing demographics can be confused with generational change. They reference how the U.S. has become more racially and ethnically diverse and that race and ethnicity are linked with particular social and political views.
“When we see that younger adults have different views than their older counterparts, it may be driven by their demographic traits rather than the fact that they belong to a particular generation,” they write.
In a 2022 podcast with Washington Post James Hohmann, Cohen explained, “You can categorize people in various reasonable ways, but it’s not helpful to attach those categories and try to give them more meaning than they carry.” He later quipped that using generational labels is an effort to be “more scientific than saying ‘Kids these days.’”
What’s the alternative? Hohmann asked.
“Use decades,” said Cohen, adding that it’s okay to say, “Younger people are more liberal. That’s been true for a long time. That’s not generational. It’s about how old people are.”
On his Mastodon account, Philip N. Cohen seems happy with Pew's new direction. suggesting it would ... [+]
On his Mastodon account, Cohen said of the Center’s new direction, “Nice. Pew Research Center has release(d) a set of articles on “generation” labeling. Suitable for ignoring if you’re in the click business, interesting for researchers and responsible journalists.”
It sounds like Cohen is satisfied.
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?
While these reports look encouraging, we’ll have to wait to see how Pew continues using these labels. For example, 5 things to keep in mind when you hear about Gen Z, Millennials, Boomers and other generations was also published on 22 May.
Clickbait one last time?
The article lists five reasons why generational labels can be misleading.
Excellent! Two steps forward!
However, it concludes with a caveat.
“At Pew Research Center, we’ll continue to use these and other labels to help our readers navigate a changing world. But we’ll do so sparingly – and only when the data supports the use of the generational lens.”
Seriously? One step back!
Perhaps Louis Menand said it best. In his New Yorker article from October 2021, he wrote that “most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs or protest the war in Vietnam,” as has been popularly portrayed. Menard sets the tone for generational references (and even reporting out by decades) with tongue-in-cheek humor. “People talk as though there were a unique DNA for Gen X—what in the nineteenth century was called a generational entelechy—even though the difference between a baby boomer and a Gen X-er is about as meaningful as the difference between a Leo and a Virgo.”
