Generation

Generation in social sciences is usually regarded as equivalent to birth cohort or age cohort, a group of individuals born in the same time period. A concept of generation is thus contextualized both within the historical time and within the company of coevals. It is nowadays widely accepted that a birth cohort comes to have social significance as a generation by creating a distinctive cultural or political identity. Therefore, a common way of explaining age differences in social and cultural contexts is to define age-related distinctive features as generational characteristics. For consumer cultures, generation is an important concept, because generational identities typically manifest themselves in attitudes and practices related to consumption. Particularly when comparing the attitudes and practices of young and elderly people, one usually ...