The making of ‘Boomergeddon’: The construction of the Baby Boomer generation as a social problem in Britain

The sociology of generations has attracted an awakened interest in recent years, sparked in part by high-profile media and policy discussions about the problem of the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation. While this discussion tends to focus on resource issues arising from the existence of a relatively large cohort (for example, pensions and healthcare), it contains an implicit moral critique of the generation associated with the economic ‘boom’ of the Sixties. This article examines the development of the cultural script of the Baby Boomer problem in British newspapers over a 26-year period, to examine how shifts in the discourse about the Boomer generation relate to wider social, economic, cultural and political trends.