“Born 1961-1981, the Survivors (Strauss and Howe call this group Thirteeners, or the 13th Generation) survived a ‘hurried’ childhood of divorce, latchkeys, open classrooms, devil-child movies, and a shift from G to R ratings. They came of age curtailing the earlier rise in youth crime and fall in test scores—yet heard themselves denounced as so wild and stupid as to put The Nation At Risk. As young adults, they maneuvered through a sexual battlescape of AIDS and blighted courtship rituals—they date and marry cautiously. In jobs, they embrace risk and prefer free agency over loyal corporatism. From grunge to hip-hop, their splintery culture reveals a hardened edge. Politically, they lean toward pragmatism and nonaffiliation, and would rather volunteer than vote. Widely criticized as ‘Xers’ or ‘slackers,’ they inhabit a Reality Bites economy of declining young-adult living standards.”

William Strauss and Neil Howe, http://www.fourthturning.com/html/boom_generation.html