Baby Busters is a name for a demographic group born in the United States, and sometimes Canada, from 1958 through 1968. They are called this due to a decline in the birth rate; specifically, the U.S. birth rate (per 1,000 population) fell for eleven consecutive years after 1957, the longest such decline in American history. The name is intended to contrast with the term "Baby Boomer"; indeed, the central purpose of its usage appears to be to deny Boomer affiliation on behalf of those born from 1958 through 1964, thus rejecting the mass media's widespread practice of observing 1964 as the baby boom's cutoff date. Approximately 43 million people were born in the United States during the years of the actual "bust;" adding immigrants and subtracting deaths of those born during this period, it is believed that about 41 million persons born during these years were alive in the United States as of the end of 2003.

The first identification of baby busters in this context appears to have been made by anthropologist Marvin Harris (1927-2001) in his 1981 book America Now (later re-released under the title ). In 1987, the word twentysomething was coined, an apparent back-formation of Thirtysomething, the title of a then-popular Baby Boomer-themed television series. Douglas Coupland's groundbreaking 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture was dedicated to "the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s," and in the following year's Presidential election the "under-35 generation" was frequently cited as the core supporters of third-party candidate Ross Perot. In his 2001 book, The Isolation Generation , Dean Anderson identifies a generation labeled the Pre-Lunar Space-Agers as having been born between the launch of Sputnik (October 4, 1957) and the Apollo 11 moon landing (July 20, 1969), thus making 1958 through 1968 the group's full birth years.

The psychographic position of the Baby Busters and how they relate to neighboring generations has been the subject of considerable debate. Some insist that they constitute an entirely separate group, between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, while others reckon them as an older subset of Generation X. The combination of the aforementioned dedication of Douglas Coupland's novel followed by the media obsession with "twentysomethings" that persisted well into the 1990s has only served to heighten the confusion.

Baby Buster celebrities

Celebrities born 1958 through 1968 include:

• 1958
  • Christiane Amanpour, TV news reporter (British-born)
  • Maria Cantwell, United States Senator from Washington state
  • Steve Case, former chairman of AOL Time Warner
  • Mark Cuban, technology entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner, The Benefactor
  • John Ensign, United States Senator from Nevada
  • Andy Gibb, pop music star (British-born, died 1988)
  • Eric Heiden, Olympic champion speed skater
  • Rickey Henderson, baseball player
  • Ice-T, gangsta rapper
  • Michael Jackson, pop music star
  • Madonna, pop music star
  • Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans
  • Prince, pop music star
• 1959
  • Bryan Adams, Canadian-born singer/songwriter
  • Jason Alexander, comedian/actor
  • Shaun Cassidy, pop music star
  • Jonathan Franzen, author
  • Jennifer Granholm, Governor of Michigan (Canadian-born)
  • Magic Johnson, former professional basketball player
  • Florence Griffith Joyner, Olympic Games track star, died 1998
  • David Koresh, cult leader, died 1993
  • Marie Osmond, pop music star
  • Bret Schundler, former mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey
  • Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, died 1994 (murdered)
  • Lawrence Taylor, Hall of Fame American football player
  • Weird Al Yankovic, musician/parodist
• 1960
  • Valerie Bertinelli, actress
  • Erin Brockovich, activist
  • Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer, died 1994
  • John Elway, Hall of Fame American football player
  • Gus Farace, Mafia "wiseguy," died 1989
  • Peter Fitzgerald, United States Senator from Illinois
  • Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary
  • Tony Gwynn, Baseball Hall of Famer
  • Joan Jett, punk rock musician
  • Blanche Lambert Lincoln, United States Senator from Arkansas
  • Trisha Meili, the "Central Park Jogger"
  • Jafar Panahi, film director (born in Iran)
  • Sean Penn, actor
  • Cal Ripken, Jr., former baseball player

For Baby Buster celebrities born from 1961 through 1968 see the list at Generation X.

External link

• Baby Busters web site