Sandwiched between two larger and buzzier generations — Baby Boomers and Millennials — Gen X has often been disregarded culturally. A cohort of roughly 65 million American adults aged 41 to 56, they joined the workforce in the midst of the early 1990s recession, followed by the Dot-com bubble and The Great Recession. They’ve lived through the assassination of Dr. King, the Cold War, 9/11 and Y2K.

Chaos, crisis and uncertainty have plagued their entire professional careers.

“We’ve basically had terrible luck. At every developmental stage, we have hit this kind of American culture vacuum,” said Ada Calhoun, author of “Why We Can’t Sleep, Women’s New Midlife Crisis” and a Gen X parent. “When we were little kids, it was the peak crime rate. When we were graduating, there was a jobless recession. It’s been one thing after the other.”

Despite being at the prime of their careers and representing 60% of the workforce, Gen X is commonly overlooked and undervalued. Significant interest has been paid to Millennials — particularly their needs and desires — by researchers and marketers, even though Gen X significantly outspends other generations, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

But that may change, due to the pandemic. “It is definitely a population we are paying close attention to,” said Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer for the Well Being Trust. Due to a rising rate of ‘deaths of despair,’ or lives lost to drug overdose, alcohol and suicide, the foundation recognizes the unique challenges this generation faces. “A lot of these folks are mid-career and have families, so the stress and ongoing burden of losing a job — which we know is a risk factor for things like suicide and drug overdose — is profound.”

Many Gen Xers are facing their midlife crisis amid an ongoing crisis. They were already severely stressed about job instability and struggling to balance the competing demands of their young children and aging parents before the pandemic plunged the country into lockdown. Widespread closures forced working parents to juggle remote work with remote school.

The so-called ‘slacker generation’ is slammed, and “no longer trying to keep up the façade,” said Calhoun.

“Everyone had all this anxiety — a feeling that they could not possibly add one more thing to their plate because, if they did, it was all going to fall apart — and then, there it went,” Calhoun said. “They were waiting for the other shoe …read more

Source:: Digiday