Talking 'bout my generation

I HAVE always been fascinated by a concept known to palaeontologists as the Cambrian explosion.

I HAVE always been fascinated by a concept known to palaeontologists as the Cambrian explosion.

There is evidence from the fossil record that the evolution of life changed pace during a relatively brief period of 70 million years about 580 million years ago. Prior to the Cambrian era life on earth was comprised of simple cells; afterwards came an explosionof life forms, many of which we know today.

I wonder whether there wasn't a Cambrian explosion in Australian cultural demography 30 years ago. Prior to the 1980s urban life was simple. Men and women lived in suburbia in three-bedroom brick veneers where they reared children, went on caravan holidays, played sport and attended church. Some were battlers; others were working class; some were defined by their ethnicity: there were New Australians and pound stg. 10 Poms.

But something odd happened during the 80s; new life forms emerged. Baby boomers postponing children were suddenly defined as dinks (double income no kids). Later in the decade the dink mutated into the yuppie, which was an acronym for young urban professional. Here was a generation that actually planned the number of children they wanted, who attended university (thanks to Whitlam's abolition of university fees a decade earlier), and who had what might now be called aspiration.

Queensland holidays, branded clothing and renovated housing were all the go. By the end of the decade urban grunge and generation X were making their appearance. Indeed even the notion of sharp-edged generations seemed to be part of a grand demographic design that had suddenly emerged.

Generations and urban tribes had always existed, but it wasn't until the late 80s that we thought to recognise each as a separate life form. The 90s delivered mutation upon mutation. The city was awash with new interest groups emboldened by the success of dinks and yuppies.

Gay culture emerged as a separate tribe that revelled in its ownership of complete suburbs. Students who in a previous decade had eked an existence in suburbia burst forth and claimed the inner city. Singles and couples and dinks and gays and students and expats and divorcees as well as the homeless and the destitute all clamoured for an inner-city crevice that might sustain life close to the heat of the CBD.

But this was only the precursor to a fuller exposition of the mutations of modern life forms. In the first decade of the 21st century generation Y finally freed themselves from the gravitational pull of the wickedly comfy beanbag in front of their parents' plasma tele. From there Ys boldly reinvented themselves as gappers and headed off to London for 12 months.

The evolutionary revolution was in full swing. Baby boomers morphed from parents into empty nesters and from there they blossomed as beautiful seachangers and treechangers.

Generation X, now in the family formation stage of the life cycle, also reinvented themselves as nettels, the not enough time to enjoy life tribe who live in households with two breadwinners, two employers, two sets of kids, two schools and a lifestyle where partners never seem to connect. That is unless they have their PAs schedule "together time". All nettels hope to one day become pottels (plenty of time to enjoy life) but the pottel lifestyle is as rare as it is elusive.

The question for palaeontologists, as it is for demographers, has to be what caused the great Cambrian explosions of 580 million years ago and 30 years ago?

Is the answer to the latter as simple as modern generations see themselves as individuals whereas previous generations thought they had a better chance of survival by blending in with the herd?

Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner.
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