Are Baby Boomers the Whiniest Generation?

Are baby boomers really in bad physical shape? Or are we just providing more evidence that we’re the Whiniest Generation?

American boomers report more problems with their health than the pre-boomers did when they were they were in their fifties, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Carleton University. Their paper was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. 1

The study compared boomers aged 54 to 59 with people who are 60 to 65 and people who are 66 to 71. Here’s how the National Institute on Aging 2, a sponsor of the study, summarizes the results:


  • The two younger groups were less likely than the oldest group to have said their health was “excellent or very good” at 51 to 56 years of age.
  • The youngest group reported having more pain, chronic health conditions, and drinking and psychiatric problems than people who were the same age 12 years earlier.
  • Compared with the oldest group, the youngest group was more likely to have reported difficulty in walking, climbing steps, getting up from a chair, kneeling or crouching, and doing other normal daily physical tasks.

These results (which come from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationwide survey of more than 20,000 Americans over age 50 that began in 1992) are surprising and potentially worrisome, as the NIA points out:

This new analysis provides some initial data raising the question of whether today’s pre-retirees could reach retirement age in worse shape than their predecessors, with individuals potentially in poorer health than current retirees and possibly increasing health care costs for society. In the past two decades, there has been a dramatic decline in disability among people 65 and older. One recent report of this trend, for example, found that the prevalence of chronic disability among people 65 and older fell from 26.5 percent in 1982 to 19 percent in 2004/2005.3
I suppose it’s possible that boomers are now starting to pay the price for their excesses in the ’60s and ’70s. Or that some other trends — like too much junk food — could be taking their toll. But given the boomers’ self-obsession, and our refusal to accept aging gracefully, I’d guess that we just have higher standards and are more likely to complain. (”I’m in terrible shape! My knee hurts when I play Ultimate Frisbee, and I can’t even kickflip the skateboard anymore.”)

What’s your guess?

1. NBER Cross-Cohort Differences in Health on the Verge of Retirement, Beth J. Soldo, Olivia S. Mitchell, Rania Tfaily, John F. McCabe,2006
2. National Institute on Aging
3. National Institute on Aging, Susan Farrer or Linda Joy, 2006