Life’s Turning Points and Generational Consciousness

Abstract

Changes of the Finnish society during 20^th century has often been analysed with the help of the concept of generation. The typology developed by J.P. Roos (1987) based on Finnish autobiographies is in general use in Finland. There are four generations: (1) those born in 1900–25: the Generation of war and depression, (2) those born in 1925–39: the Generation of reconstruction, (3) those born in 1940–50: the Generation of the transformation, and (4) those born during the 50s: the Suburban generation. The typology was based on a collection of autobiographies with the emphasis of such variables as social and economic security, work, education and human relations. In what follows, I shall discuss a three generation scheme where the first two generations are condensed into one and the third extended to the 60’s. In the literature, the middle generation often has another name, that of the Baby boomers. This name will also be used here (for important theoretical discussions of the generations, see Attias-Donfut 1988, Eyerman-Turner 1998, Kohli/Szydlik 1999).

This article is largely based on a joint article written by Tommi Hoikkala, Semi Purhonen and myself. I thank my colleagues for giving me permission to use those parts that originated mainly from myself, but which we obviously have discussed a lot together and many formulations are especially due to Semi Purhonen, as well as the preparation of tables and figures.