Get the generational story right

Interesting article in iPolitics by Frank Graves of EKOS today, using a generational approach to statistical analysis of socio-economic and political trends. I am a big fan of that approach, basically cohort analysis using age cohorts defined generationally.

A problem I had with the article is that he talks of Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials but then presents all his findings for the age categories Under 25, 25 to 44, 45 to 64 and Over 65. These categories don’t match and so statements concerning the former but based on the latter are difficult to correlate and are more wrong than they have to be. (Findings reported on broad categories such as these can be perceived as “wrong” simply on the basis that they are generalizations.)

For example, it's not clear if the statements regarding seniors' (age 65+) economic and political behaviours relate to Boomers or other unnamed generations. The very first Boomers we can all agree, were born in 1946. That means that today, the oldest Boomers are 68 years old. If we use 18 years as the span of a generation, then Boomers today are between the ages of 51 and 68. So all the statements in the article regarding the over 65 population are hardly not about Boomers at all, but about previous generations. Indeed, the members of those generations are not quite dead yet.

In 2014, the over 65 population represented 5,585,287, or 15.7% of the Canadian population. Using 5 year age cohorts (it would be better to do this by single years of age), 3,023,480 of them were Depression and War Babies (born between 1928 and 1945) and 730,900 members of the Greatest Generation were still around (born 1910-1927).

Unless this is made explicit, it is very easy for readers to conflate the 65+ population and Boomers, which would throw the whole article out of kilter.