Trends Briefing: Boomers and Bust
Why are we so polarised?
Thursday 27th February 2025
0900-1000
Our latest Optimism Index produced a UK-wide score of 46. That’s not great – it suggests that the national mood is pretty pessimistic. It’s not as pessimistic as during the height of the cost of living crisis, but it’s still several points shy of where we’d like it to be: 50 or higher, which would indicate an optimistic national outlook.
No national mood
Except, at the moment, the UK wide score of 46 doesn’t tell us very much at all, because there isn’t a national mood at all. Averages hide variance, and that average is hiding a huge amount of variance.
Older generations – especially Baby Boomers (aged between about 60 and 78) – are deeply pessimistic. And they have been for a while.
The same data found that Millennials (aged between about 29 and 44), people living in London and higher earners are all very optimistic at the moment.
In fact, if we excluded Baby Boomers from our analysis, headline sentiment would have been positive for most of the last year.
Register here
But why are the Baby Boomers so pessimistic?
We’ll explore the reasons why we’re seeing such polarisation in sentiment and why Baby Boomers in particular are so pessimistic at our next Trends Briefing.
As ever, we’ll use our exclusive Optimism Index data and our macrotrends to provide both a short and longer term view of the issues. And our analysis will come paired with implications for strategists, campaigners, researchers and policymakers.
Register here to attend
Every month we host webinar looking in detail at a core trend, topic or issue. Although the briefing is free to attend, only our Now & Next members will have access to the presentation and data afterwards, alongside our library of macro trends, detailed reports and Optimism Index data. Click here to find out more about subscribing and request a demo.