The wrinkle in the generational hypothesis is that the "when" of a crisis being felt may depend on which generation you belong to.
The nature of the major trends in the US have been primarily economic: rising debt being kicked down towards younger people, asset prices rising and concentrating in fewer places. This trend favored the Boomer generation up until recently, since they had relatively more opportunities to get assets when they were young, many of them had long lives in good health, and they were still occupying job positions by the time their children had finished education, setting the stage for the younger cohorts being educated for things they couldn't be hired for. Now that the Boomers are exiting the workforce there's a different kind of turmoil taking place as the economy is trying to put different hands at the wheel. But it's not exactly a new crisis for someone who entered the workforce in the 2010's, it's just incrementally more intense and their sense of crisis may have hit at graduation or even before. In contrast it looks downright apocalyptic to older people who had a long career insulated from the effects of the trends only to abruptly retire into a world of Zoom meetings, high inflation, and understaffed healthcare, while the national leaders are suddenly making radical policy moves that offend their sensibilities.
The stage for crisis is properly set at this point because every generational cohort seems to recognize it as a crisis that needs a reframed social contract, instead of a "that's your problem, not mine". That kind of consensus is the dividing factor. But the specific grievances are a thing that were building up for decades.
Exactly. In his interviews he mentioned a lot of people at the time asked if 9/11 was the triggering of a crisis (the hypothesis had just been published in 1999) and no, it just kind of went by because the generations weren't aligned. Kind of like WW1. Was a major disruptor, but society continued down the same trajectory
The nature of the major trends in the US have been primarily economic: rising debt being kicked down towards younger people, asset prices rising and concentrating in fewer places. This trend favored the Boomer generation up until recently, since they had relatively more opportunities to get assets when they were young, many of them had long lives in good health, and they were still occupying job positions by the time their children had finished education, setting the stage for the younger cohorts being educated for things they couldn't be hired for. Now that the Boomers are exiting the workforce there's a different kind of turmoil taking place as the economy is trying to put different hands at the wheel. But it's not exactly a new crisis for someone who entered the workforce in the 2010's, it's just incrementally more intense and their sense of crisis may have hit at graduation or even before. In contrast it looks downright apocalyptic to older people who had a long career insulated from the effects of the trends only to abruptly retire into a world of Zoom meetings, high inflation, and understaffed healthcare, while the national leaders are suddenly making radical policy moves that offend their sensibilities.
The stage for crisis is properly set at this point because every generational cohort seems to recognize it as a crisis that needs a reframed social contract, instead of a "that's your problem, not mine". That kind of consensus is the dividing factor. But the specific grievances are a thing that were building up for decades.