Do you think GenX has had an easy time of it compared to Millennials?

[utterflapdoodle]

It seems to be the general perception and it's certainly true in my case but maybe not everyone shares that opinion. I'm interested to hear other people's experiences.

I'm a GenXer myself, born 1967 into a working class family. My university education was free. I graduated with no debt and easily walked into a good job, in fact I had my choice of employers.

I bought a house when I was twenty six. I had an average wage and despite the house being in the south of England the mortgage was a very affordable 2.5 times my salary. I sold it at a good profit ten years later.

I now own a valuable property and have a secure job with a generous final salary pension. Frankly it's all been a bit of a doddle. I feel like it was almost handed to me on a plate.

I have no DC but if I did they would be Millennials and my lovely niece is a member of the upcoming GenZ. I can't help feeling life is going to be so much harder for her.

Yes. I'm Gen X, a bit younger than you. My university tuition fees were paid and I got a grant to live on. I graduated at the start of a long boom, had my professional training funded by my employer and was securely employed by the time of the financial crash. DH and I also bought a house in 2001, before prices went mad, so could afford a family house before DD was born. I feel very sympathetic to younger members of my team at work who can't expect that trajectory.

I don't have a final salary pension scheme, but DH does, so as a household we'll be OK.

Not necessarily. DM was born early 60s and got hit by recessions on the edge of adulthood, at the point of housebuying, negative equity and poor value endowment mortgages. The goal posts on state pensions have shifted from 60 to 67. These days she probably would have made it to university, but it wasn't an option for fairly average students at the end of the 70s.

I was born around the cusp of the generation change, and while my peers graduated in the good times, by the time they had savings to consider housebuying, the prices were begining to sky rocket, then many were hit by repeated redunancies from 2009 onwards as they were committed to mortgages and in the early days of starting a family.

Every generation has its challenges. Economies tend to balance out between salaries, interest rates and inflation, so it takes a combination of luck and good timing to come out on the better end of a situation (such as house buying on the bottom of the recession before prices and confidence recover)

It's swings and roundabouts isn't it ,I was born in 1973 I did my nurse training in 1993 just as they were bringing the nursing diploma in I didn't have to pay tuition fee,s and got a bursery, I imagine it's easier these days to study with information being at the tips of your fingers with Google , it must be easier than having to do research with a ton of library books, but not every one went to university and got a highly paid job ,my dh left school at 16 and got a YTS, and struggled finding permanent employment , some things were easier than and some things not so much .

It maybe depends when you were born in each cohort. My parents are boomers but I have an uncle who is 10 years my mum's junior who's a Gen X (born late 60s). He does own his house, but he has been made redundant loads of times, and it just happened again. Despite being intelligent ge didn't go to uni as it wasn't a thing for many working class people then.

DH and I are older millenials and benefited from uni being more of a thing for working class people (albeit with loans for living costs) and own a house with a mortgage. I think things for late millenials born in the mid 90s are harder. Likewise I think later Gen X people, born late 70s, probably had it easier in general than people my uncle's age.

Got clobbered by a recession soon after I started working and got stuck in a huge negative equity hole. Other recessions followed! I went to uni when everyone and his dog didn’t, no grant and had to pay for my post grads. (Remember this is all still ‘free’ in Scotland).

I suppose every generation has its good and bad.

My parents were kids during the war. They were the gen of kids whose parents fought in the war/lived through bombing, and the gen of mums who had thalidomide prescribed in pregnancy. My grandparents lived through 2 world wars.

No, I don't think so. I suppose it would depend on your background and where you lived, but for a lot of people who left school/reached adulthood in the 1980s there was high unemployment (10%), widespread homelessness, and certainly no chance of going to university because they'd been educated in sink schools, 40 to a class and 1 text book between 5.

Also, house prices may have been low in your part of the south, but where I grew up you were looking at at least 4x the average salary, and that was for something that barely qualified as a starter home.

Plus, it wasn't a good idea to be gay (section 28) or black.

Oh, and don't forget AIDS.

I agree that Gen Z are going to suffer though - I think they always were to an extent - but they are facing widespread unemployment, homelessness and a serious diminishment of their opportunities.

Gen X born mid 70s. By the time I went to university, there were loans instead of grants - but tuition was still free. It took me about a year to get a not very well-paid permanent job after graduation, though temping jobs were easy to come by. I got on the housing ladder in the nick of time in the late 90s. My pension has been eroded over the last 10 years, so that isn't great but on the whole I think I have had it easier than a millennial, but not as easy perhaps as an earlier Gen Xer.

I don't think so but then I'm 11 years younger than you and married to a millennial (just) 3 years younger than me. We live in a middle-class area of Brighton and find all of our children's friends bar one are Generation X, ten years my senior, 13 years my husband's and they are all prosperous with big homes which they didn't work any harder for than us, they just happen to be older. In contrast, despite being both professionals we live in a small house that we could only afford to buy three years ago!

Our Children's parents that should not children (obviously)!

Goodness, children's friends' parents!!

They have it harder in a lot of ways and easier in a lot of ways.

Certainly the first half of my life was easier. Born early 70s, university was free and got a grant. Job was so-so but got on the housing ladder in 2000 which was the nick of time. Since then it's not been great, DH has had 4 redundancies and we haven't progressed very much re housing because of the ridiculously expensive area we were brought up and still live in.

All this ‘which generation has it harder/est?’ stuff is just irritating. Apart from anything else, always requires rose-tinted memories and a blindness to anything other than middle class experiences. And a refusal to see all the ways in which things are easier for people than they used to be.

What exactly is the point?

I sold it at a good profit ten years later

House prices went up substantially in the 10 year period you are talking about, but the house you presumably went on to buy had also gone up substantially, so you will have needed to have taken on a bigger mortgage to have bought a bigger house, all things being equal.

So the profit you describe only exists when you sell out of the housing market altogether.

Yes and no. There's a divide between early and late Gen Xers. Early ones got free uni tuition, grants and may have been able to buy a house at the low prices of the early to mid 90s. I was able to buy, but at the high rates of the 00s. I don't feel hard done by at all, but I feel a bit more affinity with the Millennial generation.

Totally depends on a persons circumstances and nothing to do with when you were born IMO.

Gen X, born early 70's, working class family. Grew up with horrendous recession resulting in a 20% inflation. On top of that we had the terrifying threat of nuclear war, hole in the ozone layer, Chernobyl, AIDS, acid rain.... just to name a few.

I never went to Uni but into a low paid admin job at 16 and worked my way up. Been made redundant twice but luckily managed to get a deposit on a "do upper" hobbit hole in 2000 (due to some inheritance money) before the prices yet bonkers but still can't afford a holiday!!

Was never able to get hand outs from the bank of mum and dad as working class and never occurred to me they would give me free money. They both died before being able to retire as worked themselves into the ground which makes me still feel incredibly sad they never got to relax and enjoy all the hard work they put into their lives.

As others have said, Millenials haven't got it harder, just different.

I'm late gen X cusp millennial and the only benefit I have over millennials is that my tuition fees were capped at £1250pa.

I'm a Gen Xer, my dad's family grew up in extreme poverty and he had (undiagnosed) mental health problems and I grew up with domestic violence, I was constantly scared and I self-harmed as long as I remember. There was no awareness of it and no one cared. I didn't even know anyone else self harmed until I was about 20. I came out as a lesbian when most people thought it was wrong and you shouldn't be allowed around kids etc. Some of my friends died of AIDS-related illnesses.

I did okay educationally and financially. It will be harder for DD financially on one hand, but on the other she is likely to get reasonable inheritances from both sides of the family in the next few years (early 20s) if it's not eaten up with care fees, which I never got, all my capital is from my own wages. I also worked much harder than she does, I'm not sure whether she's going to get a bit of a shock a some point!

She would rather have been a teen in the 80s though, she thinks better fashion, music and no social media!

I’m Gen X and have had a pretty good time of things. But I’m very aware of that and so only had one child and I’m going to make sure she has it just as good.

I’m glad I’m here, right now. I’m a millennial (born mid 80s). The 60s, 70s, and 80s had their own issues with poverty, women’s roles in the household, feminism, lack of rights for disabilities and sexuality.
Yes I had to pay for my university education but Gen Z are paying far more than I am.
Gen Z are definitely going to go through some of the worst financial crisis at critical life stages. I’m old enough to have some work experience behind me, and a homeowner (although it was a big struggle to get the deposit, everyone knows how difficult it is to buy as a single person on a regular salary in the UK, without financial gifts). I’m relatively stable. When you’re trying to establish yourself a recession is shit. I graduated into the 2008 recession and it was very very difficult to get work, I think it’s only going to be harder now.
What makes me sad is that although standards for general living conditions and human rights are higher, the number of opportunities seem to be dwindling, there’s a lot less choice for youngsters than there were when I was growing up (My parents also had plenty of opportunities).

There is also the fact that the whole theory of named ‘generations’ is largely utter bullshit.

I'm a late generation X and totally agree with you.