Decoding Generational Dynamics -

Generations Set Up

Age is simply a starting place when we break down the generations. More significantly, generations are broken down by events and conditions from formative years. During this time, roughly the teenage years, we are highly impressionable and porous. It is during adolescence when we reevaluate the norms and values of our families and begin to make sense of things on our own terms. Consequently, what is happening in the world at that time has a profound and lasting impact on our views and behaviors.

Generational theory is rooted in sociology, not psychology. It’s important to note that both schools of thought are equally important. Leaders often look to both concepts in order to better understand their employees and clients. This is also the approach that Filene has taken, launching both the Next Generation of Member Growth, along with a comprehensive approach to behavior-based segmentation in the Member Pulse tool.

In sociology, we look at culture. There are so many psychological ways in which humans are different and unique: our DNA, our brain functionality, the way we practice religion, our relationship to parents, etc. Generational theory specifically looks at what we share. Generational theory explores what that society is and how it changes over time.

1. Baby Boomers

Background

Baby Boomers came of age in an era marked by intense social fragmentation. As teenagers and young adults, many of them fought in the Vietnam War (or protested it), got caught up in “Beatlemania,” were engrossed in the works of James Baldwin and Gloria Steinem, questioned their parents’ traditional values and religious viewpoints, and fought for social justice in the world.

The post-WWII economy was booming. By 1961, the median American man age 25 to 29 was earning nearly 400 percent more than his father had earned at about the same time.¹ Although Boomers were small children at this time, that economic engine guided them into early adulthood.

Baby Boomers: Summary Slides

2. Gen X

Background

Gen Xers came of age in an era of rapid media growth. Ted Turner put CNN on the air in 1980, the 24-hour news cycle took off, and we’ve been changed forever by that shift. MTV, the Berlin Wall, Rodney King, OJ Simpson, Enron, Worldcomm, The Challenger explosion, and many more newsworthy moments came flooding into living rooms across America. Many teenagers were exposed to it all, all the time.

As institutions were called into question time and time again on television, skepticism seeped into the Gen X mindset. They learned you can’t always believe what you see and hear. Today, this skepticism plays out in many ways, prompted by everything from sales tactics, to voting, and even education. Gen X is the generation of parents most likely to homeschool their children for non-religious purposes.⁶

On top of crumbling institutions on television, the institution of marriage was also being called into question. Between 1965-1977, the US divorce rate doubled.⁷ These “latch-key” childhoods created independence at a young age. Unsurprisingly, This generation was more likely to marry later and less likely to get divorced than Baby Boomers. Many Gen X parents are hyper focused on their nuclear family—perhaps as a result of the familial tumult of their childhood.

Their independence and skepticism have contributed to the entrepreneurial energy of Gen X. On October 13th, 1994, as the Netscape browser was introduced, and a new generation of entrepreneurs was empowered. 55% of startup founders fall into the Gen X category.⁸

The New Sandwich Generation

Every group of middle-aged Americans since 1980 has been referred to as the sandwich generation—referring to the life stage marked by competing responsibilities to aging parents and teenage children. Gen Xers, particularly women, face a few unique challenges with this life stage. The average caregiver is a 49-year-old woman. In addition, more Gen X women work than Baby Boomer women and their caregiving responsibilities are interfering with their prime earning years. The parents in their care are living longer but often dealing with expensive and time-consuming chronic illnesses. The challenges of raising teenagers in an era of social media create even more demands on caregivers’ time, focus, and finances.

Parent/child relationships

Pre-COVID, there were already reports tracking the friendship-like relationship between Gen X parents and their Gen Z children.9 Traditionalist parents and their Baby Boomer children contended with a gulf created by a cultural revolution. Baby Boomer parents and their Millennial children were separated by a technological revolution. Gen X parents and their Gen Z kids haven’t had to bridge a gap of a comparable magnitude. Gen Xers understand their kids’ tech and video games because they were the first truly tech-savvy generation. The wardrobes of moms in their 40s are often similar to the fashions favored by their teenage daughters. Going through the pandemic together solidified these relationships.

What do credit unions need to know about Gen Xers?

• All sales are inter-generational. Gen Z kids and Gen X parents are highly influential over each other’s decision making in the marketplace.

• Transparent communication is key. No sugar coating, no PR-massaged messaging.

• Anticipate and prepare for skepticism. What is being written about your industry? What questions would a skeptical customer ask? Are you prepared to address those concerns proactively?

• No useless meetings. This has been a topic of conversation in the workplace for over a decade, but some corporate cultures remain meeting dependent. Look at the schedule for the week and be unrelenting in your edits. Remember, many of these colleagues are in their prime earning years, with kids at home, and aging parents in need of assistance. Their time is particularly valuable.

• As more Gen Xers climb the ranks of organizations, they will look for employees with the characteristics they value, particularly adaptability and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Gen X: Summary Slides

3. Millennials

Background

Technology, violence, and a new family structure serve as the backdrop for the Millennial generation.

Millennials grew up in the dawn of social media, which was different from the social media we know now. We aren’t talking about the economic behemoths of today, we’re talking about the punk rock version of social media — MySpace, Friendster, and the first iteration of Facebook, known among its collegiate users as: The Facebook. These were online tools built by and for young people. The early days of social media became an online haven for the youth experience.

This changed the way Millennials worked, communicated, bought, sold, and dated. The technology is still new enough for its consequences to be relatively unknown. As Nicholas G. Carr wrote in the Pulitzer-prize finalist book, The Shallows, “None of us can decide if we’re in the new golden age of access and participation or the new dark age of mediocrity and narcissism.” What we do know is that social media is a collaborative tool, one that values and emphasizes the collective voice while also celebrating and branding personality. The power of collaboration and the branding of personhood has shaped Millennials, and the world at large.

The “where were you when” moment for many Millennials was 9/11. Let’s focus on the event itself rather than meditate on the substantial geopolitical and economic consequences of its aftermath. September 11th, 2001 created deep confusion for young people trying to make sense of the world. Moments of fear were mixed with renewed patriotism, then skepticism towards the government, then 20 years of war. In a reflection piece for The Berkley Center at Georgetown University, Claudia Winkler writes, “Previously abstract ‘adult’ concepts like war became tangible and personal, and with that came a disillusionment about just how unthoughtful and unmeasured the proverbial adults in the room could be in times of crisis.”¹⁰ This moment can help us understand the risk-aversion and distrust in authority we see with many Millennials.

In this context of violence, encompassing not just 9/11 but also the emergence of mass school shootings, parenting trends changed. We reached a cultural moment where parents felt like they needed to hold their kids closer. Baby Boomers and Millennials often get a lot of flack for their “helicopter parent” practices, but it's important to remember how these cultural moments have shaped their concerns. Dr. Sherry Turkle, Professor of Social Studies of Science at Technology at MIT, wrote, “After 9/11, no parent or child wanted to be out of touch again. Technology made it possible to make an idea concrete: From this point on, one need never experience an emergency alone. And from there, another idea: that even being alone could be a thing of the past.”¹¹

The Era of Authenticity

Millennials poured into the workplace during the “bring your whole self to work era.” The birth of social media and the cultural haze after 9/11 deteriorated boundaries between personal and professional lives and that’s the environment that welcomed millennials to work. Many Millennials also stepped into higher managerial roles right before or during the pandemic which took the authenticity movement to new heights.

Today in my focus groups with Millennial managers, their top leadership challenge is centered on finding the line between friend and friendly in the workplace. Many young leaders are working through questions like, “How can I be part of the team but in charge?” and “How can I hold people accountable while showing empathy?”

In the marketplace, the authenticity movement exposed significant attitude-behavior gaps. Throughout the 2010s, attention was paid to aligning brands with purpose because brands believed that young consumers wanted their purchases to reflect their authentic aspirations and values. However, most studies revealed that cost and convenience were the main drivers of Millennial purchasing behavior. In the center we’ll continue to explore attitude-behavior gaps and the most urgent lessons for credit unions.

What do credit unions need to know about Millennials?

• Financial education among Millennials is lacking. Topics like loan repayment, first-time home buying, college saving for kids, budget tracking, and investing remain topics of interest for Millennials.

• Authentic voices remain a strong source of trust. Millennial members sharing their experiences and testimonials of the credit union and credit union employees sharing why they work at the credit union are powerful stories.

• Millennial family structures come in many variations and may entail different needs. For example, today, the U.S. has the highest rate of children living in a single-parent household than anywhere else in the world. Roughly a quarter of US children live with one parent and no other adults. For Millennial families with two parents in the home, a large proportion of them have two working parents. For credit unions providing holistic financial advice, be prepared to shift based on the unique needs of a variety of family structures. 

• Personalize the experience. Millennials grew up during the age of customization. Sophisticated algorithms that tailor online experiences to the needs of a unique user and that online experience have impacted expectations in both the physical and digital worlds.

Millennials: Summary Slides

4. Gen Z

Background

Generation Z embodies our current moment and our recent past. Their lives have been marked by global climate change, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, school shootings, TikTok and algorithmically-driven social platforms, political partisanship, online dating, and the youngest ones are influenced by artificial intelligence. It will be many years before we can write a definitive story of the Gen Z era, but for now, we can use the information we have to uncover current trends and make future predictions.

Gen Z’s backdrop of optimized technology and economic volatility are two areas that have significant implications for credit unions. We’ll dive into those in this brief, but other topics will be extensively covered in the center.

Economic Volatility

For the oldest Gen Zers, their economic memories will be the 2008 recession and the aftermath of COVID-19. In addition to these economic Black Swan moments, this cohort has always grown up with growing income inequality. Economists use the term “absolute income mobility” to describe the relation of one generation’s earning to another’s. For Americans born in 1940, they had approximately a 90 percent chance of out earning their parents. For Millennials, the mobility number is 50 percent. For Generation Z, the number is expected to be lower.  

• The pandemic made more Americans aware of their financial health, and Gen Z wants to improve theirs.
• In March of 2020, half of the oldest Gen Zers (ages 18 to 23) reported that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a cut in pay because of the pandemic. This was significantly higher than the shares of Millennials (40%), Gen Xers (36%) and Baby Boomers (25%) who said the same.¹²
• Young workers were particularly vulnerable to job loss because they are overrepresented in high-risk service sector industries.

Growth and stability are paramount for a generation that has grown up with stagnation and volatility.

White collar Gen Z workers are sticking with their jobs 18% longer than millennials did in their first seven years in the workforce.¹³ BCG has measured priorities of young workers since 2014.¹⁴ “Good colleagues” and “feeling appreciated” were the top priorities every year, except 2023. In 2023, the top priority for the first time was “job security.” People can only take so much risk, and the world feels riskier than ever right now. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence, social unrest, geopolitical realignments, and an unusual political arena all contribute to an overall sense of unease. So, it makes sense that stability serves as a strong retention tool at work and as a powerful messaging tool for potential members.

Besides a focus on stability and building for the future, economic volatility also created a deep skepticism of financial institutions and financial advice among Gen Zers.

Financial illiteracy and a craving for authenticity among millennials helped to create the massive “tell it to me straight” social media market of “finfluencers.” Finfluencers are influencers specifically focused on sharing finance and investing content. Many of these influencers reach millions of people every day as they break down investment strategies, insurance advice, and financial education in quick, entertaining videos on Instagram Reels and TikTok. Large financial institutions are taking note. Wealthfront, a robo advisor, has partnered with 15 influencers including Haley Sacks, known on Instagram as Mrs. Dow Jones where she has 1.1M followers. According to the company’s chief communications officer these influencers are just “better at telling our story than we are.”¹⁵

These finfluencers are so powerful that 18- to 34-year-olds are more likely to have built up an interest in investment from social media than from traditional news websites.¹⁶

Gen Z, unlike their millennial predecessors, have been bombarded with finfluencer content. Misinformation and disinformation have the potential to run rampant which creates an opportunity for trusted, established financial institutions to reach a generation hungry for expertise.

Optimized Technology

A key feature of the Gen Z era is the replacement of convenience with an obsession for optimization. Convenience seeks to eliminate effort; optimization seeks to make things as perfect as usual and as effective as possible. We are in the age of optimization — from our health to our work habits to our finances.

Optimization also changed our understanding of personalization. We used to believe that the rise of personalization stemmed from “the snowflake effect” — the idea that people believe themselves to be unique and they would like that reflected in the marketplace. Now, nearly a decade into rising personalization expectations, it’s clear from interviews that “specialness” is not the driving force of personalization — optimization is. A one-size-fits-all approach is typically fine, but it’s not the best or the most effective. Optimization ushers in an era hyper-focused on efficiency and perfection.

What do credit unions need to know about Gen Z?

• Credit unions can reframe personalization. Instead of asking, “How can we make our members feel special?” Credit unions can ask, “How can we make our products and services as perfect, as useful, and as effective as possible for the people we’re trying to serve?”

• Mission and vision take a backseat to member experience and high-quality products. Don’t get too wrapped up in the idealistic narrative being told about Gen Z. Although purpose and non-profit status can be the cherry on the sundae, seamless technology and great products will take precedent.

• Use local, trusted, finfluencers and/or internal employees on social media to position your credit union as a place young people can trust as they grapple with the onslaught of information they see online.

• Millions of young people are actively searching for information about money, saving and investing. Focus community events and financial education on topical, cutting-edge, money conversations as opposed to just the basics.

• Competitive compensation, great benefits, and a clear path to progress will speak loudly to today’s young talent. Growth and stability are paramount for a generation that has grown up with stagnation and volatility.

Gen Z: Summary Slides

Conclusion

In the Next Generation of Member Growth, we want to create a deep understanding of a new generation. We want credit union leaders to truly grasp what is consistent between the generations, what is new, and how to adapt. By taking the time to see the world through the eyes of a different generation, we’re better able to execute on new ideas faster and more accurately because we understand why the changes are necessary.

Endnotes

1. Steven Ruggles, “Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800–2015,” Demography 52 (2015): 1797–1823.
2. Steven L. Gordon and Francesca M. Cancian, “Changing Emotion Norms in Marriage: Love and Anger in U.S. Women’s Magazines Since 1900,” Gender and Society vol. 2 no. 3 (1988): 308–342. 
3. David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake,” The Atlantic, March 2020 Issue, www.theatlantic.com.
4. Deloitte, The Future of Wealth in the United States—Baby Boomers, accessed December 16, 2024; Heather Gillers, Anne Tergesen, and Leslie Scism, “A Generation of Americans is Entering Old Age the Least Prepared in Decades,” The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2018; America Counts Staff, “By 2030, All Baby Boomers Will Be Age 65 or Older,” United States Census Bureau, December 10, 2019; Cynthia M. LeRouge et. al., “Challenges and Opportunities with Empowering Baby Boomers for Personal Health Information Management Using Consumer Health Information Technologies: An Ecological Perspective,” AIMS Public Health, September 2, 2014, 1 (3): 160–181.
5. Nicky Lineaweaver, “Baby Boomers’ Appetite for Apple Watch 4 Bodes Well for Apple’s Senior-Focused Healthcare Play,” Business Insider, September 20, 2018, www.businessinsider.co.
6. Debbie Kelly, “The Survey Says: Gen Xers Favor Homeschooling More Than Other Parents,” The Gazette, August 25, 2024.
7. Gary O’Bannon, “Managing Our Future: The Generation X Factor,” Public Personnel Management, 30 (1): 95-110.
8. Sage, 2015 State of the Startup (Irvine: Sage Software, Inc., 2015).
9. Sparks & Honey Culture Forecast, Gen Z 2025: The Final Generation, October 21, 2015, slideshare.net.
10. Claudia Winkler, “Coming of Age in the 9/11 Era,” Berkley Forum: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Studies, September 11, 2019. 
11. Sherry Turkle, “Phone, Home: How September 11, 2001, Changed the Way a Generation Is Growing Up,” Boston.com, September 11, 2001.
12. Kim Parker and Ruth Igielnik, “On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We Know about Gen Z So Far,” Pew Research Center, May 14, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/05/14/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far/
13. Ann-Marie Alcántara, “20-Somethings Learn to Love Their Corporate Jobs,” The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2025.
14. Jens Baier, et. al., How Work Preferences Are Shifting in the Age of GenAI, BCG: Decoding Global Talent 2024, June 13, 2024.
15. Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou, “Wall Street Influencers Are Making $500,000, Topping Even Bankers,” Bloomberg News, September 16, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-17/social-media-influencers-income-advertising-wall-street-products
16. Shane Hickey, “As ‘Finfluencers’ Spread Through Social Media, Beware the Pitfalls,” The Guardian, August 22, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/22/as-finfluencers-spread-through-social-media-beware-the-pitfalls