Generational theory still matters when applied correctly

There’s always a lot of debate about generations. Who is Gen Alpha? Do we know anything truly meaningful about Gen Z? And should we even care about generations in the first place?

Generational theory, perhaps surprisingly, has only been around for a few decades. Early in my career I worked with the authors of ‘Rocking the Ages’ who laid claim to some of the earliest generational analysis as part of the Yankelovich Monitor. While they didn’t name the generations — the term “Baby Boomer” was coined in 1963, and Douglas Coupland’s book ‘Generation X’ popularised the next generation — theirs were some of the earliest studies on what differentiates consumers from one another.

While some argue that generational analysis is a Western-centric view of the world (after all, the post-war baby boom didn’t happen in every region), I still believe that it’s a highly valuable way of making sense of change, and it has become more universally applicable thanks to our living in a digital and far more globalised world.

The reason I bring this background up is because our latest Ipsos Generations report has sparked a lot of discussion, as well as questions, about Gen Alpha — the youngest generation which has often been defined as those born from 2012 through 2025. I’ve been working with several clients to analyse what we think the most salient differences will be for generations in the future, and how we can understand the relationship of each generation to another.

Generational theory is a helpful way of thinking about how and why people approach the world differently, and in turn understanding consumer values, motivations and needs to serve them better.

Who are the generations?​

Gen Beta is still up for debate – some posit that it will start this year, following the end of Gen Alpha. But the prior generations are well established at this point.

As trend experts and market researchers, we look at generations through three lenses, which taken together form the basis of understanding them: period effects, life stage effects, and cohort effects.

Period effects

The “period effect” is something that can potentially influence all generations due to a shared major historical or social event that influences the population at large.

Take the Covid-19 pandemic, which changed the way we work, live and socialise. While we aren’t stuck in our homes any longer, 5 years later we do see lasting change such as a shift to more hybrid work, and a broadening of definitions of success.

Reality Check: Find demographic differences that make a real differenceThis is very much part of what we’re seeing in our “Escape to Individualism” trend, but it’s not just the result of the pandemic. The cost of housing is often a big factor as well, with many people beginning to feel that traditional metrics of success such as homeownership and retirement are out of reach.

Instead of measuring themselves by the same markers of success as their parents and grandparents, many people are choosing to carve their own path forward and pushing back on social expectations.

Life stage effects

A generation will display different behaviours often due more to their current life stage than other factors, for example, travelling more when they’re young, or spending more on home furnishings and saving more as they age into child-rearing years.

What’s challenging and fascinating is that life stage expectations are changing. For example, the number of US adults under 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have kids rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023, reflecting a loosening of societal expectations to have children. There are also country-level differences in when people think the best age to reach milestones is, reflecting how culture shapes social expectations around life stages as well.

This makes the impact of life stage effects on generations more nuanced, and thus, it becomes more tricky to make sense of what’s happening in a generation and distil the difference between a period effect and a life stage effect if the ages of life stages are changing.

Cohort effects

The cohort effect is one of the hardest things to define about a generation, but once spotted they can be a powerful tool for understanding consumer behaviour.

A generation might become known for being more materialistic, less brand loyal, or more fiscally conservative; the challenge often lies in distinguishing a period effect vs life stage effect vs the more elusive cohort effect. Personally, I like the way that Pew Research Center describes a cohort effect:

“Differences between generations can be the by-product of the unique historical circumstances that members of an age cohort experience, particularly during a time when they are in the process of forming opinions. In some cases, this may be the result of a period effect an older generation experienced that subsequent generations did not.”

In my mind, cohort effects are what makes generational analysis so powerful, and more intuitive. Generational perspectives endure because what was happening in the world as you came of age — war, technology, social change, economics — shapes your lifelong worldview.

Take Gen Z, many of whom were in primary school or college at the time of the pandemic, it prevented socialisation and changed expectations around how and where we connect with one another. As they’re coming into the post-pandemic workforce, it’s part of what shapes their decision to go into one field or another, reach for the next promotion, or even decide whether to socialise with co-workers after hours.

Hypotheses and watchouts

The challenge of all this is that we’re constantly trying to guess at the answer before we really have enough data. Ideally, a market researcher would have decades of data in our hands to be able to suss out the difference between a true cohort effect and life stages vs period effects.

But as brand leaders and marketers, we often can’t wait that long and need to understand how to reach and connect with consumers often before their worldviews are fully baked. This results in myths and misconceptions and can lead to generations getting a bad reputation before they’re even fully formed.

Take, for example, the idea that Gen Alpha has short attention spans. Some say that it’s inevitable as a social trajectory given the infusion of fast-paced digital content into our daily lives, and it’s true that Gen Alpha is the first to be not only digitally native but all born post-iPhone, with ready access to devices from an early age.

Eight out of 10 millennials know demographics are horseshitThe reality may be that their attention spans are just different: they’re known for being fast processors and, visual learners, and early research suggests that their attention spans are just more task-dependent, and that sustained attention can still be achieved.

The tougher question may be whether Gen Alpha is really suffering from being iPad kids sliding toward “linguistic brain rot”. A scroll through Reddit or Know Your Meme can teach you what on earth kids are talking about, but it can’t necessarily answer the question of whether technology is good or bad for Gen Alpha in the long run.

Teachers do report struggling to keep their attention in school and worrying about the influence of technology, individual devices, and the impact of post-Covid learning on the generation, but only time will tell how much of this has a long-term effect. While these headlines grab attention, we should be careful to consider what’s really at play and how each of the aspects of generational theory can help us understand what we’re seeing.

Implications for brands

Despite the watchouts, generational theory is still a fascinating science – and certainly will endure in popular media because of all the hypothesising about younger generations. This goes well beyond “kids these days…” since it has a very real business impact on what they expect from products and services; how can you design for the future if you don’t know what your future consumers will want and expect?

I would encourage marketers to stay curious about generations, stay up to date with new attitudinal & behavioural research as it comes out, and have a healthy dose of scepticism towards what we do see reported in the media. Ask yourself and your teams to take a deeper look at why we might be seeing a certain behaviour in consumers:

• Is it coming from a period effect that actually has some truth for all consumers?
• Is it reflective of a life stage effect that is true of any consumers at a similar age?
• Is it really an early cohort effect that will define the generation for decades?

Looking with a critical eye at what we know and hypothesise will help us understand which elements of generational theory are at play, and thus begin to form your own perspectives and expertise on generations. This in turn can help you be more prepared for what each generation will want and expect from brands, and help you see potential obstacles and growth opportunities in the patterns.

Jennifer Bender is an associate partner at Ipsos Strategy3. As the head of our global practice on trends and foresight, she drives the development of methodologies to help clients anticipate and grow from change, and co-authors the annual Ipsos Global Trends study.