Baby Boomers
The birth years of the Baby Boom Generation are the subject of controversy. Historically, everyone born during the post-World War II demographic boom in births was called part of the Baby Boom Generation.
However, as numerous experts have pointed out, generations have traditionally been based on the shared formative experiences of its members; this was the only time a generation had been named by the fertility rates of its members’ parents. Many analysts have defined two separate cultural generations born during this demographic birth boom: An older generation called the Baby Boom Generation, and a younger generation usually called Generation Jones. In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations.
In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence. As a group, they were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.
One of the unique features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the United States, that social change marked the generation with a strong cultural cleavage, between the proponents of social change and the more conservative.
Some analysts believe this cleavage has played out politically since the time of the Vietnam War, to some extent defining the political landscape and division in the country.
In 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers. The boomers returning to religion were "usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists.
It is precisely because of these experiences that many believe those born in the second half of the birth boom belong to another generation, as events that defined their coming of age have little in common with leading or core boomers.
The boomers found that their music, most notably rock and roll, was another expression of their generational identity. Transistor radios were personal devices that allowed teenagers to listen to The Beatles and The Motown Sound.
In the 1985 study of US generational cohorts by Schuman and Scott, a broad sample of adults was asked, "What world events over the past 50 years were especially important to them?" For the Baby Boom Generation (this particular study used the years 1946-1955 for this Boomer cohort, although the exact birth years are currently controversial), the results were:
Memorable events: assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy,Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., political unrest, walk on the moon, risk of the draft into the Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, Roe V.
President Bill Clinton, Freddie Mercury, Joey Ramone, Hulk Hogan, Kirstie Alley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and George W.