Netherlands
(between the lost and the pragmatic generations)
(between the lost and the pragmatic generations)
"Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Ego and Alter Images of Generations in the Netherlands"
by Isabelle Diepstraten, Peter Ester, ad Henk Vinken
Netherlands' Journal of Social Sciences, 1999, Vol. 35. No. 2, 91-109.
"Dutch sociologist Henk Becker [. . .] distinguishes five generations in the Netherlands who had their fomrative years in the twentieth century in quite different historical circumstances: the prewar generation (born between 101 and 1930), the silent generation (born between 1930 and 1940), the protest generation (born between 1940 and 1955), the lost generation (born between 1955 and 1970), and the pragmantic generation (born after 1970). (93)
"Members of the protest generation are assumed to have embraced norms and values that accentuate freedom, self-realization and self-expression, democratization, equality, and political involvement. The formative period of the lost generation coincides with the economic recession of the seventies and the mass youth unemployment of the early eighties. These circumstances negatively influenced the general like chances of this generation with the lasting adverse effects over their life course. Members of the lost generation share many of the values of the protest generation such as self-actualization and freedom, but embrace less exalted expectations, are less interested in political involvement, and exhibit a more down-to-earth 'no-nonsense' approach to societal issues. The pragmatic generation grew up in a period of economic recovery and is assumed to have better overall life chances than the lost generation"(94).