Are NZ baby boomers the same as American baby boomers?

Are New Zealand baby boomers the same as baby boomers overseas? Can American (in particular) research be used as a proxy in the absence of New Zealand research?

The short answers is no, they are not. New Zealand baby boomers are similar to their American counterparts in some ways, but differ significantly in some key areas. The differences are sufficient to conclude that it is ill-advised and misleading to use American research as a proxy in New Zealand, even at the broad brushstroke social research level of the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study.

New Zealand and American baby boomers share a number of the same traits, but not quite to the same degree, and the values that back up these traits are different.

New Zealanders are more passionate about their lifestyle choices, with their top ten focus choices being preferred by more than 80% of respondents, compared to the US top ten which were preferred by 67 to 77% of their respondents. New Zealand baby boomers tend to exhibit a more youthful and vigorous profile than their American counterparts, with more focus on outgoing adventurousness and less on fighting for social causes.

In the mid-range of differences (where there is 5-20% variance between the preferences of the two populations), New Zealand boomers invariably opt for adventurous lifestyle choices over social cause choices.

New Zealand baby boomers are more than 20% more likely to play sport, enjoy life’s luxuries and travel the world than American boomers. They are over 20% less likely to get involved in politics, share their religious beliefs with others or spend more time or money on grandchildren.

Huber & Skidmore (2003) identified two distinctive characteristics among UK baby boomers, individualism and liberalism.

Smith & Clurman (2007) identified similar characteristics of youthfulness (immortality) and morality, with the youthfulness characteristic dominant.

New Zealand baby boomers exhibit a similar youthful character aspect, also dominant, but not in the same way as the American profile. What makes New Zealand baby boomers distinct from baby boomers from anywhere else is their Vitality. They are “fizzier” than both American and British baby boomers, passionate and opinionated, fiercely independent in their individuality. They are less likely to break the rules and more likely to simply assume the rules don’t apply to them; fitness is an important dimension of their vital character, and they pursue novelty as part of a wider quest for adventure, rather than as a separate dimension. The self-focused aspects of personal enrichment enhance their vitality, and the rugged individuality that is part of the broader New Zealand character is interpreted within the baby boomer life experience.

Smith & Clurman’s second baby boomer character aspect of morality is not present in the New Zealand population in the way that it is in the USA.

New Zealand is an egalitarian, secular society with broad liberal views and a live-and-let-live pragmatism about moral issues. That said, New Zealand baby boomers have a strong sense of right and wrong, and of their responsibility to take care of themselves, their families and their wider community. They are less “comfortably righteous” in their sense of purpose than their American counterparts, but they do search for meaning.

Balancing the youthful hedonism and vitality of New Zealand baby boomers is a strongly adult sense of responsibility, rather than morality. It has four key dimensions, some of which are similar to American characteristics, but sufficiently different to distinguish a separate and independent New Zealand baby boomer character.
Having established that the New Zealand baby boomer character is different from the American character and different again (although little comparative data is available) from British baby boomers, the question arises as to whether that matters and the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009 finds that it does; New Zealand baby boomers respond to their surroundings, dream different dreams and worry about different things – indeed, they worry less about different things - than baby boomers elsewhere.

Aside from a current high level of concern about finance company collapses eroding their savings, New Zealand baby boomers’ top concern is health. This information is comparable to the findings of the Health, Work and Retirement Study (Allpass, 2008).

While American baby boomers also worry about their health, more than 70% of them worry more about how they’re going to pay for it (health insurance). This difference is almost certainly due to the differences in state-funded healthcare in the two countries and raises questions about the relationship between the self-reliance New Zealand baby boomers feel, and the sense of security they gain from having a state safety net of core social services. There may be a relationship between the willingness of New Zealand baby boomers to take risks and be adventuresome and ingenious, and their peculiarly resilient optimism; and the security of knowing that safety net is there. Removing it by creating barriers to eligibility (such as means testing or raising the age of entitlement) could have unintended adverse consequences; steps should be taken to explore this apparent correlation prior to such actions being considered.

Overall, what worries New Zealand baby boomers and what worries American baby boomers differ somewhat. While an analysis of the variations in concern-responses between the two populations shows a large outlier for “Not being current on what’s going on”, with New Zealand baby boomers 31% more likely to rate this as a worry, it is still only thirteenth on the list for New Zealanders, concerning just 40% of them. In all other respects, the comparison shows the New Zealand baby boomers worry more than American baby boomers, but not significantly overall.
Understanding the baby boomer character is key to interpreting their behaviour and predicting what they might do next; one thing is already known and that is that whatever they do, it will not be what they generation before them has done. One of the key findings of the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009 is that it will also not be the same as American baby boomers.

New Zealand baby boomers are vital, energetic, up with the play and highly engaged with life. They have experience, confidence, and boundless optimism that is resilient even in the face of adversity. They have no intention of acting their age and no intention of settling down to a quiet retirement. They enjoy the good things in life – in fact, they want to enjoy more of them – and they are prepared to put in the work to pay for them. Their high level of engagement extends socially and they are likely to be involved in all areas of both the paid and unpaid economies; it will be impossible to legislate them into defined behaviours or areas of the community, because of their individualism and conviction that the rules simply don’t apply to them. With great ingenuity, they will find a way around any barrier in their pursuit of adventure and meaning. They will shoulder their responsibilities, to themselves, within their families, and in the broader social context.