Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.” Or, to put it more prosaically, eventually, we all turn into our parents.
The notion that human beings change their attitudes and behaviour predictably as they pile on the years is fairly ingrained in the wine industry. Young people, it is routinely supposed, start out with sweet white and pink, and ‘grow’ into appreciating ‘proper’ red wine as they hit middle age.
Researchers and marketers – especially in the US – like to put generations into discrete silos – Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z – and there are lifestyle and economic reasons that support this approach.
Life stages
Having student loans, young children, retirement, paid-off mortgages… these stages of life are all bound to affect how anyone is likely to behave. And, just as a caterpillar develops into a butterfly, one day, as their palates have become more sophisticated and their wallets fatter, indiscriminate Pinot Grigio drinkers will, it is believed or at least hoped, one day happily enjoy the obscure Oregon Pinot Noir their parents used to drink.
But what if they didn’t? Even if the millennials behaved in their own generational way, what if they did not turn into their parents?
This is a question that has caught the attention of John Burn-Murdoch, the Financial Times statistician who gained international recognition for the clarity of his analysis during the pandemic.
In 2022, Burn-Murdoch turned his attention to US and UK voting patterns. What he found is stark and in apparent disagreement with earlier research: millennials are not following the trajectory described by Churchill. In Britain, they’ve become steadily less conservative as they have aged, while in the US, they reversed direction roughly half-way between the ages of 20 and 40 and are now nearly as liberal in their views as they were as students.
Now, this may be partly explained by the political peculiarities of the two countries, but if so, it ought to be reflected in the attitudes of their elders, and this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Young turn right early
By the same token, there is evidence from ThinkYouth that significant numbers of young people in European countries such as Germany, Poland and France are actually further to the right politically than their parents.
If true, this supports, rather than undermines my argument that, just as we can no longer predict the weather with as much reliability as in the past, it is foolish to imagine that our children are going to think and behave at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 as our parents and we ourselves may have done at those ages.
Today’s younger people may, for financial reasons, often live at home for longer than their older peers would have done, but even before they leave school, they have unprecedented agency. Today’s mothers who, as children, would have been expected to eat what was put in front of them, are now preparing special vegetarian meals for their sons and daughters. Scottish 16-year-olds now have the vote; as, very soon, may their peers across the rest of the United Kingdom.
Targeted information
For the first time in history, whatever their ages, music lovers, voters and wine drinkers do not get their information in the way their parents and grandparents did – from the same limited set of sources. With the exception of their coverage of sporting events, TV and radio programmes and newspapers no longer have the mass-audience power they once enjoyed.
Today’s 50-year old will have no idea what their 25 or 15 year-old son or daughter is seeing on TikTok. Just as one user of that platform will never see the clips and ads that are targeted to someone of their own age with different views and tastes,
This is something clever politicians and marketers increasingly understand and exploit. They may still address Gen Z, Millennials and Boomers differently, but they won’t make the mistake of imagining they’re all on any kind of predictable journey.
The views and opinions expressed in the Devil's Advocate pieces are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the publication. They are intended to provoke discussion and debate.
If you would like to offer your own response to this or any other article, please email the editor-in-chief, Anja Zimmer at zimmer@meininger.de.
