Well, Silicon Valley would be an example of non-Boomers as are corporate hierarchies in the non-Western world are examples of non-Boomer world, and Boomers have only occupied the executive suites for the last 20 years or so, so I’m not certain how they are the manifestation of any particular problem.
Of course, if you’re aiming for the executive suite yourself, then that’s a different story. Then you need the present incumbents to retire. :-).
My claim is the problem is primarily systemic, not primarily personal. All the participants could be completely free of any sort of racial, age or sexual discriminatory impulse, and you would still see very strong inequality. The Boomers retiring will change very little. In my opinion, the lessening in inequality in upper management that we have seen in the past 50 years is chiefly due to women being willing to break their social convention to meet executive requirements and a lessening in the personal discrimination compared to previous generations.
To use an analogy, let’s say the requirement to be a firefighters is to be 6’ tall. 50 years ago, women who were 6’ tall would be bounced for some other reason. Now they are accepted. However, because of the systemic discrimination (i.e. the 6’ requirement), there will still massively fewer women firefighters.
The big question is whether the requirements are highly correlated to success. But that’s a different story.
I think it’s been closer to 30 years.
I see what you’re saying, but when the top down levels are all white dudes, it doesn’t help.
Also, I like to get a dig into the boomers whenever I get a chance because they almost destroyed the world…
Odd, I compare countries that didn’t have a baby boom generation, and find almost all of the ones that did to be far more socially progressive.
For countries that did have a baby-boom, the social change from 1960-1990 seems way larger than the social change from 1930-1960 from what I can tell. Perhaps we’re looking at different metrics.
But now I’m curious. Which non-“white middle aged dudes” comprising national leadership of any country do you look at as an example? I find I struggle to find any consistent national leadership of any age, race or gender (as opposed to the occasional admirable individual leader, who seem to be equally rare regardless of race, gender or age) that I would use as an exemplar.
Are the boomers any better or worse as leaders than the rest of history?
I’m talking about the great recession of 2008/9.
I’m going to go ahead and blame all the people with the most power - all three branches of government and all the corporations in the USA. They’re all baby boomers and they had the last say for all the shit that went down…
And the shit REALLY went down.
Also, whenever I have to work side by side with those from that generation it’s always a challenge. Can’t wait to start working with their progeny more, the millennials. Christ.
