THE ECONOMIST: Forget millennials & gen Z, pity the forgotten generation X hitting midlife in the modern age

“We suffer”, said Seneca, “more often in imagination than in reality.” The Stoic philosopher could have been talking about the generations. Members of gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, say that social media ruined their childhood.

Millennials, between 1981 and 1996, complain that they cannot buy a house. Baby boomers, between 1946 and 1964, grouse that they face an uncertain retirement.

Many forget about generation X, which is made up of those born between 1965 and 1980. Proxied by Google searches the world is less than half as interested in gen X as it is in millennials, gen Zers or baby-boomers.

There are few podcasts or memes about gen X. Aside from Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture, which popularised the moniker, there are few books discussing the cohort.

In Britain gen Xers are less likely than members of any other age group to know the generation to which they belong.

Gen Xers may have no place in the popular imagination but, contrary to Seneca, they really do suffer. This is true both because gen Xers are at a tricky age, and also because the cohort itself is cursed.

A recent 30-country poll by Ipsos finds that 31 per cent of gen Xers say they are “not very happy” or “not happy at all”, the most of any generation.

David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College finds all sorts of nasty things, from unhappiness to anxiety to despair, top out around the age of 50. This is consistent with the “U-bend of life” theory, which suggests that people are happy when young and old, but miserable in middle age. Baby-boomers went through it; before long millennials will, too.

The U-bend exists in part because chronic health issues start to emerge in middle age.

People also come to realise they will not achieve everything they had hoped in their careers.

On top of this, gen Xers often have to look after both their children and their parents. In America they devote 5 per cent of their spending to caring for people under 18 or over 65, against just 2 per cent for boomers.

In Italy the share of 18-to-34-year-olds living with their parents has increased from 61 per cent to 68 per cent over the past two decades. In Spain the rise is even more dramatic. To which generation do many of these parents belong? gen X.

In America, nowhere is life more U-shaped than in San Francisco. The city’s idealistic youngsters believe that they will start the next big AI company, and are willing to put up with high costs and crime.

Successful boomers live in enormous houses in Pacific Heights and sit on company boards. Gen Xers, in the middle, have neither the idealism nor the sinecures. Only 37 per cent are happy with life in San Francisco, compared with 63 per cent of gen Zers, according to a poll in 2022 by the local paper San Francisco Standard.

Many have little option but to live in Oakland — the horror! — if they want a big house.

Although gen Xers will in time escape the U-bend, they will remain losers in other ways. Consider their incomes.

Gen Xers do earn more after inflation than earlier generations — the continuation of a long historical trend, and one from which both millennials and gen Zers also benefit. But their progress has been slow.

A recent paper by Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, and Jeff Larrimore of the Federal Reserve assesses American household incomes by generation, after accounting for taxes, government transfers and inflation. From the ages of 36 to 40 gen Xers’ real household incomes were only 16 per cent higher than the previous generation at the same age, the smallest improvement of any cohort.

Perhaps this poor income growth is a consequence of a stereotype that a range of psychological studies have confirmed: gen Xers are reluctant to be corporate drones, placing more emphasis on work-life balance and autonomy.

It is no coincidence that in 1999, when gen Xers were in the prime of their lives, there were two hugely successful films in which people broke free of life’s shackles.

In “The Matrix” Thomas Anderson, a computer programmer, discovers the world is an illusion simulated by intelligent machines. In the movie Fight Club, an office worker joins a secret society whose members kick lumps out of each other. All very exciting, of course — but hardly conducive to a solid career.

Gen Xers have, to be fair, faced difficult circumstances. People’s earnings typically rise fast in their 30s and 40s, as they move into managerial roles.

Unfortunately for gen Xers, when they were in that age range labour markets were weak, following the global financial crisis of 2007-09. In 2011, for instance, the median nominal earnings of British people in their 30s rose by just 1.1 per cent.

Earnings growth in Italy, which was hit hard by the euro crisis, was just as poor. And in Canada from 2011 to 2017 the real median earnings of people aged 35 to 44 years did not grow at all.

Gen Xers have also done a poor job accumulating wealth. During the 1980s, when many boomers were in their 30s, global stockmarkets quadrupled.

Millennials, now in their 30s, have so far enjoyed strong market returns. But during the 2000s, when gen Xers were hoping to make hay, markets fell slightly. That period was a lost decade for American stocks in particular, coming after the dotcom bubble and ending with the financial crisis.

What about home-ownership, the ultimate symbol of intergenerational unfairness? The conventional narrative contrasts perma-renting millennials with boomers who enjoy six spare bedrooms.

Yet data on American home-ownership, provided by Victoria Gregory of the St Louis branch of the Fed, overturns this received wisdom.

In fact, the big decline in home-ownership rates happened from boomers to gen Xers. Starting in their late 30s and early 40s, gen Xers of a given age had a similar chance of owning as millennials do.

Aversion to home-ownership is in some cases a choice. Gen Xers may have imbibed a passage from Mr Coupland’s novel: “When someone tells you they’ve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality.”

But, again, circumstances are probably a bigger factor. From their late 30s to their early 40s, the time when many people first get on the housing ladder, gen Xers suffered from the effects of the financial crisis. It became harder to get a mortgage. Some of those who already had one foreclosed on their house and went back to renting.

Aggregate statistics capture all these trends. Jeremy Horpedahl of the University of Central Arkansas tracks average wealth by generation, using data produced by the Fed. He finds that, at 31, the millennial/gen Z cohort has about double the wealth that the average gen Xer had at the same age.

Using survey data from the European Central Bank we find suggestive evidence of similar trends in Europe. From 2010 to 2021, millennials in the euro area tripled their nominal net worth, versus less than a doubling for gen Xers.

The position of gen Xers may not improve much in the years ahead, particularly Americans.

They could be the first to suffer owing to broken or changing retirement funding systems. America’s social-security fund is projected to be depleted by 2033 — just as gen Xers start to retire — meaning benefits will be cut by 20-25 per cent unless Congress acts. Next time you see a quinquagenarian, at least give them a smile