Demography is destiny. Have you ever heard this phrase? What it means is that the size and characteristics of a country’s population can have a significant effect on what it’s able to achieve. For instance, experts say that by 2050, “emerging economies led by India and China will collectively be larger than the developed economies. Small European nations with low birthrates such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden will drop off the list of the 30 biggest economies.”19 Demographics—the characteristics of a population used for purposes of social studies—can and do have a significant impact on how managers manage. Those population characteristics include things such as age, income, sex, race, education level, ethnic makeup, employment status, geographic location, and so forth—pretty much the types of information collected on governmental census surveys.

Why? Because the workplace often has different age groups all working together. (See Chapter 11, pp. 362–365, for a more detailed look at the challenges of generational differences in the workplace.) Baby Boomers. Gen X. Gen Y. Gen Z. Ever heard or seen these terms? They’re names given by population researchers to four age groups found in the U.S. population.

• Baby Boomers are those individuals born between 1946 and 1964. You’ve heard so much about “boomers” because there are so many of them. The sheer number of people in that cohort has meant they’ve had a significant impact on every aspect of the external environment (from the educational system and entertainment/lifestyle choices to the Social Security system, health-care choices, and so forth) as they’ve gone through various life-cycle stages.

• Gen X is used to describe those individuals born between 1965 and 1977. This age group has been called the baby bust generation because it followed the baby boom and is one of the smaller age cohorts.

• Gen Y (or the “Millennials”) is an age group typically considered to encompass those individuals born between 1978 and 1994. As the children of the Baby Boomers, this age group is also large in number and making its imprint on external environmental conditions as well. From technology to clothing styles to work attitudes, Gen Y, now the majority age group in the workforce, is helping shape today’s workplaces.20

• Gen Z is the youngest identified age group. Although demographers don’t agree on the exact range of birth years for Gen Z, most group them as being born between 1995 and 2010. Gen Z is huge; those under age 20 represent 25.9 percent of the U.S. population.21 One thing that characterizes Gen Z is that it is the most diverse and multicultural of any generation in the United States.22 Another thing that characterizes this group is that their primary means of social interaction is online, where they freely express their opinions and attitudes. It’s the first group whose only reality revolves around the “Internet, mobile devices, and social networking.”23

Demographic age cohorts are important because large numbers of people at certain stages in the life cycle can constrain decisions and actions taken by managers of businesses, governments, educational institutions, and other organizations. Studying demographics involves looking not only at current statistics, but also at future trends. What are some future trends?

• Recent analysis of birth rates shows that more than 80 percent of babies being born worldwide are from Africa and Asia.24

• Two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people are below 35 years of age.25

• By 2050, it’s predicted that China will have more people age 65 and older than the rest of the world combined.26

• For most of human history, individuals over the age of 65 have never exceeded 3 or 4 percent of a country’s population. By 2050, however, this number could potentially reach 25 percent, on average.27

• By 2060, the population of older Americans is expected to more than double.28

Just imagine how these population trends are likely to impact global organizations and the way managers manage.