Gen X is calling the shots from boardrooms to ballots

Gen X quietly runs the show

Earlier this year, the global market research firm Ipsos released an insightful report entitled Generation X: The quietly powerful generation we shouldn’t ignore. Today’s 46–59-year-olds in Western economies, a team of researchers wrote in it, “are already a force to be reckoned with. With Boomers about to exit the power spotlight, it’s Gen X who will be calling the shots well into the 2030s. Shaped by the societal and cultural context of their youth in the 1980s and 1990s, they now hold significant power when it comes to leadership roles in politics, business and family life.”

That is all well and good, but a funny thing is happening as the Boomers age and the GenXers mature into an influential force of nature. As Ipsos states in the open pages of the document, right now it is the latter who are the “highest-earning generation in the U.S., surpassing both Boomers and Millennials. They are a lucrative market for categories and brands across just about every sector. But the reality is that, today, Gen X is just not very fashionable.”

Those findings and others are contained in the report, which is a subset of the organization’s third edition of the Ipsos Generations Report.

In it, a team of researchers conclude that it is rare that “we at Ipsos receive briefs for research projects which seek to uncover the dynamics of Generation X. Books published in the last couple of decades feature five times as many mentions of Millennials as they do Generation X. And, when we look at what’s being said on social media right now, we see nearly four times as many references of Gen Z than we do for Gen X. Are we missing a trick?”

The answer to that, says, Simon Atkinson, the organization’s chief knowledge officer,  is a resounding yes.

As for why that is happening  during a recent interview with RestlessUrban, Atkinson, a GenXer himself, says there are not only a host of reasons, but he and other researchers involved in the project “were scratching our heads about it as well.” Despite the head scratching, he adds, there are a several reasons why they are sometimes ignored, key among them being the result of marketers, mistakenly turning their attention not to this influential generation of consumers, but to those generations below them for one simple reason: They are seen as the future.

“One or two of our clients have observed to us in quite moments that a lot of the people involved in marketing and communications are younger people,” he says. “That might explain why Gen X may not appear as much in communications. There are whole list of reasons one could draw on.”

Gen X is the highest-spending generation in the world

CEOs in their 50s rising rapidly

The younger so-called marketing specialists are also making a huge mistake, it appears. According to Atkinson, “what we found is that they (Gen X) are the highest earning generation in the U.S. They’re the first where half of them had some kind of college education. The average new car buyer is 53 and they are the heart of family life. literally,  they are the heart of business life. We quite like the stat we found about the U.S. CEO –  the medium age being 59 year old and unlikely about to retire.”

And as the report notes,  with executives now “working longer into their 60s and 70s (and even longer) we can expect Gen X leaders to remain at the heart of business life for at least the next decade. And soon all of this power, the report notes, “will extend to the corridors of political power.”

For any marketers out there, Atkinson and his team of researchers have this advice: GenXers “outstrip Gen Z by a greater distance with their consumer power. At age 50, the median income of college-educated US GenXers is above both Boomers’ and Silents’ at the same ages. In 2023, 35 per cent of Gen X individuals in the U.S. had a household income of $150,000 or more, placing them ahead of other generations … What’s more, they are about to inherit a lot of money.”

Atkinson has this advice for any marketer: When it comes to Gen X  “you probably should not ignore them. There are a lot of them, and they have lots of money.”

‘Gen X’s influence is profound’

Ipsos is not the only organization with a keen interest in them. In July, marketing research firm NielsenIQ (NIQ) and World Data Lab, an organization that tracks global consumer trends, released what they described as a generational spending report focused on Gen X.

Key findings in it revealed that:

• Gen X will lead global consumer spending from 2021 through 2033.
• In high-income markets, Gen X will take the lead later but hold it longer – from 2026 through 2036.
• While Boomers still dominate in net worth, Gen X is second and gaining.GenXers are currently in their peak expenditure years (ages 45–60).
• GenXers have emerged as ‘caretaker consumers,’ – simultaneously caring for children, aging parents, and their households.
• Gen X will spend $15.2 trillion in 2025. According to authors of the report, “if you treated them as their ‘own country,’ they would form the world’s second-largest consumer market – second only to the U.S. and roughly two times the size of China’s current spending. And that number will only keep climbing: By 2035, global Gen X spending will reach $23 trillion.”

This generation, said Marta Cyhan-Bowles, chief communications officer and head of global marketing center of excellence (COE) at NIQ, “is at the center of a major economic shift, driving spending across categories while managing the demands of multiple generations. The data is clear – Gen X’s influence is profound and far too frequently overlooked by brands. This cohort will continue to shape the future of the global consumer economy for years to come.”

An overlooked opportunity

RestlessUrban contributor Mary Ellen Dugan, co-author of the book GenX: The X Factor for Growth, says she agrees with the findings in both studies, adding that anyone between the age of 45 and up to their early 60s can be considered “an overlooked opportunity hiding in plain sight.”

Asked why the so-called ignoring of an entire generation has taken place literally across the globe, she says that marketing professionals as a whole, “are always looking for the next big thing – the future, the innovative advances and so that lends itself to focus on an up and coming generation. It feels sexy and kind of like the next big thing coming.”

Dugan adds that the other problem is that, given that 70 per cent of them are 50 plus, Gen Xers themselves are reluctant to talk too much about the situation that exists – “they’ve got their heads down. It’s a very pragmatic generation that keeps moving forward and keeps achieving.”

There is, she adds, also a certain irony when it comes to discussion about what generation is the originator of the digital revolution. The reality is that it is not millennials and it is not Gen Z but Gen X “who are the real digital natives. They were the digital pioneers. They were there in the dot.com era, they were there as social media evolved and now as AI has arrived. Digital pioneering is really what is driving our economy today.”

As for Atkinson’s advice that it would be a mistake to ignore them, Dugan, like the study findings, concurs wholeheartedly:“That is really the money line. They are going to be the major consumer spenders well into the 2030s. They truly are redefining what we mean by work, wealth and wellness and they are certainly not ready to sail off into the sunset.”