The X Factor

By: Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Lauren Leader-Chivee and Maggie Jackson and Laura Sherbin and Catherine Fredman

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Synopsis: Gen Xers should be stepping into crucial leadership roles and starting families. However, this book reveals that Gen Xers are taking a different life path. Their extreme work schedules, strong career ambition, and changing mores contribute to their high level of childlessness. Gen X was hit by an economic triple whammy: college-related debt, multiple boom and bust cycles, and the housing slump. As a result, Gen X is the first generation not to match their parents' living standards. These economic woes have hit Gen X the hardest. Boomers are not retiring, instead working an average of nine years longer than anticipated. This delays Gen X's career progression, resulting in the feeling of stalled careers. Yet the turmoil and instability that have been an integral part of Xers' lives have yielded unexpected benefits. Having been front and center for every major economic crisis of the past 30 years, Xers possess exactly the sort of resilience that organizations need as they face an uncertain future.