The micro-generation that’s missing out

STUCK between Boomers and Gen X, we were too young to be hippies and missed punk’s first wave. And now we’re not going benefit from lower income tax as much as other generations, writes Paul Williams.

JANE Fynes-Clinton in her column last week offered a spirited defence of her cohort — the gentle Generation X — as a heavy-lifting group that, she argued, is often overlooked.

Dr Fynes-Clinton wrote that Xers, usually defined as born between 1965 and 1980 and wedged uncomfortably between Baby-boomers (1946-1964) and Gen Y (or Millennials, 1981-2000), “are the forgotten middle child [and] considered … a bit vanilla”.

True, there wasn’t much in this year’s federal budget for Gen X, just as there wasn’t for Generations Y and Z (those born between 2001 and 2010). But Baby Boomers enjoyed a few more feathers for their already comfortable bed as they near, or already enjoy, retirement. More money for aged care, higher earning thresholds before pension cuts and a clutch of new PBS medicines are the sort of sweeteners that win over older voters. Indeed, if the Coalition defies electoral gravity and actually wins the next election, Malcolm Turnbull can thank his fellow Boomers.

But I can’t accept Jane’s beef that Gen Xers remain the most “forgotten” generation, nor that those approaching 50 suffered anything like a “vanilla” youth. As I recall it, Xers might have been angst-ridden but at least they weren’t bored as they soaked up MTV, grunge and the first generation of computer games.

Instead, I suggest those of us born between 1960 and 1964 — the little-discussed “Baby Baby Boomers” (BBBs) born at the scraggy tail end of a powerful generational beast — are the truly forgotten (sub) generation.

Compare us to the “Lost Generation” (1880-1900) who won kudos for fighting the First World War and building an ANZAC national identity. And contrast those with their kids, the “Greatest Generation” (1901-1925), who need no introduction: keeping the world safe from fascism on the heels of the Great Depression makes men and women of steel.

If anything, the “Silent Generation” (1926-1944) — including my parents who were WWII and Depression children but who didn’t suffer first hand — have a greater claim to the “forgotten” mantle. They fought the unremembered Korean War and built Australia’s post-war prosperity, too often through very high marginal tax rates.

But it’s their kids — the genuine “Baby Boomers” (1946-59) — who grabbed all the attention and most of the benefits. Coming of age in the 1960s, these youngsters — better fed, housed, clothed and educated than any previous generation — grasped their cheap transistor radios and American popular culture to fuel Australia’s own flower-power. Indeed, these spoiled spoilers embraced the “post-material” politics of love and peace largely because full employment and burgeoning tertiary education allowed them to think about things other than finding their next meal.

But, by the time my cohort attended secondary school in the 1970s, rampant strikes, soaring inflation and stagnating unemployment hung like storm clouds over bitumen playgrounds and torn cyclone fencing. I still remember being told in Grade 12 how I’d be lucky to find any sort of job.

That’s why I hate being lumped in with affluent Baby Boomers and what’s been pretty accurately described as their sense of self-entitlement. In short, I have nothing in common with those born before the 1960. I find rock and roll ridiculous and the Beatles bland and boring. I also believe the political potential of hippies and yippies was wasted through idleness and self-indulgent passivity.

No, it’s the BBBs who suffered a vanilla youth. Too young to understand the Vietnam War, we also missed the first wave of punk. Our politics were instead shaped by all the excitement of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his charismatic Treasurer John Howard.

And where Xers grew up with colour television and VCRs, I knew only Prince Planet, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch in glorious black and white.

Employment hardly looked better for early Gen Xers but at least they enjoyed computers at school and university — I used a card catalogue and library photocopier — just as Gen Y and Z use social media more easily than I used a calculator.

Moreover, with Morrison’s centrepiece three-stage tax reform program promising flatter rates — 32.5 per cent by 2024 — for 90 per cent of wage-earners, Gen X and Millennials can at least benefit longer from lower personal income tax, even if they, like the BBBs, must work longer before retiring.

As a BBB, I will work til 70 but without the longer-term benefits accorded to Gens X, Y or Z.

But, in my dotage, maybe my daughter — born after 2010 and therefore Gen Alpha — will look after me. That’s not self-entitlement, is it?

Dr Paul Williams is a senior lecturer at Griffith University’s School of Humanities.

Originally published as The micro-generation that’s missing out