Democracy Dies in Darkness

How good are generational boundaries at actually capturing generations?

One in 60 baby boomers was born to a baby boomer

Newborns lie in the nursery of a postpartum recovery center in Upstate New York in 2017. (Seth Wenig/AP)
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I wrote a book about the baby boom generation, leading to a surfeit of questions about that generation and about generations in particular.

Fairly early in such conversations, I mention that the baby boom is the only generation considered sufficiently demographically identifiable that the Census Bureau recognizes it as an actual generation. Most of the uncertainty people can have about their own generational identities stems from the vague, subjective way in which the boundaries of other generations are drawn.