Contesting Boomageddon? Identity,politics and economy in the global milieu

The baby boomer generation

The year 1946 heralded a new global era of post-Second World War peace and prosperity. It also marked a significant turning point or ‘boom’ in the fertility levels of countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy and the United States (van Bavel and Reher, 2013). The post-Second World War baby boom has been linked to increased childbirth and nuptiality as well as socio-political contexts including pro-natalist policies, labour force markets and prevailing religious and cultural practices (van Bavel and Reher, 2013). This was also the start of a new historic generational discourse.

Definitions of the term ‘generation’ vary between countries and disciplines. Despite, or perhaps as a result of the important contribution of Karl Mannheim (1998 [1924]) to the sociology of knowledge, in which the concept of generation was a fundamental social category, the term is often regarded as problematic by sociologists (Mannheim, 1998 [1924]; Pilcher, 1994). It is certainly a somewhat arbitrary and possibly untrustworthy social category. But the word is widely used in popular culture, advertising, the media, as well as in policy and many fields of applied social research, including demography.

The term ‘baby boomers’ in Australia is commonly defined by demographers as those born between 1946 and 1965 (Quine and Carter, 2006). This cohort is currently aged between 52 and 72 years of age. In 2014 the baby boomer generation represented 23.7% of the Australian population or 5,574,000 persons compared to 28% or 6,584,000 persons for generations X and Y combined (born between 1966 and 1986) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014). Those born during the immediate post-war decade (1946–56) grew up in an era of prosperity, high marriage and fertility rates, high immigration levels, and rising participation of women in tertiary education and the workforce (Leach et al., 2013). They are also the first generation to reap the benefits of the longevity revolution and increased life expectancy brought about as a consequence of improved living standards and medical and technological advancements (Victor, 2005). However, many of those born at the tail-end of the baby boomer generation (those born in the early 1960s) were less privileged, entering adulthood during a time of widespread unemployment (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). Stereotypical descriptions of baby boomers as materialist and selfish, self-indulgent, privileged, greedy and having taken more than their fair share of wealth and resources such as housing, free education and health care services are not only intergenerationally divisive (Bristow, 2016; Tavener, 2010), they also ignore the fact that the so-called ‘baby boomers’ are highly heterogeneous in terms of social and economic (dis)advantage over the life course (Leach et al., 2013; Ozanne, 2009). Indeed, a 2015 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report noted that the poverty rate for older Australians (65 years and over) was 36% (OECD, 2015). This number is likely to increase as more baby boomers age.

In Australia and elsewhere, the ageing of the post-Second World War baby boom cohort has been accompanied by profound social, cultural and political change (Gilleard and Higgs, 2000; Ozanne, 2009). This is often attributed to the entire generation, leading to epochalist (Estes, 2011; Lymbery, 2010) and ‘Boomageddon’ discourses (Asquith, 2009; Bristow, 2016; Phillipson et al., 2008). These are driven by biomedical and economic concerns, such as the projected increase in numbers of older people needing care and pension support. For example, The Generation Strain report (McNeil and Hunter, 2014) foretold that 2017 would be the year when the numbers of older people needing care in the United Kingdom would surpass the numbers of people able to provide it. Likewise, the Australian government’s 2015 Intergenerational Report (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2015) estimated the numbers of people aged 65 years and over would more than double from 3.6 million (2015) to 8.9 million in 2054–5. In addition, aged care expenditure was projected to almost double from 0.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 1.7% GDP by 2055, as a result of the increasing numbers of people aged 70 years and over (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2015). Many of these anticipated changes are propelled by the so-called ‘ageing population bombshell’ (Asquith, 2009) as a result of the ageing of the baby boom generation in Australia.

In line with population ageing, the 2015 Intergenerational Report projected that working age dependency ratios would fall from 4.5 persons (2015) to 2.7 persons in 2054–5. However, the employment participation rate among people aged 65 and over was projected to rise from 12.9% (2015) to 17.3% in 2054–5. Such a rise reflects the increased policy emphasis on extended working lives with the dismantling of retirement age (Biggs et al., 2015) as a means of reducing reliance on, and costs of, age pension entitlements in Australia. Asquith (2009) contends that Australian government policy responses to the baby boomer generation are grounded in economic concerns, and hence policies have become increasingly directed towards active and productive ageing (Katz, 2000). This focus is encapsulated in the key themes of the 2015 Intergenerational Report: population, participation, productivity (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2015). Such a focus positions older individuals as personally responsible for remaining active and productive in later life. However, as many policy responses are biomedically focused and presuppose individual agency and choice; they ignore structural influences such as class, gender, ethnicity and the increasing polarisation of wealth (Ozanne, 2009; Quine and Carter, 2006). Policy agendas also obscure the social construction of ageing identities and who or what is considered problematic or risky (Katz, 2000; Laliberte Rudman, 2006; Powell and Taylor, 2016).

Sociological research on ageing: overview of the Special Issue

While we recognise the important interconnections between health, work, identity and lived experience, we also wish to draw attention to the various ways that ageing, and transitions across the life course, are negotiated in everyday life and embodied within the individual (Gilleard and Higgs, 2011; Katz, 2000). These themes are taken up in the first group of articles by Sue Banks, Peta Cook, Alan Petersen and Rachel Thorpe. Peta Cook’s article takes an innovative photographic approach by having older people themselves take and select personally meaningful photographs as self-representations of their ageing selves, while Banks, Petersen and Thorpe explore the experience of ageing through discourse and narrative. Banks’s article draws on Honneth’s recognition theory to show how meaning and practice intersect in the delivery of aged care services. She argues that both aged care workers and the people they care for occupy a devalued position in society. Petersen draws attention to the role of promissory discourses in promoting anti-ageing consumer markets and in commodifying and reinforcing ageism. Over the last two decades these markets have rapidly expanded to encompass a vast array of products and have been driven largely by the ageing of the baby boomer generation, for as Gilleard and Higgs contend: ‘the social value [of older people] lies in being still young’ (2000: 71). Petersen posits that over the short-to-medium term the personal and societal implications of these anti-ageing promissory discourses will be far-reaching. In Thorpe’s study of older women, ideas about what it means to look ‘old’, as well as what are age-appropriate styles of dress and displays of femininity are explored. The article utilises Foucauldian concepts of self-surveillance and disciplinary power to elucidate perceptions regarding ‘reflecting your age’ and avoiding dressing ‘like an old lady’. These perceptions are discussed within the context of broader discourses of generational change.

In addition to managing identity through consumptive practices such as dress and anti-ageing treatments, many older people live day-to-day with ongoing chronic conditions. For some, such as older men ageing with HIV, a medical diagnosis opens up avenues for support and assistance, while at the same time closing down opportunities for social connection due to stigmatisation and marginalisation. The ageing of the first generation of HIV long-term survivors (many of whom are baby boomers) brings into sharp focus the suffering that decades of activism and the evolution of the clinical management of HIV have been unable to alleviate. As Bernard Gardiner outlines in his article for this special edition, although many gay Australian men of the baby boomer generation did not live long enough to age, those that survived have been profoundly impacted by this experience. And whereas the baby boomer generation has been popularly conceptualised as the ‘change generation’ due to their high levels of political activism (Gilleard and Higgs, 2000), Gardiner argues that such activism and the collective identities forged through social action can wane over time, as previously contentious or divisive social issues become normalised within medicalisation discourses. As a consequence, older men ageing with HIV can feel as though their experiences and struggles have been forgotten by a population that is increasingly connected via the internet and globalised virtual spaces yet disconnected from neighbours and others in their community (Stanley et al., 2010).

The themes of social connection, virtual relationships and the digital divide are taken up in the next two articles by Wilding and Baldassar, and Neves, Waycott and Malta. In the first of these, the authors examine virtual and non-virtual relationships among ageing migrants in Australia, and the giving and receipt of support and care via these networks. They raise important questions about how care and support networks are conceptualised, and the implications this has for ageing research and practice. However, the quality of virtual relationships is by necessity reliant on having affordable, reliable and accessible internet and social media services. Neves and colleagues draw attention to this emerging issue, which is of increasing importance given the greater co-production and delivery of digitised aged and health care services in the home and community (Fisk, 2001; Morris et al., 2013). The authors draw on strong structuration theory in their analysis of social media use and access in two countries (Canada and Australia) among older people who are regarded as ‘least likely’ to use the technology – those who are frail, care-dependent and from low socioeconomic/educational backgrounds. The authors point towards the interconnection of agency, structure and context in the sociotechnical process of technology adoption and use/non-use among older adults and argue that the digital divide is ‘intersectional’, in that it includes factors such as gender, social class, living settings, practices, norms and so on – and is not merely ‘grey’.

The final article in this issue, by Curryer, Gray and Byles, takes a relatively novel theoretical approach towards ageing and life course transitions. The authors situate their research within a theoretical framework informed by theories of the risk society, reflexive modernisation and individualisation (Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002), which have previously received scant attention in research on ageing. They posit that Beck’s attention to dynamic and interactional processes of ageing holds potential for understanding ageing in contemporary western societies such as Australia and the United Kingdom. As the baby boomer generation ages into their 60s and 70s, later life is becoming more fraught with risk and uncertainty (Powell and Wahidin, 2005), and thus traditional theories of ageing are increasingly losing relevance. There is a greater need for ageing researchers to turn towards creative and innovative ways of thinking in meeting the challenges of future populations; and, as Curryer et al. suggest, sociological researchers must be poised to step up and play a starring role.

Contesting Boomageddon?

Asquith (2009) and Aberdeen and Bye (2013) have thrown out a challenge to sociology to claim its place within ageing research and to drive new theoretical developments in understanding ageing in the global milieu. The articles in this Special Issue represent a significant and diverse body of theoretical and empirical work on ageing, particularly within the contexts of the post-Second World War baby boomer generation. Together, they provide a range of sociological insights and critical discussion on a broad range of themes aimed at energising theoretical development. They go some way towards countering the biomedical and economic monopolies evident in ageing research and, by extension, social and policy discourses in Australia. This issue therefore sets the stage for a renewed interest in sociological theories of ageing (Marshall and Bengston, 2011). In contesting popular discourses of Boomageddon we challenge readers to think beyond or disrupt the current (and limiting) debates about aged care crises (Bristow, 2016; Doughney and King, 2006), and to consider how these might be reframed to create the kind of old age where individuals feel valued and connected to the society in which they live. It is these social connections that make us human.

We thank the editorial board of the Journal of Sociology and Sage Publications for the opportunity to showcase this collection of stimulating papers. We also extend our gratitude to the authors and peer reviewers for their valuable contributions to this issue.