We as humans go through phases in our existence and characterize phases as timelines. Such as the stone age, ice age and age of civilization. Humans have cultivated, invented, and evidently found new ways to develop our understanding of the world around us to shape to the desires to what we want them to be. That is why we as humans tend to unwillingly want to continue our pursuit for leaving a impression on the world. Timelines are not only characterized as major phases in our species’ evolution we also tend to classify each generation demographically by the years at which they were brought up in. For this research project we are going to talk mostly about how the baby boomers have impacted the millennials economically and in order to understand the research question we must first understand what baby boomers and millennials are.

Baby boomers are a generation which were born and raised in the 1950s and the 1960s, and it is a generation which was born after the great depression and the second world war (Van Bevel 257). According to van bevel it that the rate of fertility were low during the 1930s and the 1940s because of the great depression and the second world war. After the end of the second world war as the world started to settle from the chaos the fertility rates increased substantially which was referred to as the baby boom (Van Bevel 259).

Millennials (generation y) are a generation born between the years of 1980 and 1995 and they are the children of the baby boomers who are the generation which had preceded them (Ng 283). 

Since now we have talked about the two generations to which this research paper is arguing around we now need to know the environment to which these two generations grew or are growing up in.

The environment in which baby boomers grew up in.

The baby boomers are the children of the lost generation where many of the parents were involved the second world war and the great depression. Due to dramatic increase in fertility in the late 1940s the baby boomers represented a huge market were the demands of the increasing population kept growing (Yang 269). As the demand to keep up with the population growth increased the environment around schools chained drastically as well, which led to an increase in students where classrooms were overloaded and due to the volume of applicants the competitions for college admissions were tough (Yang 270). According to Yang millennials are often described as independent and anti-authoritarian as they reached adulthood at key moments which occurred in the world like the successful mission to land on the moon which instilled self-confidence which propelled their commitment to change the world.  They also witnessed the rise of the hippie culture, the enactment of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and dramatic change to the roles to which the women impact our society.

The environment the Millennials are growing up in.

Millennials are the kids of the baby boomers meaning that they are the generation which proceeds the baby boomers. The millennials are growing up to a more a stable environment compared to what the baby boomers went through. They have been growing up in major advancements to science and technology where technology plays an important role to millennials everywhere (Yang 270). With the development of social networking sites millennials are used to the rapid flow of information from all around the world and with more priority given to education given to children during the 1980s and 1990s millennials are highly qualified in terms of education. Many boomers tend to classify the millennials as a generation of whom are too soft as millennials grew up in an education system where they were handed all the accomplishments to them without doing anything compared to the boomers who had to fight for every accomplishment they earned (Frimston). 

While growing up after the civil rights movement and the ever-changing world the millennials have a general tolerance towards all cultural backgrounds as it was the most essential period to which changed the mentality of everyone in the world around us to be racially tolerable. Although the concept of education and the level of education has gone high the cost of living has also gone with the economy tumbling down after the September 11th attacks in 2001 and the recession in 2007 access to highly paid jobs has gone limited and the cost of living has also gone high which lead to an increase in poverty as the rate of unemployment increased.

After knowing the situations to which each generation grew up in now this paper is going focus on proving if thesis holds true if whether the boomers have impacted millennials greatly economically.

During the time to which the baby boomers grew up in the economy was growing at a really fast pace with the increased level in schooling, increase in food production and the lowering in the proportion of people in poverty which was due to the increasing rate in the population. The economic success of baby boomers came from the fact that the baby boomers had drastic changes in their demographic behavior’s by having fewer children and focusing more on their work lives instead of taking care of their families (Easterlin 287). Women were also influential to the growth in the economy due to fact that women were given bigger roles in high paying jobs which led to an increase in their versatility at any workplace. With the civil rights movement the roles of African Americans at workplaces also got bigger which also contributed to the increase in the growth of the economy.

What the baby boomers expected from the future?

In a research paper written by Norman B Ryder in 1979 we can truly understand what the baby boomers expected at their primes to what the world will become with the leadership of their children who would later be known as the millennials. It is stated that a generation which belongs to a small cohort (population of a certain group i.e the size of the generation) which means the years to which fertility is low it is expected to fare well in the labor market tending them to increase the level of fertility and that the generations which belonged to a large cohort tend to lower their rate of fertility (Ryder 360). For a generation to be prosperous economically the cohort size must be large so that the increase in the population will lead to more competition there providing more opportunity to a certain generation and Ryder postulates in this paper that due to decreasing rate in the population the cohort size will also get smaller as fertility was also decreasing in the late 1970s. the economical progress in the world also kept decreasing which would lead to the cost of living much higher. Although this paper mostly talks about futuristic probabilities of the world from the 1970s it can be said that the thesis Ryder had proposed has been true so far.

How are the boomers true?

It may seem that the millennials are destined for success as they are driven to achieve great accomplishments in life (Levenson 257). However compared to the past millennials are more educated than the baby boomers by getting more degrees in 4-year universities but the cost of education in a university has also gone substantially high as the population of millennials are smaller than the times of the baby boomers were increasing the cost of education was increased due to the crippling economy for the past 10 years (Levenson 258), with the cost of education increasing, students tend to make use of the financial aid system where they pay off their tuition fees from their wages and this leaves students with a large amount of student debt. So far this section proves that the boomers were true in predicting the downward trend in the economy but the effects of this downward trend would have been really higher but the main asset which is keeping the economy stable at this moment is the increase in workforce. Where African Americans and women play a major role in all workplaces around the country which sorta undermines the thesis the boomers predicted.

Did the boomers contribute to the struggles millennials face today?

According to Beckers’ paper it is said that baby boomers played a major role in the downward trends in the economy which is directly affecting the millennials in the world today. Becker stated that there were two ways to which the boomers have affected the millennials and the two ways are the unsustainable use of the earth’s resources and the negative and devastating effects on the worlds’ ecosystem. Earth's ecology and environment also plays a major role in the economy where the workforce is directly impacted by the change in climate where it is depleting substantially. The baby boomers grew up in a booming economy where development in industrialism grew and they took in no consideration on the ecological impacts that would arise to the future generations. With that knowledge in mind it can be concluded that the baby boomers were solely misguided by the potential wealth they were to arise and they simply did not care about the long time struggles their children (millennials) would encounter in the future

The baby boomers have not only contributed greatly towards the environmental struggles millennials are facing today they have also influenced the society on a grand scale to which they mainly control the labor market and the economy. An article written by Steven Russolillo on the wall street journal concerning the uneven recovery of jobs between millennials and baby boomers shows us the facts and scale of this generation inequality in the labor front. The article confirmed that there is a major difference between the millennials and the baby boomers by using an example of the employment- population ratio models for both the baby boomers and the millennials.

 With the data acquired from the millennial model the population-employment ratio dropped significantly from 2000 till 2010 where it from approximately 60% to 45% and the population-employment ratio is steadily increasing from 45% and it has reached 50% as of 2016. For the boomers, the model was surprisingly different from the model for the millennials. It shows that the baby boomers’ population-employment ratio has not depleted significantly but has been steadily increasing since the year of 2000 where it has increased from approximately 57.5% to 62% for 2000 till the year of 2016. 

From this article, it can be concluded that the boomers’ have too great of an influence on the economic climate and they will not lose and hand over power to the millennials. Evidently the millennials are suffering the most and the since the millennials are mostly educated in 4-year universities to get into the labor markets they are still in student debt which worsens the situation they are living in greatly. And since the baby boomers are controlling the economy they will not stand to lose grip on it which even worsens the situation in which millennials are in.

Since now the situation to which the baby boomers are affecting the millennials today are understood it is only logical to get a direct perspective of both the generations. According to the TEDx talk by Kelly William Brown there is a discussion on why the millennials are the worst generation. She discusses the issue where the baby boomers refer the millennials as a spoiled generation who tend to climb up the Himalayas instead of climbing the corporate ladder which indicates that the millennials often tend to pursuing their wants instead of focusing on their needs. But Kelly stated that the reason why the millennials are spoiled in the first place was because that the boomers were the main the reason why they are spoiled in the first place which makes the boomers argument evidently ineffective.

Kelly discusses that the workplace attitudes between the millennials and the boomers are often mischaracterized the manner in which the boomers employ the millennials. The mischaracterization comes from the factor of Experience in the workforce where employers who often tend to be boomers often scout for applicants who are more experienced which lead to millennials who recently graduate from universities finding it hard to find jobs. Apparently, period when millennials went through high school they were introduced to a working model where they were told that the key to live a life where they can earn a good living were first introduced to the millennials by the boomers themselves and to see the fact then when the millennials come to the age to start looking for job where they get turned down due to the lack in experience is quite sad.

In a youtube debate on how the boomers screwed up the millennials there was a discussion on the perspective of a boomer. In the debate the boomers admitted that they screwed up the millennials but they also escalated that were not entirely at fault for the struggles millennials face today. It was also discussed that the millennials are too sympathetic and soft without making bold and correct decisions in life which make it harder for the boomers to hand over their leadership to the millennials. They evidently came to a conclusion that the millennials need to toughen and suck up the situation of a predatory market where the boomers evidently control and to overcome it to make the world a better place.

From this research project we have discussed many factors to how different millennials and baby boomers are in terms of economic progression. Many of the factors which affect their differences come from the social and economic environment they grew up in where the baby boomers grew up in an ever expanding and stable economic climate and the millennials are growing up in an ever-changing and unstable economic climate. After doing extensive research it can be concluded that the baby boomers evidently contributed greatly towards the struggles millennials face today in terms of the economy where they have destroyed the environment and left behind an eco-system which is slowly dying and where they have taken over and controlling the economy to the point where they are not affected at all by financial disasters over the past 16 years. And the boomer do not tend to hand over their leadership roles to millennials as they have a misperception that the millennials are spoiled and that they won’t be able to the jobs as well as they can,The millennials are the generation which are suffering greatly from these action but millennials are known as a generation who are morally driven to succeed in the world and are looking forward to make this world a better place.
