Millennials about to overtake Boomers as the largest generation:
Australians aged 25 to 39 years are overtaking Baby Boomers as the largest share of the population, with newly released census data placing Millennials neck-and-neck with their cashed-up parents.
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1995, have increased from 20.4 per cent of the population in 2011 to 21.5 per cent last year. Boomers, people born between 1946 and 1965, have decreased from 25.4 per cent of the population to 21.5 per cent in the same period.
[...] Census results categorise anyone born before 1945 as the Interwar generation. After Baby Boomers, Generation X covers births between 1966 and 1980. Generation Z takes over from Millennials, also known as Gen Y, covering births from 1996 until 2010. Generation Alpha covers births to 2021.
[...] The generational shift is also reflected in religious affiliation in Australia. Nearly 60 per cent of Boomers report a Christian religious affiliation, compared with 30 per cent of Millennials.
More than 45 per cent of Millennials reported having no religion, compared with 30 per cent of Boomers.
How someone born in the 1960s can be considered part of the same generation as the post-WWII "baby boom" babies has always mystified me.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday July 03 2022, @05:17AM (8 children)
As much as 30% of boomers say they have no religion? Boomers? Really? And for millennials, that's 45%?? I would've thought those numbers would be something like 5% and 20% respectively.
This may be the Twilight of Christianity. In the US, the zealots have massively discredited organized religion, of which Christianity is by far the largest. They've outed themselves as viciously stupid, bigoted, hypocritical, spiteful, and cruel. They've always been like that but now, thanks to technology, they can't cover up and conveniently have their pasts forgotten any more. What were the evangelicals thinking, supporting by margins as high as 85% one of the US's worst presidents ever, a man with no scruples who broke every one of the Ten Commandments and everything else they profess to hold holy? Further, in their endless quest for drama, the media amplifies every shockingly stupid and cruel thing the zealots do.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @07:50AM
Your numbers for religious belief are way too high. I would have said that between 5% and 20% have religion is more like it. Note the phrasing "Christian religious affiliation". It probably means that their grandparents were in a christian church, and they retain some affiliation for social reasons, not that they are devout believers.
Most aussies only go to church for weddings and funerals. It's not so much that they believe in the dogma, as it's a respected social institution with convenient buildings.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Sunday July 03 2022, @09:03AM
USA society is much more religious than Australian society.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday July 03 2022, @09:05AM (1 child)
1: People, on average, are selfish opportunists. Some combine that with a hunger for power.
2: Clerics are people.
(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:38AM
There's no evidence for the existence of a god or gods either.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday July 03 2022, @05:20PM
I'm not surprised about that, actually: A Pew religious survey they do periodically noted a couple years ago that a majority of Americans are not affiliated with any kind of religious community or organization.
I don't think Christianity is over as a religion: There are some people out there who are devout Christians, and will almost definitely keep that faith. But it is definitely starting to be no longer in the position where you can safely assume that some kind of Christianity is the "default". In my opinion, that's how things should be in a free country.
If Christianity wants to revive itself, I'd suggest they do a careful job of reading over what some guy in Roman Judea was saying a couple thousand years ago - he seemed to have some good ideas, but there's a lot of Christians who seem to ignore everything he had to say.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 03 2022, @10:38PM
Obviously, they weren't thinking. As to me, I think it's the death knell for that belief system. Brazen hypocrisy kills religious systems and culture. We wouldn't have any of the existing religious systems, if the older stuff somehow remained sincere.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday July 04 2022, @04:04AM (1 child)
You have just accused Donald Trump of murder.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday July 04 2022, @06:53AM
Not necessarily. "Thou shalt not kill" does indeed mean what it says on the tin, but in some countries, and in some states of the USA, it is legal to kill in certain circumstances including as a punishment for some crimes. A Jewish guy once told me about the official Jewish position on the death penalty. Apparently it does indeed say in the bible that the punishment for certain crimes/sins is death, however human judgement is imperfect. The only perfect judgement is divine, therefore humans do not have the authority to sentence someone to death. Only god can do that. As an atheist, I think the death penalty is abhorrent for many reasons, imperfect human judgement included. Then there's the case of self-defence including in war. I believe Donald Trump sent many people to their deaths in a hurry before his term ended, those convicted of certain crimes. Is that true?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Sunday July 03 2022, @05:26AM (1 child)
Go Australian kids!
Now do something for your elders. Get jobs and contribute something would ya mate?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 04 2022, @01:03AM
They do [abs.gov.au]
And, in the process, they are giving the boomers [abc.net.au] the sex time of their life [abc.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 03 2022, @07:51AM (16 children)
The generation of people rich enough to feel entitled is being replaced by the generation of people who feel entitled even without money.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Sunday July 03 2022, @08:07AM (15 children)
Welly, why shouldn't they be entitled to it? Why shouldn't younger generations get to enjoy the quality of life accorded to their elders, when they are working just as hard or even harder? Why should younger generations - born in a period of unprecedented technological productivity - settle for less? Our civilization has never produced so much, or been so efficient; per capita we are richer than ever before. So why should only a handful of wealthy individuals benefit?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday July 03 2022, @09:26AM (14 children)
Um...because they haven't earned it?
You hear the whining about how great we "boomers" had it, but we were also broke when we were young. Speaking for our family: We had plenty of sleepless nights, wondering how we would pay bills. We had no significant amount of money until much later in our careers. Make non-stupid financial decisions over the course of 30 or 40 years, and the millennials won't be broke anymore.
Yes, today's pitfalls are different from the pitfalls we faced, but then, tomorrow's pitfalls will be different from today's.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:23AM (3 children)
That's a bit over-simplistic.
The millenials (and their offsprings) face hardships that no amount of courage and good decision-making can overcome. The job market is basically hostile to them, while the boomers had no trouble getting a job. The economy is stagnating at best while the boomer looked forward - and expected - continued growth. Energy is expensive for heating and moving about, while it was super-cheap for the boomers. Etc etc.
The odds are stacked against the millenials and their children. Even the most serious millenial will struggle a lot more than an moderately financially-savvy boomer.
I know that because I'm a gen-X'er and I was lucky enough to ride the last golden post-war years. I got to enjoy what the boomers enjoyed for the first part of my life, and that allowed me to build a resume that shields me from job hardships now, so I still enjoy it in my older age. But I won't have it as good as my parents when I get old enough to retire. In fact, I don't expect to retire. Still, I count myself amongst the lucky ones.
The millenials though, not so much: they've had it twice as hard as I'll ever have, and I have it a bit harder myself than my parents did when they were my age. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday July 03 2022, @12:24PM
If I had to name one factor that bedevils Millennials even more than it did Gen-Xers it would be student loan debt. Before they've even entered the work force their financial futures have already been stolen from them.
Wags will say it's their own fault for incurring the debt in the first place, but there are few jobs out there that don't require college degrees anymore. And what part-time job is going to pay enough such that the college students can pay their $70k annual tuition and room & board at the same time?
So it's no great mystery why the generation hates America and hates the entire system and are doing everything they can to tear it down.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @04:59PM
There is also the rise of corporate religion. Managers who regard themselves not just as superiors, but moral superiors. They are to be emulated, by you, at their behest. Their self-regard borders on clinical narcissism, and the institution actively encourages it. And the dumb sheeple managers slurp the Kool Aid and become believers in the religion of corporate management.
It's not a job, it's a career. And you need to change your personality. And pretend you can't see what clowns they are. And bow to the masters as you eat a plate of their bullshit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 04 2022, @07:52AM
> Energy is expensive for heating and moving about, while it was super-cheap for the boomers. Etc etc.
Is it? Here's inflation-corrected pricing for natural gas (USA):
https://www.in2013dollars.com/Utility-(piped)-gas-service/price-inflation [in2013dollars.com]
The default inputs here suggest that gasoline today is about the same (inflation corrected) price as 1978:
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/gasoline-prices-adjusted-for-inflation/ [usinflationcalculator.com]
And a quick sampling of other starting years suggests it's similar along the way (this calculator doesn't seem to work for starting years before 1978).
If anything, it seems more likely that millenials have been lulled by recent years of historically low priced fossil fuels--and been able to get by with low wages because of cheaper-than-normal fuel prices (due, I believe, mostly to fracking).
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:34AM
And all because some dastardly person keeps moving the pits!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Kell on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:39AM (6 children)
Except, we have earned it - the boomers just don't care to recognise that. They think that if we aren't flourishing it must be because we're somehow doing something wrong; we must be lazy or stupid or entitled. Well, newsflash, grandpa: we did everything our elders have told us to - we studied hard, we work long hours, we scrimp and save, only to have the rug pulled out from under us. The goal posts were moved; the world has changed to make success impossible. You think we work side gigs cus it's trendy? We do it to make rent. Unlike preceding generations we can't buy a house for $75k; you can't even buy a house for $750k in these parts (a major Australian city).
I'm Gen Y: my parents bought three houses on my father's salary; I earn 50% on top of what he did and I can't still afford even one house! So, we're trapped in this cycle of renting which just pays some rich cunt's third yacht mortgage, without any chance of saving equity for ourselves. Fuck, even my elder sibling by four years who went straight into the work force while I did a PhD, giving him a twelve year head-start, managed to buy a three bedroom house on a hardware store clerk's salary, while I have zero chance of buying anything inside the city limits bigger than a broom closet.
Add to that the fact that the age of retirement keeps getting pushed back (and it's a 50-50 bet that the pension will even exist by the time we would be eligible) and even if by some miracle we pull it off, we're still condemned to live in an ecosphere ruined by the twats who preferred to save 3 cents a litre rather than pay a little more to not-fuck-the-planet.
No. I reject your thesis. We have earned it. Telling us we still need to 'pay our dues' is just a slick way of saying "let us exploit you a little longer; just a little longer". Fuck. That. Noise. Our labour and efforts are worth no less than any preceding generation. We are owed a share of wealth, a standard of living proportionate with the value of our productivity.
Where is my beautiful house? Where is my large automobile?
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by bradley13 on Sunday July 03 2022, @12:51PM (3 children)
There might be more to that sentence than you think. PhDs aren't something that earn you a big salary. You lose a lot of years out of your career, and the positions a PhD qualifies you for generally pay no more (and often less) than non-PhD positions. You get a PhD because you want to, not because it's going to make you big bucks. And, yes, I know what I'm talking about: I have a PhD. My son, working in the same field, makes nearly the same salary I do. Getting a PhD was fun, and I don't regret it at all, but it came at a price.
So your brother, having 12 extra years in the workforce, is better off than you are? Why is this a surprise?
Of course, housing prices are currently high. However, if you look at the long term trend in housing prices [inflationdata.com]: after correcting for inflation, from 1900-2012 (more than a century), the increase was only 25%. Houses in 2012 were much bigger and more luxurious than in 1900, so that's actually pretty incredible. Since 2012, we've entered the next bubble, but it will almost certainly correct, just like the bubble in 2008 did.
Housing prices in specific markets are a different matter. There, the answer is: live somewhere else. With WFH or hybrid models, you can even keep a job in a stupidly expensive market while living elsewhere. Assuming you are in the US: There are plenty of small towns where - even today - you can get a 3BR house for $100k [zillow.com]. They just aren't in Silicon Valley or in the East Coast comglomarate. And it's not a McMansion.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Sunday July 03 2022, @01:41PM (2 children)
Oh believe me, I know PhDs don't make you rich - I got into robotics because I love the work, not because I thought I'd get more money doing it (though, that said I earn 3x the average Australian wage and many times what my brother makes). But people don't appreciate how rapidly houses have increased in cost, far outstripping wage growth. Are houses bigger? Yes, but the land is smaller and affordable land has been pushed out of the city almost entirely. And compare: I earn 1.5x what my father did, who was able to buy three houses on his wage in 1990. The problem is stagnant wage growth hopelessly outpaced by increased cost of living and house prices. And no, WFH doesn't work for everyone (eg. university professors like me), and living in the sticks doesn't work for any but a few who are able to effectively telecommute or work in industries where that makes sense.
It's pretty fucking galling to see the financial situations of myself, my peers, and (worst of all) my students, only to have people who aren't in their shoes telling them they haven't earned a reasonable quality of life. This is part of the problem: every ones who isn't suffering it seems to think it's all just 'fine'. It's not fine.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @03:18PM
Unfortunately, that seems to be human nature. Things aren't a big problem until it affects me! That's why if you or someone you know has a rare disease that isn't being studied much, you have to hope that someone rich and/or famous gets it too. The Reagan administration largely ignored AIDS (deemed a "lifestyle" disease that only affected promiscuous gay men) until Rock Hudson (a long time personal friend of Reagan) got it, then more resources started getting put into researching it. Unfortunately, anyone rich and/or famous enough won't ever be in the situation where they have a hard time buying a modest house. In this case, you probably need a former famous person who is down on their luck to virally make the news (like those Gary Coleman stories of him working a low-paying security guard job at the end of his life).
It's also morally satisfying to pass on puritanical advice to those who aren't doing as well as you. "Work hard and stop buying drugs!" (because clearly that's what all poor people are doing). It is reaffirming to us that "I have my modest house because I worked hard and made smart life choices," even if it really wasn't true when one reflects deeply on it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @04:37PM
And a greater acceptance of WFH would actually be dangerous for the Australians. There are many cheaper countries with time zones close to Australia's...
Those who still can't figure out why this is dangerous could lose their jobs to people who can figure it out and cost less than a quarter.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @01:14PM
Congratulate your brother on being much smarter than you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 04 2022, @01:07AM
Move countryside and telecommute, bein' a city slicker is way overrated.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @04:27PM
Probably not true for the rest of the world but the boomers in the USA had it easier. They didn't have to compete as much vs the Europeans and the Japanese who were bombed out. The UK was practically bankrupt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_loan [wikipedia.org]
Now the US millennials have to compete vs the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Europeans, etc.
My grandparents had a US-made fridge. Today few would be buying US-made fridges.
Lastly, cost of property has gone up over decades so the boomers who bought property when it was much cheaper would benefit from that. Whereas the millennials and younger won't. Higher property costs tends to increase other costs - rent etc. My parents didn't have to take > 30 year loans to buy property.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday July 03 2022, @05:42PM
Umm, yes they did.
They were told, in no uncertain terms, that the path to success was:
1. Avoid drugs, alcohol, early pregnancy, and other vices.
2. Stay in school, and do well there.
3. Go to college, any way you can.
4. Get a good job.
5. Work hard at that job.
6. Use the money from that job to buy the good life, like a home or a car.
Statistically, here's what they did, substantially more than either Gen X or Boomers:
1. Avoided drugs, alcohol, early pregnancy, and other vices.
2. Stayed in school, and got good grades,.
3. Went to college.
And then things started going very wrong: The good jobs they were supposed to be able to get with their college degree largely either didn't exist or didn't pay well anymore. For example, the average salary of newly hired academics has gone from roughly the equivalent of $80K a year to $16K a year. About 35-40% of law school graduates don't find a job in the legal field. Underemployment, where someone gets a job that doesn't require the education and experience that somebody has, is extremely common - it's not infrequent for people with college degrees to be flipping burgers trying to make a living. The fact is that a college graduate today often earns less per hour than a previous generation could earn making auto parts on the assembly line.
And even if you get one of those jobs, you still can't buy a house with the money nor get the financial stability that goes with it.
To understand the economic conditions younger people today experienced, you don't want to think about how you had it in the 1970's stagflation or the early 1980's with the intentional Paul Volcker recession, which was bad but relatively manageable. You want to think about how your parents or grandparents had it in the 1930's, complete with suicides and respectable people begging and hawking whatever they could think of.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 03 2022, @10:44AM (2 children)
It's the nature of generations. The problems are described by Mannheim back in 1928 and are still valid to this day. Generations are formed, age and grow old, die and a new once takes over. Repeat.
The current, and stupid, problem with generations is the naming conventions. They make no fucking sense what so ever. I guess Generation X, was followed by Y (the millennials) and Z but then what. The stupid english alphabet ran out of letters. I guess this is what happens when you start at the end, like they couldn't foresee that there would be more then three generations after them. Instead they either went greek or they just decided to wrap around as the current youngest generation is now alpha. I wonder if they'll change the naming convention again next time cause I don't think they want their offspring to be known as the beta generation -- all their feelings and such will probably be hurt then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:48AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday July 03 2022, @12:28PM
I remember reading a screed written by an elder statesman in Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 that decried the dissolute and feckless youth of his day, who were more interested in being dandies and having a good time than in working hard to build a stronger Japan.
Fascism followed closely on the heels of that sentiment there like it did in Germany.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 03 2022, @11:45AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hubie on Sunday July 03 2022, @02:05PM
I've always considered that a "generation" was something more akin to shared cultural or economic experiences as the result of being in the same age bracket, such as growing up under the same employment conditions, being exposed to the same pop culture, etc. So to think that someone born in 1965 has any shared experience with someone born 20 years earlier is what I don't get. The person born in 1965 could be the child of the person born in 1945, but still be considered the same "generation"? When the person born in the 60s hits their impressionable tender years of early teenhood, the person born in the late 40s is already in their 30s (which, of course, you never believe anyone over the age of 30 ...). For instance, while the early boomers in the "go-go 80s" were destroying companies on Wall Street with leveraged buyouts and all swearing they were at Woodstock saving the world, the late boomers were still pumping gas for minimum wage wearing their parachute pants.
If you consider a generation to be anything similar to how I think of it, there should be a split in the "baby boom" designation. All of the other years listed for the other generations are 14 years wide (arbitrarily chosen, but standardized apparently), but for some reason they consider the boomers to be 20 years wide. Your plot does show a nice bump that allows one to easily classify all of those included in that bump, which I suspect was how all this silly generation labeling started, because the following generation, the "forgotten generation", was labeled "X" because of that, then the cultural powers that be decided that if we have an "X", then the next generation must be "Y", etc. Before we got all hung up on labeling generations, I vaguely recall that we just referred to the decades things happened (eg., the "roaring twenties").
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fliptop on Sunday July 03 2022, @01:54PM (1 child)
I missed being a boomer by a couple of years but I've always identified as one. My parents were born around 1940, raised by people who lived through the depression and they instilled the values of hard work, frugality and saving for a rainy day in me and my siblings. Plus my Dad was a U.S. Marine so the hard work part was pretty much double. I've always had a garden, hunted and still drive cars (well, trucks) made in the 60's and 70's. I hate my cell phone; if I didn't own my business I wouldn't have one. I don't own a TV and I still enjoy listening to vinyl. Question: why are you on my lawn?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @05:05PM
You sound like a retro hipster. Expensive. Lucky you got a trust fund, eh buddy?