Photo from Arslan on Flickr.com

The generation reaching maturity right now may feel aggrieved at the hurdles that are presented to them: high house prices, sluggish job market, rising prices… But is their lot uniquely bad?

• The generation growing up in the mid 1300s faced multiple plague epidemics which killed up to 80% of the population in some areas. European culture was suffused with morbid images and every aspect of Medieval society was shaken to its core as the supremacy of the church was questioned (arguably leading eventually to the reformation) and the feudal system made unworkable with the new shortage of labour.
• The English civil war (1642-1651) blighted the lives of a generation leading as it did to severe political repression and turned brother on brother, destroying families. It is estimated England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, and Ireland suffered a loss of up to 41%.
• The Great Hunger in Ireland (1845–1852) brought severe hardship and misery causing 1 million deaths from starvation and disease and a mass emigration of 1 million Irishmen around the world.
• The generation that came of age during WW1 were ordered into the first industrial war. Mechanised trench warfare was a new horror which many suffered greatly from both psychologically and physically. The Spanish Influenza epidemic that swiftly followed the war claimed still more lives and left a generation stunned.   
• The collapse of Japan’s asset price bubble in the early 1990s led to a ‘lost decade’ with no economic growth, high unemployment and decreased earnings. This difficult economy still curtails the fortunes of the generation that had the bad luck to start their working lives during the decade.

Even if the current generation is not the most disadvantaged there has ever been, do they still have a legitimate criticism of the baby boomers who created a world that has few opportunities and increasingly high barriers to success? We’ll be discussing the baby boomers’ legacy at our upcoming debate on October 27th 2011 “The baby boomers have sold the family silver”.