Content area
Full text
“We suffer”, said Seneca, “more often in imagination than in reality.” The Stoic philosopher could have been talking about the generations. Members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, say that social media ruined their childhood. Millennials, between 1981 and 1996, complain that they cannot buy a house. Baby-boomers, between 1946 and 1964, grouse that they face an uncertain retirement.
Many forget about Generation X, which is made up of those born between 1965 and 1980. Proxied by Google searches the world is less than half as interested in Gen X as it is in millennials, Gen Zers or baby-boomers. There are few podcasts or memes about Gen X. Aside from Douglas Coupland’s “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”, a novel published in 1991 which popularised the moniker, there are few books discussing the cohort. In Britain Gen Xers are less likely than members of any other age group to know the generation to which they belong.
Gen Xers may have no place in the popular imagination but, contrary to Seneca, they really do suffer. This is true both because Gen Xers are at a tricky age, and also because the cohort itself is cursed.
A recent 30-country poll by Ipsos finds that 31% of Gen Xers say they are “not very happy” or “not happy at all”, the most of any generation. David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College finds all sorts of nasty things, from unhappiness to anxiety to despair, top out around the age of 50. This is consistent with the “U-bend of life” theory, which suggests that people are happy when young and old, but miserable in middle age. Baby-boomers went through it; before long millennials will, too.
The U-bend exists in part because chronic health issues start to emerge in middle age. People also come to realise they will not achieve everything they had hoped in their...