Author Just Talking 'Bout X Generation

10 reasons you won't find Xers in an executive suite

(NEWSER) - Generation Xers don't seem to be clambering to the top of the corporate ladder in the numbers they should be—and many are turned off by corporate life altogether. BusinessWeek has 10 reasons why this might be so:

1. Xers started their careers just as the economy went into its early '90s tailspin
2. Remembered big corporate layoffs has given Xers a strong distrust of large institutions
3. Xers like keeping their options open and don't want to be funneled into narrow career paths
4. The economy is slowing again, just as Xers are reaching upper management
5. Xers are struggling to manage the "pesky" Generation Y strivers coming up

'This micro-generation is hard to pin down': Doree Shafrir

(NEWSER) - Perhaps last week’s Generation X screed didn’t quite ring true to you—but neither did the article about the Millennial Generation that prompted it. If so, you might be a member of “Generation Catalano,” born during the Carter administration and forever stuck between two groups that get far more attention. You “identify with some of Gen X's cynicism and suspicion of authority,” but you’re just a little too young to claim Reality Bites, writes Doree Shafrir in Slate . You “don't yearn for the Organization Man-like conformity that the Millennials seem to crave,” yet neither are you as proudly alienated as Gen X. More»

But at 47 he's too old for Gen X; seen as more of a bridge

(NEWSER) - Baby boomers will lose Washington next week to a new, more pragmatic generation. But which one that is seems up for debate, reports the AP. At 47, Barack Obama is a tad too young for boomers—whose partisan politics are informed by civil-rights marches and sexual liberation—but too old to be cynical Generation X. “He’s more like a generational bridge,” says an analyst More»

President-Elect is smart, but his early-60s birth cohort isn't

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama is a pretty smart guy, but his generation—the strange, in-between group born from the late 1950s to mid-1960s—is, quantitatively, the dumbest on record, writes Neil Howe of the Washington Post. Sometimes called “Generation Jones” or “early Xers,” this group nabbed the fewest educational degrees, fewest professional jobs, and lowest standardized test scores. More»

Generation X had it tough too: Mat Honan

(NEWSER) - Mat Honan has a message seemingly directed at the current generation occupying Wall Street and feeling sorry for itself: “Generation X is sick of your bullshit.” A recent New York article claimed this might be the first generation to end up worse off than its parents: “Please. Been there,” retorts Honan on Gizmodo . “Generation X was told that so many times that it can't even read those words without hearing Winona Ryder's voice in its heads.” More»