The Silent Generation, also known as the Traditionalist Generation or Builders Generation, is a demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the baby boomers. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1928 to 1945. By this definition and U.S. census data, there were 23 million people from the Silent Generation in the United States
In the United States, the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II in the early-to-mid 1940s caused people to have fewer children and as a result, the generation is comparatively small. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War. Upon coming of age in the postwar era, Silents were sometimes characterized as trending towards conformity and traditionalism, as well as comprising the "silent majority". However, they have also been noted as forming the leadership of the civil rights movement and the 1960s counterculture, and creating the rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s.
In the United Kingdom, the Silent Generation was also born during a period of relatively low birthrates for similar reasons to the United States and was quite traditional upon coming of age. They lived through times of prosperity as young adults, economic upheaval in middle age, and relative comfort in later life. The Sixtiers is a similar age group in the Soviet Union whose upbringings were also heavily influenced by the troubles of the mid-20th century. The term "the builders" has been used to describe a similar cohort in Australia.
Terminology Time magazine first used the term "Silent Generation" in a November 5, 1951, article titled "The Younger Generation", although the term appears to precede the publication:
The Time article used birth dates of 1923 to 1933 for the generation, but the term somehow migrated to the later years currently in use. A reason later proposed for this perceived silence is that as young adults during the McCarthy Era, many members of the Silent Generation felt it was unwise to speak out.
The term "Silent Generation" is also used to describe a similar age group in the UK but has been at times described as a reference to strict childhood discipline which taught children to be "seen but not heard". In Canada, it has been used with the same meaning as in the United States. The cohort is also known as the "Traditionalist Generation".
Dates and age range definitions The Pew Research Center uses 1928 to 1945 as birth years for this cohort. According to this definition, people of the Silent Generation are to years old in .
The Intergenerational Centre of the Resolution Foundation has used 1926 to 1945, while the Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management uses the range 1925 to 1945. This generation had reached maturity as early as 1946 and as late as 1963, but the majority of Silents had come of age in the 1950s, which was followed by older boomers in the 1960s. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe use 1925 to 1942 as the birth years of the Silent Generation. People born in the later years of World War II who were too young to have any direct recollections of the conflict are sometimes considered to be culturally, if not demographically, baby boomers.
Characteristics
Australia Australia's McCrindle Research uses the name "Builders" to describe the Australian members of this generation, born between 1925 and 1945, and coming of age to become the generation "who literally and metaphorically built [the] nation after the austerity years post-Depression and World War II".Generations Defined. Mark McCrindle
Soviet Union
The Silent Generation in the Soviet Union is similar to Sixtiers. These people were born into Stalinism, raised during collectivization, and were witnesses of the Holodomor. So even though there was no Great Depression in the Soviet Union, they still experienced a lack of resources and food as children. In the 1930s and 1940s many of them lost their parents or close relatives during Stalinist repressions and later during battles and German occupation in WWII. Sometimes this generation is called the "Children of XX-th Congress".
United Kingdom Childhood and youth
There was a slump in birth rates in the UK between the two major baby booms following each world war. This roughly correlated with the economic downturn in the 1930s and World War II. The era of the Great Depression was a time of deprivation for many children, unemployment was high and slum housing was common. However, education was compulsory from the age of five to fourteen years old. Gaining a place at grammar school was a way for young people whose families could not afford them to be privately educated to gain full access to secondary schooling. In a time before widespread car use, children commonly played outside in the street and further afield without adult supervision. Toys of this era were quite simple but examples included dolls, model aeroplanes, and trains. Other popular activities included reading comics, playing board games, going to the cinema, and joining children's organizations such as the scouts. It was estimated that more than 85% of British households owned a wireless (radio) by 1939.
The Second World War impacted the lives of children in various ways. Significant numbers of schoolchildren were evacuated without their parents to the countryside to avoid the threat of bombing throughout the war years. The quality of education fell everywhere but particularly in urban areas for various reasons, including a shortage of teachers and supplies, the distress pupils suffered from air raids and the disruption caused by evacuations.Eric Hopkins, "Elementary education in Birmingham during the Second World War." History of education 18#3 (1989): 243–255.Emma Lautman, "Educating Children on the British Home Front, 1939–1945: Oral History, Memory and Personal Narratives." History of education researcher 95 (2015): 13–26.Roy Lowe, "Education in England during the Second World War." in Roy Lowe, ed., Education and the Second World War: studies in schooling and social change (1992) pp 4–16. The degree of supervision children received also fell as fathers left to fight and mothers joined the workforce. However, rationing during World War II and the years after improved the health of the population overall with one study conducted in the early 2000s suggesting that a typical 1940s child ate a healthier diet than their counterpart at the start of the 21st century. Following the Second World War, the school-leaving age was raised to 15 with every child being allocated to one of three types of school based on a test taken at the age of 11 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (selection between two types of school took place at age 12 in ScotlandL. Patterson, "Schools and schooling: 3. Mass education 1872–present", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 566–9.).
The years after the Second World War saw a continuation of difficult social conditions; there was a serious housing shortage and rationing was at times more restrictive than it had been during the war. The late 1940s saw substantial social reforms and changes to the structure of the British economy.Burnett, A social history of housing: 1815–1985 (1985) pp 278–330 Economic conditions and living standards improved significantly during the 1950s and 60s. Unemployment rested at roughly two percent during this period, much lower than it had been during the depression or would be later in the 20th century. Consumer goods such as televisions and household labour saving devices became increasingly common. By the late 1950s, Britain was one of the most affluent societies anywhere in the world. In 1957, 52% of the British population described themselves as "very happy" in comparison to 36% in 2005. That year, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said:
The idea of the "teenager" as a distinctive phase of life associated with rebellion against adult authority and older generations social norms became increasingly prominent in public discourse during the 1940s and 50s,David F. Smith, "Delinquency and welfare in London: 1939–1949". The London Journal 38#1 (2013): 67–87.David Fowler, Youth culture in modern Britain, c. 1920-c. 1970: from ivory tower to global movement-a new history (2008).Bill Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945 (1998). though in many ways those reaching maturity in the years after the Second World War were quite traditionally conservative in experience and attitudes. National service (military conscription) was reintroduced after the war and continued throughout the 1950s. Young people would often attend ballroom dances to socialise and find potential romantic partners. The average age of first marriage in England and Wales fell reaching its lowest level in more than a hundred years by the late 1960s of 27.2 and 24.7 years for men and women respectively. Cultural normsPhyllis Whiteman, Speaking as a Woman (1953) p 67 and government policy.Martin Pugh, "Domesticity and the Decline of Feminism 1930–1950". p 158"Bruley, Women in Britain since 1900 p 118 encouraged marriage and women to focus on their role as homemaker, wife and mother whilst their husband acted as the household's primary breadwinner. The treatment of those who did not meet society's expectations in their personal lives was often quite unsympathetic. Abortion and homosexuality were illegal whilst later investigations suggest that many women who gave birth out of wedlock had their babies forcibly removed from them. Laws were liberalised significantly in the late 1960s, but change was slower in certain areas in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mid and later life Heavy industry had been troubled in the UK throughout the 1960s, this combined with a global energy crisis and influx of cheap goods from Asia led to rapid deindustrialisation by the mid-1970s. New jobs were either low wage or too high-skilled for those laid off.Tim Strangleman, James Rhodes, and Sherry Linkon, "Introduction to crumbling cultures: Deindustrialization, class, and memory". International Labor and Working-Class History 84 (2013): 7–22. online Steven High, "' The Wounds of Class': A Historiographical Reflection on the Study of Deindustrialization, 1973–2013". History Compass 11.11 (2013): 994–1007 This situation led to significant political instability and industrial unrest causing a great deal of frustration and inconvenience to the general public. Meanwhile, another set of problems was developing in Northern Ireland where politics had become increasingly tense and divided during the 1960s. This developed into a sectarian conflict with the British Army involved known as The Troubles which continued over several decades. This conflict caused more than 3,500 deaths. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister and brought about the end to some aspects of the Post-war consensus on economic policy.Rudolf Klein, "Why Britain's conservatives support a socialist health care system." Health Affairs 4#1 (1985): 41–58. online For instance, her government created the right-to-buy scheme which allowed renters to buy up their council homes at a reduced prices. Middle aged people were one of the social groups which particularly benefited from this policy. Her policies have been described as giving millions of people direct ownership of capital through share or house ownership but have also been associated with high unemployment, rising poverty and social unrest.