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Gen X or Generation X:
Generation X is a term used to describe generations in many countries around the world born from the 1960s and 1970s to 1982, although the exact temporal boundaries of Generation X are not well defined. The term has become used in demography, the social sciences, and marketing, though it is most often used in popular culture.

Origins:
In the U.S. Gen X was originally referred as the "baby bust" generation because of the small number of births following the baby boom.[citation needed] Later, the term Generation X was used, and it stuck.

In the UK the term was first used in a 1964 study of British youth by Jane Deverson. Deverson was asked by Woman's Own magazine to conduct a series of interviews with teenagers of the time. The study revealed a generation of teenagers who "sleep together before they are married, don't believe in God, dislike the Queen, and don't respect parents," which was deemed unsuitable for the magazine because it was a new phenomenon. Deverson, in an attempt to save her research, worked with Hollywood correspondent Charles Hamblett to create a book about the study. Hamblett decided to name it Generation X.

Popularization:
The term was first used in popular culture in the late 1970's by UK punk rock band Generation X led by Billy Idol. It was later expanded on by Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland in Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991), which describes the angst of those born between roughly 1960 and 1965, who felt no connection to the cultural icons of the baby boom generation. Coupland himself was born in 1961. In Coupland's usage, the X referred to the namelessness of a generation that was coming into an awareness of its existence as a separate group but feeling overshadowed by the boomer generation of which it was ostensibly a part. Coupland took the X from Paul Fussell's 1983 book Class, where the term "Category X" designated a region of America's social hierarchy, rather than a generation. However, this term has transcended its roots in that country and expanded into other areas of the West. Coupland first wrote of Generation X in September 1987 (Vancouver magazine, "Generation X," pp. 164-169, 194), which was a precursor to the novel and slightly preceded the term "twentysomething". Coupland referred to those born from 1958 to 1966 in Canada or from 1958 to 1964 in the United States (see trailing edge boomer). As Coupland explained in a 1995 interview, "In his final chapter, Fussell named an 'X' category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence." As the term Generation X later became somewhat interchangeable with twenty something, he later revised his notion of Generation X to include anyone considered twenty something in the years 1987 to 1991. In fact, while the book is often seen as being an accurate description of the generation, Coupland maintains that the book was meant to show the lack of a single description for it. In the US, at times the term "baby busters" is used interchangeably with "Generation X," Reagan Generation and MTV Generation can typically denote those born starting in 1965, with various dates offered for its ending year. In this sense, 1975 may be an appropriate cut-off year as the "echo boomer" cohort (recognized by the Census Bureau and other demographers) started in 1976 as birth rates began to rise.

13th Generation:
In the 1991 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe called this generation the "13th Generation" because it's the 13th to know the flag of the United States (counting back to the peers of Benjamin Franklin). Strauss and Howe defined the birth years of the 13th Generation as 1961 to 1981 based on examining peaks and troughs in cultural trends rather than simply looking at birth rates. Howe and Strauss speak of influences that they believe have shaped Generation 13.

International Factors Defining Generation X:
In continental Europe, the generation is often known as Generation E, or simply known as the Nineties Generation, along the lines of such other European generation names as "Generation of 1968" and "Generation of 1914." In France, the term Génération Bof is in use, with "bof" being a French word for "whatever," considered by some French people to be the defining Generation-X saying. In Iran, they are called the Burnt Generation. In some Latin American countries the name "Crisis Generation" is sometimes used due to the recurring financial crisis in the region during those years. In the Communist bloc, these Generation-Xers are often known to show a deeper dislike of the Communist system than their parents because they grew up in an era of political and economic stagnation, and were among the first to embrace the ideals of Glasnost and Perestroika, which is why they tend to be called the Glasnost-Perestroika Generation. In USSR, in particular, they were often called "a generation of stokers and watchmen", referring to their tendency to take non-challenging jobs leaving them with plenty of free time, similar to Coupland's Xers. In Finland, the X-sukupolvi is sometimes derogatorily called pullamössösukupolvi (bun mash generation) by the Baby Boomers, saying "those whiners have never experienced any difficulties in their lives" (the recession of the early 1990's hit the Xers hardest--it hit just when they were about to join the work force), while the Xers call the Boomers kolesterolisukupolvi (cholesterol generation) due to their often unhealthy dietary habits. Japan has a generation with characteristics similar to those of Generation X, shin jin rui.

The aspects that bind Generation X across economic levels and cultures are the defining points of the 1970's: the Bretton Woods system and its subsequent failure, the impact of the first oral contraceptive pills on social-interaction dynamics, and the oil shock of 1973.

Other common international influences defining Generation X across the world include: increasingly flexible and varied gender roles for women contrasted with even more rigid gender roles for men, the unprecedented socio-economic impact of an ever increasing number of women entering the non-agrarian economic workforce, and the sweeping cultural-religious impact of the Iranian revolution towards the end of the 1970's in 1979.

The international experience of a cultural transition like Generation X, although in various forms, revealed the inter-dependence of economies since World War II in 1945, and showed the huge impact of American economic policies on the world.

Generation X in the United States:
Generation X was generally marked early on by its lack of optimism for the future, nihilism, cynicism, skepticism, political apathy, alienation and distrust in traditional values and institutions. Following the publication of Coupland's book (and the subsequent popularity of grunge music) the term stretched to include more people, being appropriated as the generation that succeeded the Baby Boomers, and used by the media and the general public to denote people who were in their twenties.

For some of this generation, Generation X thinking has significant overtones of cynicism against things held dear to the previous generations, mainly the Baby Boomers. Some of those in Generation X tend to be very "consumer" driven and media savvy. Another cultural hallmark of Generation X was grunge music, which grew out of the frustrations and disenchantment of some teenagers and young adults. The fashion of grunge music was exemplified by the bands Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana. The grunge of the 1990's was influenced by punk and heavy metal of the 1970's and 1980's.

The attitude of Generation X towards religion is more complex than other cultural norms of this highly diverse generation. Many Xers believe in God or at least "a higher power" and are accepting of the plurality of world religions. Other Generation Xers are indifferent or hostile toward religion. Generation Xers are influential in the emerging church and other movements aimed at deconstructing and re-evaluating the religion of their parents (much as many American Post World War II Baby Boomers had done in the 1960's and 1970's). One commonality of Generation X's religious perspective is a lack of dogmatism.

Generation X, or the "Reagan Generation" as some have termed it, grew up during the end of the Cold War and the Ronald Reagan eras. As the first of their cohort reached adulthood, they experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States of America's emergence as the world's lone superpower. Generation X has been the largest generational military service block in American history and the most educated military force fielded by the United States with more enlisted and officer ranked persons holding Bachelor and Master's degrees than their World War II grandfathers. Generation X doesn't suffer the "Vietnam complex" fatigue of its parents and is more likely to identify themselves with their World War II grandparents in values, morals and practical living skills.

The employment of Generation X is volatile. Generation Xers grew up in a rapidly deindustrializing Western world, experienced the economic recession of the early 1990s and 2000's, saw traditional permanent job contracts being supplanted with unsecured short-term contracts, experienced offshoring and outsourcing and often experienced years of unemployment or underemployment at typical jobs, such as McJobs in their young adulthood. Many found themselves overeducated and underemployed, leaving a deep sense of insecurity in Generation Xers, whose usual attitude to work is Take the money and run. They no longer take any employment for granted, as their baby boomer counterparts did, nor do they consider unemployment a stigmatizing catastrophe.

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