Why We Can't Sleep

by Ada Calhoun

  33 Ann Sterzinger, “Hey Generation X: Stop Apologizing,” Medium.com, March 28, 2018. She adds: “And now we’re supposed to be checking our privilege? I would rather you check my asshole.”

  34 Amy Adkins, “Millennials: The Job-Hopping Generation,” Gallup.com, May 12, 2016.

  35 According to one study, “intergenerational cohesion” was named one of the most significant challenges their companies faced. Tania Lennon, “Managing a Multi-Generational Workforce,” Hay Group, thought paper, 2015.

  36 Rebecca Henderson, interview with the author, August 3, 2017.

  37 The 2018 Catalyst Awards Conference: Carla Harris Keynote, New York Hilton Midtown, March 20, 2018, YouTube.com, minute 45.

  38 Theodore Caplow, Louis Hicks, and Ben J. Wattenberg, Companion website to PBS special The First Measured Century, PBS.org/fmc. Retrieved March 21, 2018. Statistics sourced from sites including Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, annual).

  39 Claudia Goldin, “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family,” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 11953, January 2006.

  40 Claudia Goldin, “A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter,” American Economic Review 104, no. 4 (2014): 1091–1119.

  41 Grainne Fitzsimons, Aaron Kay, and Jae Yun Kim, “‘Lean In’ Messages and the Illusion of Control,” Harvard Business Review, July 30, 2018.

  42 Ellen Pao, Reset (New York: Random House, 2017), 78–79.

  43 Opheli Garcia Lawler, “Michelle Obama Is Done with the Gospel of ‘Lean In,’” The Cut, December 2, 2018.

  44 Susan Chira, “Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were,” New York Times, July 21, 2017.

  45 “The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership,” Catalyst.org, 2007.

  46 One woman sued Walmart because her boss said Demi Moore had done an acrobatic routine on Late Night while pregnant, and so the employee had no excuse not to lift heavy boxes. Never mind that Demi Moore was a rich, famous actress and that the flipping in question was done by a stunt double. Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies,” New York Times, June 15, 2018.

  47 “Gen X Women: Flirting with Forty.”

  48 Joanne B. Ciulla, The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000), 234.

  49 Joanne B. Ciulla, PhD, interview with the author, April 27, 2018.

  50 If CEOs don’t make diversity a priority, states could compel them to. In the fall of 2018, California became the first state to mandate female board directors, with noncompliance punishable by a fine. Vanessa Fuhrmans, “California Becomes First State to Mandate Female Board Directors,” Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2018. Don’t hold your breath, though. The Paycheck Fairness Act has failed repeatedly since being introduced in 2012. Burgess Everett, “Senate Blocks Pay Equity Bill,” Politico.com, September 15, 2014.

  51 Sara Horowitz, “Why Are More Women Than Men Freelancing?” FastCompany.com, March 11, 2015.

  52 A couple of years ago, a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research said that between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of workers engaged in “alternative work arrangements” rose from 10.7 to 15.8 percent. Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger, “The Rise of and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015,” NBER, working paper no. 22667, September 2016.

  53 Robert McGuire, “Ultimate Guide to Gig Economy Data,” Nation1099.com, July 16, 2018.

  54 Micha Kaufman, “Five Reasons Half of You Will Be Freelancers in 2020,” Forbes.com, February 28, 2014.

  55 Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 4–5.

  56 Brooke Erin Duffy, PhD, interview with the author, March 19, 2018.

  5: Money Panic

  1 Inequality.org has a roundup of eye-opening charts, culled from sources including the Congressional Budget Office and the Institute for Policy Studies.

  2 C. Eugene Steuerle, Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, and Sisi Zhang, “Lost Generations? Wealth Building Among Young Americans,” Urban Institute, March 14, 2013.

  3 “Retirement Reality Bites Unless Answers Are Implemented,” Fifteenth Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey of Workers, August 2014.

  4 Raj Chetty, David Grusky, et al., The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940, Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard, executive summary, December 2016. See also: Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, and Sonya R. Porter, “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective,” Equality of Opportunity Project, equality-of-opportunity.org. Retrieved June 27, 2018.

  5 Robert Fluegge, interview with the author, May 3, 2018.

  6 “Living Paycheck to Paycheck Is a Way of Life for Majority of U.S. Workers, According to New CareerBuilder Survey,” CareerBuilder.com, August 24, 2017.

  7 Lisa Chamberlain, Slackonomics (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008), 4.

  8 Daniel H. Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (New York: Riverhead Books, 2018), 101.

  9 Robert D. McFadden, “Scramble for Jobs: Graduating into a Recession—A Special Report,” New York Times, April 22, 1991.

  10 Carol Kleiman, “Bleak Job Market Awaits Class of ’92,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1991.

  11 Carol Kleiman, “For ’93 Graduates, Job-Hunting 101 Won’t Be a Breeze,” Chicago Tribune, December 11, 1992.

  12 These summaries by Lipsky and Abrams are based on Lindquist-Endicott Survey data, and I removed some of their exposition within the quote. David Lipsky and Alexander Abrams, Late Bloomers: Coming of Age in Today’s America: The Right Place at the Wrong Time (New York: Times Books, 1994), 64.

  13 “Figure 5: Wages of Young College Grads Have Been Falling Since 2000,” EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata, Economic Policy Institute, epi.org. Retrieved August 9, 2018.

  14 Lisa B. Kahn, “The Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Graduating from College in a Bad Economy,” Labour Economics 17, no. 2 (2010): 303–16. I found this study in Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, 99.

  15 Halstead, “A Politics for Generation X.”

  16 Joshua C. Pinkston and James R. Spletzer, “Annual Measures of Gross Job Gains and Gross Job Losses,” Monthly Labor Review, November 2004.

  17 “Why You Need to Know About Gen-X,” Goldman Sachs, YouTube.com, August 19, 2016. Retrieved June 25, 2018.

  18 “Retirement Reality Bites Unless Answers Are Implemented,” Fifteenth Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey of Workers, August 2014.

  19 Sarah O’Brien, “Majority of Young Workers Have Already Tapped Their Retirement Savings,” CNBC.com, August 21, 2018.

  20 “The MetLife Study of Gen X: The MTV Generation Moves into Mid-Life,” April 2013.

  21 D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner (Mankato, MN: Creative Education, Inc., 1982), 10.

  22 “Insights from Fiscal 50’s Key Measures of State Fiscal Health,” Pew Research Center, March 11, 2019.

  23 For example: Matt Phillips, “What’s the Yield Curve? ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention,” New York Times, June 25, 2018.

  24 Neil Irwin, “What Will Cause the Next Recession? A Look at the 3 Most Likely Possibilities,” New York Times, August 2, 2018.

  25 Steve Henderson, “Spending Habits by Generation,” blog.dol.gov, November 3, 2016.

  26 “The Allianz Generations Apart Study,” Allianz Life, June 16, 2016.

  27 Amrita Jayakumar, “Millennial Money: Playing Catch-Up with Credit Cards,” Washington Post, December 18, 2018.

  28 Catey Hill, “All the Ways Gen X Is Financially Wrecked,” MarketWatch, March 11, 2019.

  29 Bob Sullivan, “State of Credit: 2017,” Experian.com,
January 11, 2018. See also, on car loans, TransUnion: Steven Finlay, “Subprime Lending Decreases; Consumer Credit Scores Increase,” WardsAuto.com, August 22, 2018. And, on overall debt: Amelia Josephson, “The Average Debt by Age,” Smart Asset, August 20, 2018.

  30 Brittney Mayer, “3 Studies Show the Average Credit Score by Age and Generation (2019),” BadCredit.org. Retrieved March 20, 2019.

  31 “A New Financial Reality: The Balance Sheets and Economic Mobility of Generation X,” Pew Charitable Trusts, September 2014.

  32 Richard Fry, “Gen X Rebounds as the Only Generation to Recover the Wealth Lost After the Housing Crash,” Pew Research Center, July 23, 2018.

  33 Guvenen et al., “Lifetime Incomes in the United States over Six Decades.”

  34 “By 2016, as middle-aged Americans, they were 12 percent less likely to say they were satisfied financially, and 18 percent more likely to say they were unhappy.” Robert Gebeloff, “Generation Grumpy: Why You May Be Unhappy If You’re Around 50,” New York Times, November 30, 2017.

  35 Judi Ketteler, “Drowning at Midlife? Start Swimming,” New York Times, May 17, 2018.

  36 “BLS Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS.gov, February 2012.

  37 Les Christie, “Home Prices Post Record 18% Drop,” CNNMoney.com, December 30, 2008.

  38 “The State of the Nation’s Housing,” Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2015.

  39 Ryan McMaken, “U.S. Home Prices Are Rising Twice as Fast as Inflation,” BusinessInsider.com, May 2, 2016.

  40 “Census of Housing,” Census.gov. Retrieved August 6, 2018.

  41 Chris Kirkham, “Housing Bust Lingers for Generation X,” Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2016.

  42 For a terrifying interactive graphic, see: “Mapping America’s Rental Housing Crisis,” urban.org, April 27, 2017.

  43 Emily Badger, “Why Don’t People Who Can’t Afford Housing Just Move Where It’s Cheaper?” New York Times, May 15, 2018.

  44 Ben Casselman, “Housing Market Slows, as Rising Prices Outpace Wages,” New York Times, September 29, 2018.

  45 Lisa Chamberlain, interview with the author, March 26, 2018.

  46 Abby Jackson, “This Chart Shows How Quickly College Tuition Has Skyrocketed Since 1980,” BusinessInsider.com, July 20, 2015.

  47 College Board, “Tuition and Fee and Room and Board Changes over Time,” collegeboard.com. Accessed November 9, 2017 for a chart by ProCon.org.

  48 Andrew Atkinson, “Millennials Buck the Wealth Trend,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February 20, 2018.

  49 M. H. Miller, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Debt to Me,” Baffler, no. 40 (July 5, 2018).

  50 North American Menopause Society, menopause.org. Retrieved August 9, 2018.

  51 “Women’s Health in Review,” NIH.gov. Retrieved August 9, 2018.

  52 “Breast Cancer Risk in American Women,” National Cancer Institute, Cancer.gov, September 24, 2012.

  53 Virginia T. Ladd, RT, interview with the author, July 24, 2017.

  54 “A Summary of the 2018 Annual Reports: Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs,” ssa.gov. Retrieved March 20, 2019.

  55 Per this study the proportion of Gen Xers who don’t believe Social Security will provide them with full benefits when they retire is 70 percent: “The MetLife Study of Gen X: The MTV Generation Moves into Mid-Life,” April 2013. According to Transamerica that number is 83 percent: “Retirement Reality Bites Unless Answers Are Implemented,” Fifteenth Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey of Workers, August 2014.

  56 Jo Ann Jenkins, “Protect America’s Bedrock Programs,” AARP Bulletin, July/August 2015.

  57 Helaine Olen, “Many Americans Think They’ll Never Receive Social Security Benefits. They’re Wrong,” Washington Post, June 8, 2018.

  58 Ron Lieber, “How to Win at Retirement Savings,” New York Times, June 15, 2017.

  59 Andrew Osterland, “Advisors Brace for the $30 Trillion ‘Great Wealth Transfer,’” CNBC.com, June 16, 2016.

  60 Mark Rovner, “The Next Generation of American Giving,” Blackbaud Institute, April 2018.

  61 “Costs of Care,” LongTermCare.gov. National average costs in 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2018.

  62 Rich Cohen, “Why Generation X Might Be Our Last, Best Hope,” Vanity Fair, August 11, 2017.

  63 Hennessey, Zero Hour for Gen X, x.

  6: Decision Fatigue

  1 David M. Gross and Sophfronia Scott, “Proceeding with Caution,” Time, July 16, 1990.

  2 Molly Ringwald, “What About ‘The Breakfast Club’?” New Yorker, April 6, 2018.

  3 Elizabeth Earnshaw, interview with the author, August 4, 2017.

  4 The book was inspired by a popular 2014 article he wrote for the Atlantic: Jonathan Rauch, “The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis,” Atlantic, December 2014.

  5 Susan Krauss Whitbourne summarizes them in “That Midlife Happiness Curve? It’s More Like a Line,” PsychologyToday.com, September 15, 2018.

  6 Tara Parker-Pope, “The Midlife Crisis Goes Global,” New York Times, January 30, 2008.

  7 Jonathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2018), 70.

  8 Laura Carstensen, “Older People Are Happier,” TEDxWomen, 2011.

  9 “Midlife Crisis?” Part of the series: Middle Adulthood, Learning Seed, 2000. Platform: Kanopy via the New York Public Library.

  10 Erik German and Solana Pyne, The Mommy Wars, RetroReport.org and Quartz.com, June 28, 2016.

  11 Judy (Syfers) Brady, “‘I Want a Wife’: The Timeless ’70s Feminist Manifesto,” Reprinted in TheCut.com, November 22, 2017. Original publication: New York, December 20, 1971.

  12 Heather Boushey, Finding Time (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), x–5.

  13 Heather Boushey, “Are Women Opting Out? Debunking the Myth,” Center for Economic and Policy Research briefing paper, November 2005.

  14 Beaudoin, Virtual Faith, xi.

  15 Meredith Bagby, Rational Exuberance: The Influence of Generation X on the New American Economy (New York: Dutton, 1998), xi.

  16 “The Whiny Generation,” Newsweek, October 31, 1993.

  17 Carl Wilson, “Riff: My So-Called Adulthood,” New York Times Magazine, August 4, 2011.

  18 For the movie’s ironic backstory, see Soraya Roberts, “Reality Bites Captured Gen X with Perfect Irony,” Atlantic, March 6, 2019.

  19 Something similar is argued by Camille S. Johnson, PhD, in “The Lloyd Dobler Effect,” Psychology Today, January 31, 2014. She also says we may be unconsciously judging romantic prospects against idealized partners like Lloyd Dobler and finding ourselves dissatisfied with reality as a result.

  20 In his book about the heyday of Gen X indie bands, Michael Azerrad quotes a convincing, if cynical, theory about why the Seattle scene was so focused on community: extreme consumption of Ecstasy and beer. Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981–1991 (New York: Back Bay Books, 2002), 419.

  21 Ginia Bellafante, “‘Risky Business’ and Brett Kavanaugh, 35 Years Later,” New York Times, September 27, 2018.

  22 Alina Tugend, “Too Many Choices: A Problem That Can Paralyze,” New York Times, February 26, 2010.

  7: Single, Childless

  1 Sarah Hepola, interview with the author, February 17, 2018.

  2 “Current Population Survey, 2016 Annual Social and Economic Supplement,” Census.gov, 2017.

  3 Joyce A. Martin et al., “Births: Final Data for 2017,” National Vital Statistics Reports 67, no. 8, US Department of Health and Human Services, November 7, 2018.

  4 “Gallup Analysis: Millennials, Marriage and Family,” Gallup.com, May 19, 2016. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey that same year said the proportion of never-married Gen Xers was 19 percent, about 1 in 5.

  5 Wendy Wang and Kim Parker, “Record Share of Americans Have Never Married,” PewSocialTrends.org, September 24, 2014.
>
  6 Marissa Hermanson, “How Millennials Are Redefining Marriage,” Gottman.com, July 3, 2018.

  7 U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Censuses, 1890 to 1940, and Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, 1947 to 2018.

  8 Kay Hymowitz et al., “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America,” National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and the Relate Institute, 2013.

  9 For more on the subject of good news, see: Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016).

  10 Eleanor Barkhorn, “Getting Married Later Is Great for College-Educated Women,” Atlantic, March 15, 2013.

  11 Hymowitz et al., “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America.”

  12 “Women in the Housing Ecosystem Report,” vol. 1: “The State of Women’s Homeownership,” Women in the Housing and Real Estate Ecosystem (NAWRB), 2018.

  13 Joseph Stromberg, “Eric Klinenberg on Going Solo,” Smithsonian, February 2012.

  14 Jon Birger, Date-onomics (New York: Workman Publishing), 2015.

  15 “Population Facts,” NYC Department of City Planning. Retrieved March 15, 2019.

  16 Wendy Wang and Kim Parker, “Ch. 3: Marriage Market for All Unmarried Adults,” PewSocialTrends.org, September 24, 2014.

  17 By age 33, among Boomers only 17 percent of men and 14 percent of women had graduated with a four-year degree. Among Gen X it’s 18 percent of men and 20 percent of women. Erin Currier, “How Generation X Could Change the American Dream,” Pew Research, January 26, 2018.

  18 Lora E. Park, Ariana F. Young, and Paul W. Eastwick, “(Psychological) Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Effects of Psychological Distance and Relative Intelligence on Men’s Attraction to Women,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 41, no. 11 (November 1, 2015): 1459–73.

  19 Susan Patton, “A Little Valentine’s Day Straight Talk,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2014.

  20 UnREAL, season 3, episode 1: “Oath,” February 26, 2018.