Project management: Prof. Dr. Burkhard Gniewosz

Project team:

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marion Reindl

Dr. Michaela Katstaller

Period: 2023 – ongoing

Brief description:

The terms “Baby Boomer”, “Generation X”, “Generation Y” and “Millennials” are omnipresent in today’s society and are used in marketing, journalism and increasingly also in science. They are often perceived quite uncritically as easily describable and identifiable groups of individuals who share clear patterns of values, attitudes and willingness to act and are therefore supposed to be distinguishable from other generations. However, there is also criticism of these terms, as they are hardly theoretically and empirically tenable. The aim of the project is to empirically test the validity of the generations formulated by the Pew Research Center via birth cohorts and attributions with regard to distinct value patterns.