Millennials and Gen Xers came into the population more supportive of allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally than older generations, and those greater levels of support have persisted over time. But at the same time, all generations — younger and older alike — have become more likely to support same-sex marriage over the past decade, suggesting a period effect separate from age or cohort.
Another example of how generational analysis can aid in understanding public opinion is the case of attitudes about marijuana. In recent years, there has been a fundamental shift in attitudes toward legalization of marijuana. However, the shift in attitudes over time has not been linear — support for marijuana legalization rose throughout the s, fell in the s, before steadily growing over the last quarter century.
The trend in opinion on legalizing marijuana highlights how overall societal mood or forces period can shift attitudes, as well as how people may be differentially influenced by those forces at different ages cohort. In , the Baby Boom generation was coming of age, with its adult members then between the ages of 18 and Bush took a hard-line approach to illicit drug use as concern over the dangers of marijuana rose.
Though one potential hypothesis is that these shifts were attributable to life-stage that people might become less supportive of marijuana as they move into middle age opinion among the youngest generation at that time, Gen X, suggests the importance of the period. Since then, overall support for marijuana legalization has increased across all three of these generations.
But the patterns are somewhat different for each. While the generation lens is especially powerful for an issue such as marijuana legalization, meaningful generational patterns are not seen across all issues. Views on gun control , for example, are an area where there are only modest differences by generation, with larger opinion gaps seen across other variables, including gender, education and population density.
There are fundamental differences across generations, from their racial and ethnic composition, to how quickly they reach certain milestones such as marriage, to their political and ideological orientations. Some are enduring differences that will shape the generations over the course of their lifetimes.
Others are largely a function of age or life-stage. One example of an enduring difference across the current generations is their racial and ethnic composition. Each older generation is less diverse. The current demographic composition of the country guarantees that the next generation will be even more diverse than Millennials. The unique demographic profiles of the generations are unlikely to change a great deal over time and often underlie opinion dynamics on issues.
Generational analysis allows for these comparative snapshots, but it also lets researchers track what happens as these cohorts age.
Instead, a large share of Gen Xers have married later in life than previous generations. Marriage rates among Millennials are at an even lower starting point than for Gen X. However, marriage rates will continue to rise among Millennials as they age. The exact trajectory of marriage rates among Millennials is unclear, however. The pattern of religious identity is another fundamental difference between the generations. Older generations identify overwhelmingly as Christian. Over the past seven years, the share of the U.
Much of this change has occurred due to generational replacement; the youngest adults who are aging into the population are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated than the oldest adults they are replacing. While marriage rates are expected to rise among younger generations as they move through the life cycle, there is no indication that younger cohorts will become more religiously affiliated as they age.
An analysis of long term trends in party identification, released in April , found that Millennials are more likely than older cohorts to identify as independents. Authors Authors and affiliations Nancy Mendez.
How to cite. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Diversity tints new kind of generation gap. Harms W Survey: generation gap closing. Taylor, P. Forty years after Woodstock, a gentler generation gap. Pew Research Center. Published August 12, Rosentiel, T. Published January 7, Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellFamily.
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I Accept Show Purposes. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Adolescence is often the time when people are most influenced by the society around them and as our world keeps developing and changing, things rarely stay the same, causing generation gaps between parents and their children.
Lack Of Understanding Different generations sometimes seem to speak a different language. Due to the changes in society from when parents were growing up, to how it is in the time of their children, even their way of thinking and what they deem to be normal tends to be different. Mistakes Are Rarely Tolerated Parents often do not tolerate mistakes and tend to tell their children off.
Children need to make mistakes to learn and grow in life, but if they only get punished for it, it widens the gap and creates a lack of proper communication. Children Are Expected To Be Replicas Parents often have dreams for their kids, and a lot of the time tends to force them in that direction without taking into consideration what their child wants. Too Many Comparisons Comparing children to each other or even to how you were as a child is another reason the gap becomes wide.
This often causes them to lose confidence in themselves and can destroy any enthusiasm they may have previously had. Not Enough Interaction Due to the responsibilities of being an adult and the stress that comes from work life, parents often find themselves too tired to spend enough time with their kids every day.
This causes a lack of communication and interaction that widens the generation gap. Keep An Open Mind The way that kids think is different from how parents do. Parents often feel like because they have already been the age their child is currently, that they understand how their child thinks. The truth is, the world and way of life were different then than it is now and their mind-set will be very different and can also be shocking for some parents.
This is why keeping an open mind and not assuming that they must be just like you were at their age is very important. You must also understand that there are some things that are acceptable in society and therefore acceptable to your child that may not have been acceptable when you were the same age.
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