The Myth of Mitt's America

Do generational divides exist among American voters? Do they matter? John Quiggin thinks not:

Once we strip out the more-or-less constant social distinctions associated with membership of a given age-group, the idea that we can say much about any particular cohort becomes far more dubious. In fact, cohort effects are only of much importance between the ages of 16 and about 25. The experience of childhood is dominated by family and school, and, while both families and schools have changed since the 1950s, the rate of change from one decade to the next has been quite slow.

On the other hand, by the time the members of a given cohort reach their late twenties, their live courses have diverged so much that they cease to form a well-defined group with common experiences. The differences between men and women, rich and poor, workers and bosses, married and single, parents and nonparents count for much more than the commonality that comes from sharing a date on a birth certificate.

For the crucial decade from 16 to 25, however, common experiences related to growing up at a particular time can be very important. Whether the labour market is in a boom or a slump when you finish school can make a big difference to your subsequent career. For males, an even more important question is whether the years of military age coincide with a major war. Peacetime and wartime generations, or boom and slump generations, can be very different.

     I noticed the age and experience effects at work some years ago in my college classmates. In the mid 1970s they were hipoisie to a fault, in the especially earnest way of people who were slightly too young to have been to Woodstock of any of the big anti-Vietnam demonstrations. They wrote long papers on Marxism ("Groucho?" I'd ask, earning me dismissive gazes). They fretted over whether a campus barbecue imparted cancer to us all through the injudicious use of charcoal. They embraced liberation theology while never attending church.

     Now it's nearly forty years since we started college together and it is really astonishing what a bunch of small-minded reactionaries they have all become.