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.

God it’s really not bullshit! House prices, competition for jobs and free education is a game changer.

As has been the internet. I didn’t have a mobile phone or social media when I was growing up and frankly, thank fuck for that!

Oh. The generational theory that gave us GenX, baby boomers etc is bullshit. At best it’s lazy generalisation of very little value.

People live through similar macro-scale circumstances. But they experiences them in such varied ways.

As we keep hearing about Covid-19, we might all be weathering the same storm, but we are most definitely not all in the same boat. In fact, some people don’t even have a bloody boat.

It works pretty well for me although I may be quite a stereotypical person and not at all an outlier.

I agree about C-19 but we never thought we were in the same boat did we?

And doesn’t that kind of support the boomer/gen x etc theory.?

We’re all dealing with C-19 in our variety of housing and wealth/poverty.

Sod millennials. Future generations are completely screwed. We are past the oil peak, technology is advancing meaning less jobs and climate change will mean chaotic weather that will cause flooding and draughts.

You might be in a privileged position but I am sure you have worked hard for it. If you have the spare money buy locally and support smaller businesses.

I think that the supposed benefits of being in generation x or indeed a baby boomer are predicated on where you live.
I can assure you that the the North East of England saw the decimation of it's industry and economy in the 1970's and 1980's and it has never recovered.
We have one of the highest rates of unemployment here where I live and have done for as long as I can remember. We have one of the highest percentages of social housing as housing stock in the country.
So although I was born at around the same time as you, I don't recognise the same rosy picture. Not many people from my cohort went to university, not may people got decent jobs, not may people got a mortgage .

Good point.

I think broadly, yes but then it's not as clear a divide as it's often made out to be

My parents are just about boomers and had the free education etc but an early divorce for my mum and retraining later in life, as well redudancies for my step dad and the housing bubble crashing means my parents don't own their own home but have decent enough public sector pensions. They are defo not affluent boomers but do OK.

I am a millenial and graduated the year the recession hit and it took me a while to get into my stride career wise but I now earn a decent wage with a good career trajectory. Pension wise it won't be great due to working in short term low paid jobs in my 20s. I could probably afford a small flat in the town I now live in but I was v lucky and married a man who had the money which meant we now have a nice family home.

My parents were working class, now lower middle I'd say and I am probably middle class so social mobility has played a big part in it.

Yes.

@rosiepony Only if you believe that wealth and opportunity are determined by generation. They’re not.

The differences within supposed generations are as big as those between them.

I was born at the end of Generation x. No grants to get into uni had to survive on a loan of £3k per annum plus working two jobs. I had to pay a small amount to tuition as well. That loan comes out of My wages every month. DH managed to buy a flat when he was 23 and we had a comfortable life as we had a tracker of 0.5% above the base rate which saw our mortgage payment being peanuts. We have a house now on the equity from our first two flats. No tracker now. I can’t see how millennials will be able to afford a home. We didn’t need a deposit really, £6k secured DH’s first flat then the equity paid the deposit for the next home etc.

Some things were easier, some things harder. I grew up in a country that made me choose which subjects I had to learn for my highschool exams/diploma. This was massively important because you couldn't study some things without having done those subjects all through highschool. The school didn't allow me to do physics, chemistry and algebra, even though I was good at it, because I am female (literally what they told me). My parents agreed. This had an effect on my future of course. I wasn't allowed to learn self defense because it wasn't ladylike and when I was assaulted it must have been my fault. I was kicked out at 18 and was dirt poor. Sexism was much more normal in my experience. In my opinion the millenials had/have way more opportunities than I had. I was able to buy a house, yes. But there are more aspects to life than owning a house. It isn't the only way to become happy.

Sorry to drone on, but can anyone actually advise whicht years are regarded as belonging to which generation ?
I ask because my husband was born in 1964 and I have read on these boards that that apparently makes him a baby boomer. However, his mother was born in 1947 which makes her a baby boomer too. So mother and son are both baby boomers, which doesn't seem right.
I thinks it's all just a load of devisive bollocks.

Thanks all for sharing your experiences. You really made me think about the negative things my generation went through that I had mentally glossed over.

The casual sexism, racism and homophobia. Mass unemployment, AIDS, the cold war.

Living conditions and tolerance for social difference are generally better now for most people so I agree there are good things and bad things for every generation.

@TabbyStar Your DD is right, about the music anyway. I'm not so sure all 80s fashions were great. Leg warmers anyone?

For every generation some things are easier and some are harder. I don’t know why it has to be a competition all the time on who has it worst?

Houses are less affordable yes, but life is a lot more interesting, education is more varied, health outcomes are better in a myriad of ways, technology is providing opportunities for jobs and also improvements to ways of living.

There’s a lot to be happy about rather than just assuming some sort of constant downward trajectory.

It’s just not true that ‘millennials’ (as some sort of homogenous mass) cannot afford to buy houses or any other generalisation you want to make. Every house I have sold has been bought by ‘millennials’. Meanwhile, plenty of baby boomers or genXers have never been able to buy a house.

These kind of generalizations just aren’t very helpful. All sorts of factors beyond your date of birth have enormous effects on what opportunities are available to you.

People older than me seem to have had it easier, final salary pensions, retiring at 55 whereas my retirement increased from 60 (when I started work) to 67 and private schemes closed, downgraded. Yes I own a property but my dc will be inheriting my parents house at some point whereas I inherited nothing from my grandparents and got no help (financial or verbal) from my parents past 16 years old (my dc get generous allowances)

No. Millennials will always be known as the ‘woe is me’ generation.

@TabbyStar Your DD is right, about the music anyway. I'm not so sure all 80s fashions were great. Leg warmers anyone?

I used to make clothes out of curtains, but I'm sure I looked great

I think I am classed as a xenial. Late gen x/cusp of millennial. I think I have the advantage in that I remember a time before Mobiles/social media but still young enough to get it. I graduated too late to do very well out of the property boom. Bought a small house with a bit of parental help end of 2005 with an interest only mortgage so just managed to get in there but wish it could have been a couple of years earlier. My DH who was born late 70s got in a couple of years earlier and did better out of it. His older brother who managed a couple years earlier than that made a packet.
I was dating in my twenties and met DH in person through friends in an actual bar just before online dating became mainstream. So glad I missed all that shit..... Both mine and DH’s pensions are shit so we know we will be working a long time unless we get rich so feel like In the same boat as Millenials there.

I'm Gen X, and haven't had a cushy life. I'm currently a single parent in my 50s, so little chance of owning my own home. Still, I have a job, and a bit of a pension.

I messed up my A levels, and never went to uni, so I'm currently looking to transition into work that would support me going as a mature student.

Gen X here. With "boomer" siblings.
We had our own challenges like every generation.
Don't give a shit if millennials think I had it easy. They'll have the same shit from my dd's generation about how everything was easy.
Meh 🤷‍♀️

Every family is affected differently. But on average (median average, so not skewed by the super rich) millennials earn less and have accumulated less wealth, corrected for inflation, than the previous generation did at the same age. Albeit by a fairly small margin. And the last time that was the case was the 1930s. This coming after decade upon decade of increased prosperity is a severe contrast.

Being priced out of homeownership, along with the 2008 recession, are reckoned to be the main causes of this.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-5890.12202

To a certain extent yes, but you still had to have had a least a little bit of parental support to do well back then. I had an unconditional offer of a place at a very good university in 1985 (back when unconditional offers were rarer than they are now) but couldn't go to uni because in 1985, grants became means tested, and my parents wouldn't fill out the form. Careers advice back then was very poor too, and my parents were uninterested. My mother told me to go to a temping agency and ask for a typing job. So that's what I did, because I had no idea what else was possible.

I work in a large state school now - just admin - and the amount of care and effort that goes into careers advice really impresses me. If just one adult had made a tiny intervention back in 1985 - maybe told me that a nursing degree attracted a full bursary back then for example, with no need for any input from my parents - things might have been very different.

So yes, and no, is the answer!

Yes I had free uni tuition with a full grant. Came out with very little debt. Bought a house which doubled in price. Now very comfortable with a good public sector pension to look forward to (hopefully).