Generation X was promised a retirement that increasingly looks out of reach.
Born between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, Generation X came of age during a profound transformation of the American economy. Traditional pensions gave way to individual retirement accounts. Stable career paths became less certain. Housing, education, healthcare, and family caregiving became increasingly expensive. Meanwhile, responsibility for retirement security shifted from employers and institutions to individuals.
THE THIRD QUARTER DIVIDE asks what happens when a generation reaches the third quarter of its working life and discovers that the economic finish line has moved. Through social science, economic analysis, demographic trends, and the lived experiences of Gen X, this book examines the forces driving retirement insecurity--and why the problem cannot be explained simply by whether individuals saved enough or made the right financial choices. The story includes the decline of pensions, changing patterns of housing and homeownership; and wealth accumulation, debt, wage, and employment insecurity, caregiving, health and longevity risks, and persistent racial and gender disparities.
Generation X offers a revealing lens because it stands between eras: old enough to remember the expectations of an earlier social contract, yet young enough to face decades of financial uncertainty before and during retirement. Its experience exposes a broader national question: What happens when a generation reaches retirement age without the resources, institutions, or economic security it was taught to expect? THE THIRD QUARTER DIVIDE is both a portrait of a generation and an examination of how America defines economic security--and who gets to experience it.