Millennials vs Boomers: New generation finding their place at the brunch table

Earlier this week we spoke in defence of the Baby Boomer generation. Today Millennials get their say – and the reality of who’s in charge may surprise you.

Nobody knows when the first shots were fired in the great Millennials vs Boomers battles, but historians a hundred years from now will probably talk about the Great Avocado Incident.

It’s the Generational Wars equivalent of Gavrilo Princip shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand, except in this case it involved a prominent demographer and a tasty, if expensive, brunch favourite.

Bernard Salt, in a column for our sister paper The Australian, penned a column saying – in a nutshell – that if Millennials wanted to buy a house then they just needed to stop ordering smashed avocado on toast at $22.

No, we’re not sure where Mr Salt was getting his smashed avo from either. Possibly Salt Bae.

TELL US WHY IN THE COMMENTS

“I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more,” he wrote, in what was actually a fairly tongue-in-cheek piece.

“I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out?

“There. I’ve said it. I have said what every secret middle-aged moraliser has thought but has never had the courage to verbalise.”

Smashed avocado on toast – the loaded weapon of the generation wars. Source: iStock.

Tongue in cheek as it was, the column caused something of a stir among the Millennials, who at that stage were just starting to enter what was generally considered to be the home buying age.

“How dare he?” they yelled, spraying almond milk lattes across their copies of Vice Magazine (it was 2016, remember).

“How dare a Baby Boomer – who grew up in a time of free education, decent wage growth and sensible house prices – tell us we can’t eat avocado. On rye. With crumbled goats cheese. And a side of wild greens.

“Has he never heard of coping mechanisms?”

And, despite the loud tut tutting of the Boomers, the Millennials actually had a very good point.

House prices had risen to a point where many were simply bowing out of The Great Australian Dream.

When even getting a deposit together seemed like an unobtainable dream, especially when you were also paying off a huge HECS debt, why not indulge in a little weekend breakfast extravagance?

The Millennials, however, may have the last laugh in the end because they are, literally, taking over.

Premier Peter Malinauskas, 42, is a Millennial (although he is at the upper end. Sorry Mali). As is opposition leader David Speirs, 38, and plenty of high-ranking pollies on both sides of the aisle.

Interestingly, federal politics is currently dominated by Generation X, a group that has remained quite silent in the generational “battles”.

But with Millennials coming into their own in state politics, and waiting in the wings federally, will we see them using their power to perhaps address some of the issues they’ve long maintained make them one of the more hard done by generations?

According to the latest census figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Baby Boomers and Millennials each have around 5.4 million people, with only 5662 more Baby Boomers than Millennials counted on August 10, 2021.

Over the past ten years, the Millennials have increased from 20.4 per cent of the population in 2011 to 21.5 per cent in 2021. In the same time, Baby Boomers have decreased from 25.4 per cent in 2011 to 21.5 per cent in 2021.

Over the past ten years, the Millennials have increased from 20.4 per cent of the population in 2011 to 21.5 per cent in 2021.

So, two years ago, they were tied. It’s stating the obvious that, should the census be done today, Millennials would have the upper hand.

The stats also show some very good reasons to call a ceasefire in this generational war. Millennials and Boomers actually need each other. They have a symbiotic relationship.

Statistician David Gruen said the figures show “an increasing number of Baby Boomers are needing assistance with core activities – with 7.4 per cent reporting a need for assistance, compared to 2.8 per cent across the younger generations”.

The stats also reveal the important role Baby Boomers are providing in caring for other peoples’ children, often their grandchildren. Around one in eight (12.8 per cent) Baby Boomers reported caring for other peoples’ children. They are also the generation most likely to volunteer and provide unpaid assistance to others.

So the Boomers will need the Millennials to care for them as they age, and Millennials need the Boomers to look after their kids while they work. Hard. To afford a very expensive house.

If there’s a Ground Zero in this so called battle it’s around house prices.

Nobody would ever argue, with a straight face at least, that house prices haven’t been out of control for years now.

On the Millennial side of the coin you have the younger generation arguing that high property prices, rampant inflation and stagnant wage growth has made even cobbling together a deposit for a house has become a herculean task.

Boomers usually retort with tales of 17 per cent interest rates, which were indeed a thing for a couple of years in the late 80s and early nineties, but on much smaller mortgages.

Houses costs, roughly, two to three times the average yearly income. Find a house for two to three times the average yearly income now and it will most likely have a unicorn living in the backyard.

And the Millennials are currently dealing with their own rapid rate rises which, while unlikely to hit 17 per cent, are still biting hard, especially given the concurrent rising costs of living.

It’s almost enough to make Millennials throw their hands in the air and say “stuff this, I’m renting forever. Pass me the smashed avocado”.

You could hardly blame them.

SA MILLENNIALS SPEAK OUT

HANS, German Boy Wonder, ageless

Darling, I’m trans-generational!

I’m generationally non-binary!

I’m a Millennial that listens to Boney M and plays cards with Willsy, a Boomer trapped in a much younger man’s body.

In all seriousness though, my generation hasn’t had the easy run that some Boomers say we have. Seventeen per cent interest rates? Sure, but your house cost 40 grand!

Anyway, buy a ticket to my Disco Spektakular, coming to a city or town near you, all generations invited.

Ageless German Boy Wonder Hans. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

JESSICA STENSON, marathon runner, 35

I think Millennials are probably now at the point in their lives where you’ve started to figure out who you are and you have some stability, so you’re looking at what you want to get out of life and what you want to give back to the world.
From a housing point of view, I don’t think myself and my friends have done it as tough as people who are perhaps ten years younger.
I was encouraged from when I started my first job as a physio in 2010 to make smart investment decisions, and we’ve seen that grow. For people my age, who are growing our families, it’s more about interest rates and whether we can afford a bigger home, but at least we have a foot in the market.

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - JULY 30: Gold Medalist, Jessica Stenson of Team Australia celebrates with their flag after finishing first in the Women's Marathon on day two of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games at Smithfield on July 30, 2022 on the Birmingham, England. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

MARIELLE SMITH, Senator for South Australia, 36

We are seeing generational change coming through, both in state parliament and at a federal level.

I think that at our heart, as a country, we do take pride in trying to make things a little easier and better for the generations that come after us. That’s one of the things that inspired me to join politics.
That said, the Millennial generation does have different concerns and different anxieties to their parents.
There have been massive changes to the security of work, increasing inequality across the economy and, the thing that weighs heaviest on my generation is housing affordability. They feel like they’re constantly locked out of the housing market, and when they’re just about to get there something else in the economy shifts. These aren’t small challenges, and they all sit in context of the climate emergency. I don’t think any generation has had it easy, but the challenges faced by Millennials are pretty big.

Senator Marielle Smith. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

DAVID SPEIRS, state opposition leader, 38

I think our generation has a level of self confidence. We were of an age that was just shaped by social media, but we’re not dependent on it. I think I was at university when Facebook arrived. So I think that gave us a connectedness and an international outlook that previous generations might not have had.
I think we were lucky enough to get the benefits of technology without being suffocated by it.
Millennials are starting to creep into the political world, and make their mark in business leadership.
I think the generations on either side of us have been saddled with particular expectations, but Millennials have been allowed to just get on with it.

David Speirs Picture Matt Turner.