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Generation
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Generation (from the Greek ?e?e?), also known as procreation, is the act of producing offspring. In a more generic sense, it can also refer to the act of creating something inanimate such as electrical generation or cryptographic code generation.
A generation can also be a stage or degree in a succession of natural descent as a grandfather, a father, and the father's son comprise three generations.
A generation can refer to stages of successive improvement in the development of a technology such as the internal combustion engine, or successive iterations of products with planned obsolescence, such as video game consoles or mobile phones.
In biology, the process by which populations of organisms pass on advantageous traits from generation to generation is known as evolution.
s important to distinguish between familial and cultural generations.
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Encyclopedia
Generation (from the Greek ?e?e?), also known as procreation, is the act of producing offspring. In a more generic sense, it can also refer to the act of creating something inanimate such as electrical generation or cryptographic code generation.
A generation can also be a stage or degree in a succession of natural descent as a grandfather, a father, and the father's son comprise three generations.
A generation can refer to stages of successive improvement in the development of a technology such as the internal combustion engine, or successive iterations of products with planned obsolescence, such as video game consoles or mobile phones.
In biology, the process by which populations of organisms pass on advantageous traits from generation to generation is known as evolution.
Length
It is important to distinguish between familial and cultural generations. A familial generation is defined as the average time between a mother's first offspring and her daughter's first offspring. This makes a generation around 25 years in length give or take a few years. Cultural generations are significantly shorter, as noted below. Many experts now believe, partly because of the acceleration of culture, that cultural generations are approximately 10-15 years long. This trend of shorter generations is increasing, so that it is most relevant for recent generations.
Firstly, because generational cohorts are changing so quickly in response to new technologies, changing career and study options, and because of shifting societal values, their characteristics can change in far less than two decades.
Secondly, the time between birth of parents and birth of offspring has stretched out from two decades to more than three. Looking at Australian statistics, the median age of a woman having her first baby was 24 in 1976, while today it is just over 30. So, while the Boomers are the children of the Builders or Veterans, Gen Z are often the younger siblings of Gen Y – or the children of the late-breeding Gen X. In recent years, the median age of first-time mothers throughout the western world has reached record highs.
So, today a cultural generation refers to a cohort of people born into and shaped by a particular span of time (events, trends and developments). And the span of time has contracted significantly.
More so than ever, the commonalities of today’s generations cut through global, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries. Due largely to globalisation made possible through the various technologies of today, a youth from Australia, the US, UK, Germany or Japan is shaped by the same events, trends and developments: they are witnessing unprecedented declines in their national birth rate, they are concerned by global warming, and more of their generation are tertiary-educated than their parents and grandparents. Likewise, those living on Government pensions are aware of and shaped by global trends no differently than are celebrities and high-flyers.
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