It's completely arbitrary, especially towards the edges of the time period. A boomer born 1946 had a wildly different life than a boomer born 1964, and a boomer born in 1964 has way more in common with a Gen Xer born in 1965.

Age cohorts are real, but "generations" are just arbitrary groupings.

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yeah I mentioned the same about with the hard/soft cutoffs but generations are as much a thing as nationalities. its a shared experience and trends and such. I laugh because I live near my high school and they have these boards on the fence with all these awards and accomplishments for teams and clubs over the years but there is a big gap for the 80's and 90's. My generation representing.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nationalities at least have a basis in actually existing nations. There's literally no basis for generations.

Age cohorts exist. People born the same year have stuff in common. Generations aren't like that, they're just arbitrarily defined over arbitrary time spans.