Who’s A ‘Boomer’?

By Jim McNiven

If you are part of the BoomersWork operation, then you are most likely over 50 and probably older than that. You know what a ‘Boomer’ is, somebody in the rough age group as you. It has not been a pejorative term, except maybe to those who are not Boomers. In fact, it may be a downright positive term to those who qualify, as Boomers, as a whole tend to have a disproportionate influence on society. Let’s explore what this is all about and why it means you will probably find yourself in perpetual demand as the economy picks up.

There is a lot of pop psych commentary on generations. There is the ‘Greatest Generation’, followed by the’ Baby Boomers’, then ‘Generation X’, followed by ‘Generation Y’, the ‘Millennials’ and, I expect next, the ‘Mobiles’. None of this is what I am talking about.

The Boomers have a particular characteristic that none of the other ‘generations’ has. It is defined by something we can measure. During the Depression and World War II, people either put off having many children or the menfolk, especially, but not exclusively, were away fighting in Europe or the Pacific. The war ended in mid-1945and soldiers began coming home and, by the end of 1946, births were beginning to increase. As the postwar prosperity in North America continued to build, families made up for lost time.

There is a concept called the age cohort. If you remember your schooldays, there was a cutoff date for birthdays beyond which you couldn’t be admitted to Grade 1. It was normally the end of September or mid-October. That set the limits to a lot of things in your life if you were a couple of weeks past the date. That cutoff created cohorts, people who all shared a common characteristic, in this case all in the same grade. Demographers use a similar age cohort when they look at social trends, like who is working and who is not.

The uniqueness of the Boomers lies in the growth in births through an 18-year period. Like that school cutoff that left your buddy a grade behind you, it is somewhat arbitrary. Since the birthrates started rising at the end of 1946, the Boomer generation’s beginning was set in 1946. If we look farther along the calendar, we will find that the Pill was cleared for use in Canada in the early 1960s, so the end of the Boomer period was set at 1964. The decline in the birthrate started earlier than this, but 1964’ll do. Today, in 2013, the oldest Boomers turn 67 and the youngest 49.

So, why will Boomers stay in demand? It is probably not what you would think.

If Boomers are characterized by being born when a lot of other people were, all of the other ‘Generations’ noted above consist of people born when not so many were being born. There is a concept that shows this, called the fertility rate. This is the number of children that would be expected to be born of an average woman in her period of fertility, roughly from 13 to 43 years of age. During the Baby Boom years, the fertility rate was generally above 3. The replacement rate, not surprisingly, is 2.1—one for mommy, one for daddy and 0.1 for accidents, etc. In the late 1960s, the Canadian rate fell to below what was required for replacement and has wobbled around 1.4—1.6 ever since 1971, 42 long years.

Now, you can’t go on not replacing the population for that long without something happening. First, any growth in our population comes as a result of immigration. Second, if you go back to the ages of Boomers, you will see that a lot of them are of retirement age, which today in Canada, is around 62. If we did not have enough babies for 42 years, then the crowd of young workers is a lot smaller than the older crowd heading for the workplace doorway. As this goes on, the number of unemployed may shrink, or not, but the number of jobs going begging will rise.

 I was discussing these things with a local businessperson, when he complained that none of the young people wanted to work anymore. He had only a couple of applications for an advertised job, when he used to get 10 or more. I tried to explain that the other 8 weren’t ever born, but he was having none of it. As it sinks in to employers, Boomers willing to work, on whatever schedule they want, will become really popular, replacing all those lazy, unborn kids.

This is a really serious problem. If you have ever seen Galen Weston advertising Loblaws’ baby foods and referring to a crowd of babies around him in their highchairs as the ‘Class of 2025’,you will know that it won’t be solved soon.