Generational Cohorts: The Emperor’s New Clothes

Whether in headlines, conference agendas, panel debates, or LinkedIn think pieces, you cannot avoid the endless chatter about Gen Z, Gen X, Millennials, or Boomers. For many, these terms have become shorthand for understanding society. For me, they’re little more than pseudoscientific hokum.

Here’s why it’s time to call “Emperor’s New Clothes” on generational labels:

1. They’re arbitrary. The “boundaries” of generations are made up, with no empirical justification. The only exception is the Baby Boomers, who at least reflect a real demographic event.
2. They’re inconsistent. Different sources place the cut-off years differently. Which means: if you don’t know whether you’re Gen X or Millennial, don’t worry—neither does anyone else.
3. They’re treated as “official.” Thanks to the media, many people assume these categories have some scientific basis. They don’t.
4. They don’t hold up under scrutiny. ValueGraphics analysed 750,000 people across 180 countries and found that 90% of each age group do not share common values. Same for race, income, or education.
5. Experts reject them. In 2023, Philip N. Cohen and 150 sociologists urged Pew Research Centre to stop using generational cohorts.
6. Marketers know better. Mark Ritson, never one to mince words, called generational segmentation “horseshit.” He’s right.
7. They distort reality. As Bobby Duffy explains in his TED Talk, many supposed generational “trends” collapse when you account properly for age, period, and cohort effects.

So why does it annoy me so much? Because it’s lazy.

I once challenged a LinkedIn post that claimed “Gen Z behave like X, Y, Z.” I pointed out there are 13.2 million people in the UK who fit the Gen Z label. Does anyone really think they all act the same? The author admitted she used the phrase because it was “easy and convenient.”

But let’s follow that logic.

If we’re happy to lump 13.2 million people together and stereotype them, why not do the same for other groups in the UK? Muslims (4m), Black people (2.4m), disabled people (16.1m), or LGB people (1.8m). Of course we wouldn’t. We would rightly call that racism, ableism, or heterosexism. Why, then, is age-based stereotyping still acceptable?

Think about it: a 13-year-old and a 28-year-old are both “Gen Z.” Do they share a worldview, or even remotely similar life experiences? Of course not. The fact that a Baby Boomer born in 1964 has more in common with Rod Stewart (born in 1945 and 19 years their senior) than they do with me (born 9 months after them in 1965) is preposterous. Yet, apparently I, born in 1965, am meant to have more in common with Kim Kardashian (born in 1980 and, like me, also “Gen X”) than with someone born nine months before me in 1964 (a Boomer). It’s absurd.

Generational thinking gives us easy to manufacture LinkedIn posts, catchy conference slides and report-selling headlines. But it gives us nothing of value in truly understanding people. Worse, it entrenches stereotypes that flatten complexity into lazy clichés.

We can — and must — do better. Let’s stop repeating these myths, stop treating them as if they’re official categories, and start looking at people in context: life stage, lived experience, culture, geography, education, class. Anything but this pseudoscientific snake oil.

Generations are the Emperor’s New Clothes of research.

The only question is: when will we collectively admit it?