I see lots of people who work in the UK and return to Australia because it is cold and miserable, and then complain that their work conditions are worse due to someone else or some group (in this article, baby-boomers in general).

The simple solution to this is to try somewhere else -- There are lots of other nice places in the world that have conditions much better than Australia for young professional workers (nice cities in Canada, US etc). In addition, if you are willing to learn a second language, then the scope of nice places to live and work other than Australia is vastly increased.

Natasha,you generalise too much about boomers and X-ers in which the majority of both descriptions, don't fit the profile in which you are defining.Many boomers are not rich or powerful and those who are, will leave their wealth to X-ers.What a bunch of ungreatful whingers.Get real and get a life.

Natasha, you generalise and stereotype too much. I am a generation X and my older sister is a baby boomer, and we have both faced similar difficulties and successes. it's not the generational factor, it's the economy stupid! (thanks Bill). The gen x factor is not the fault of baby boomers, it's the downsizing of jobs, the dumbing down, and de-training of the Aust workforce where the jobs are no longer there for anyone other than who's willing to flip burgers or has a nice cosy job wrapped up. And it's the trend of the govt and the ones that vote for it that keep it going. I have met more gen x and younger that vote for the continuing trend of this govt than baby boomers. They just can't see the connection about what happens in the big wide world and how it has the trickle down effect to them. yes, baby boomers had it all, they were born, they took advantage and are now clinging onto what they had with their dentures. But they didn't invent it or take it away. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time where they prospered. They aren't responsible for anything worse other than making "Forrest Gump" an Academy Award winner. (Which is bad enough)

Di , don't blame the Boomers for the lack of opportunity.Things were much harder in the fifties and sixties.The lack of opportunity is largely a result of socialists policies,ie higher taxes,bloated bureauracies,too many on social security and too much regulation on business.We have become the scared generation that has to consult a lawyer before we breathe.
It is not because of luck, but we have lacked the courage to be more self reliant,and are now paying the cost of living in "The Nanny State" where we have become slaves to the masters of impotence.

I'm a border line on the X'ers and Boomers and so from my perspective of having to live in an interface between those who want to be rich and famous and those who have given up because their superannuation has now become more important than idealism, innovation and incubating and nurturing the next lot of fresh young things wanting to get ahead.

I live and work with balding (and mostly ponytailed) boomers who regular change their vocabs to suit an ever youthful oriented set of ideas and co-workers. It's called "capacity building", "restoration and reform" and dressed up in often ridiculous futuristic language that scares the be-jesus out of the boomers cos it speaks to and pedicts their redundancy.

Over the last 10 years they've done well but they’re now starting to look like that old moldy piece of cheese in your fridge that no-one has the heart to throw onto the 'scrap heap'.
The quicker the x gens can make this happen the happier they become. Its war out there. It’s polite and respectable and even joyous, but it’s a bloody war

Boomers, Xers ... whatever. I feel the main problem with your problem, if you can call it a problem, is that your starting point is all wrong. You have been sucked in by the marketing speak and facile daily newspaper articles that invariably serve up this genre of social slop (read: analysis).

Whether you are in your 20s, 30s, 40s or beyond, Australia, you must realise, is very much the 'arse end of the world'. Opportunity here is limited. It always has been. Do not be fooled by the limited roll-out of satellite TV (10 years+ after it was introduced in other markets) or 3G cell phones or sushi bars on every corner. Australia is backward, narrow and confining for all and sundry.

Focusing on age, and broad-based myths about particular generations hardly addresses the underlying issues that confront this place. Such a task involves more than stamping one's foot and pointing a finger at the people further along in life or those just starting out.

As some other commentators have suggested, a one-way ticket out of here might offer the greatest hope of release and realisation of personal dreams.

Arjay, so not blaming the boomers, As i said they had an opportunity that anyone in their gen would go for, and they helped shape it. But Instant Ramon poses a good question. We are a backwater here, with nary a progressive govt in sight, so the opportunities are much more limited than say, Europe. So many innovative cutting edge stuff that Australians do has to go OS to be developed, researched, produced and then imported back because we no longer do it here. And so many jobs being moved offshore. I don't blame the boomers, nor the gen xers and to blame a generation or two is a waste of time. More importantly, how do we move away from it without shaving the greying ponytails off the lot and/or banning any more movies with Tom Hanks as the lead?

Well Di, I say to all the younger generations,if the idiots here don't wake up to themselves,go overseas and find a more lucrative job.Only when they see the wheels falling off will the brain dead morons in Govt react.My daughter finishes her degree this year and will seek a job in Europe next year.Vote with your feet.

It is all very well to say "if you don't like it, go elsewhere", but there is a fundamental point here that is in danger of being overlooked.

Let us accept that the boomers fought valiantly through the tough times, and succeeded through the sweat of their brow to where they are now. They are now in a position to direct all economic benefits to the feathering of their own nests, whether it is in the form of astronomic salaries for them and their corporate mates, or in clinging on to tenure in academia, or using every means possible to boost their own income at the expense of the next generation as our beloved politicians are now doing.

The point of the article is that they are not only capable of doing all this, but are in fact busily putting it all into practice. It is a matter of selfishness and greed, a dog-in-the-manger attitude that is corrupting us all, and is impossible to legislate for or stamp out, short of involuntary euthanasia. Previous generations had a fundamentally different attitude towards continuity between generations, but this has been totally lost - for a multitude of reasons, not just one - and is causing a highly destructive us-or-them attitude to be considered normal rather than abnormal behaviour.

Natasha, I would love to know exactly whom you are thinking of (apart from the perennially demonised Helen Garner, who in fact spent most of her 30s writing for local papers for peanuts, or nothing, while she raised a child on her own).

I'd also like to know what your definition is of Boomers. And I'd like to know why people don't realise that Mark Davis' carefully marketed 'Gangland' belongs to the genres of opinion and polemic, not to that of history. The notion that Boomers 'had it all' is rubbish. Never mind Mark Davis, read some real history by some real historian.

I'll be 52 in a couple of days, which qualifies me as a younger-end Boomer, and your account of the struggles of young academics describes exactly, almost item for item, my own experiences as an untenured academic in the early 1980s. What you are describing is not a generation gap but a profession whose trajectory, from your description, has changed very little since then -- except that the pay and conditions are better, and the women don't have to put up with a quarter of the appalling cr*p that we did. (And you know why? Because the struggle and determination of Boomer academic feminists who kept pushing it uphill until some of it stuck.)

I am allowed to say all this because I did indeed walk away from a tenured academic job (far from clinging on to it with my teeth, which incidentally are all still mine so far) when I was 44, thereby making room for a Gen-X replacement, and guess what: several young female academic Gen-Xers immediately castigated me for bailing out of my alleged responsibilities as a role model. Since then I have seen two of my former students publish books whining about how much they blame the Boomer feminists who told them they could Have It All, and now that reality has set in they're just, like, SO disappointed!

Sorry, Natasha, I never thought I'd hear myself say this ... but wait until you're 50 and then see what you think.

I am a baby boomer, 54 years old. I agree that we have to do something. I can remember prior to 1972. There was a balance then. We paid for university education (unless you were smart and got a govt scholarship), we paid to go to the doctor, but 90% of us had medical insurance anyway, we paid less tax as a proportion of average earnings. Its pretty sinmple....we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by successive governments starting with Gough's, that "Its time" for the welfare state to take over our responsibilities.

It will be a brave government that reverses this trend. Of course, the answer is in the budget papers. Nearly 38% of Federal government expenditure is in actually running the system, not delivering programs. If we went back to the mix in 1970, we could slice $60b off government expenditure, give it back to the states and individuals, who could then spend it in a discretionary way. We would take responsibility.
The other side benefit would be that we could reintroduce a properly funded, realistic aged pension, which would solve the problem of an ageing population with no means of support.
Its all very well though to say to us....fix it! We will represent 60% of voters in 10 years time. And if presented with an election policy which says "vote for me and I will look after you in retirement"...just who do you think will get me vote?

SteveA,I knew a teacher who kept his first group certificate from 1951,he flashed it around the staffroom on the day of his retirement and posed us with the question of how much tax he paid that year.It was 11% of his gross income.Today we have taxes coming out of all our bodily orifices and still in NSW it is not enough.While John Howard gives us $6.00pw in tax cuts,he will take ten times this amount in bracket creep as wages and salaries increase.The opposition however are an even worse alternative.

The problem of our "Nanny State" will take years to fix since millions receive benefits and Govts realise their voting power.

Only when situations become dire,will Govts make the really hard decisions that will benefit us all.

Natasha Cica’s article about “selfish baby boomers” has finally made me snap.

Despite her protestations, this is another shot fired in the generation war that encourages one group in society to abuse another. This disgraceful crusade is all the more distasteful because the generation that the “X-ers” are attacking is their parents’ – a generation whose biggest failure seems to have been to bring up a generation of whingers.

Dr Cica, who has the attractive position of visiting fellow at a university (I should be so lucky), thinks Baby Boomers are “selfishly” taking up all the jobs that her generation would like. Well, I'll happily retire – as soon as I've paid off my modest home and saved enough for my self-funded retirement. I think that’s what most of my cohort are doing. In the mean time, like the thirty-somethings, we work because that’s how we support ourselves and make some contribution to society. Selfish? Can't see how!

But I’m one of the lucky ones. My work is interesting. Thirty-somethings don’t have a monopoly on McJobs. Baby Boomers work in every area and level of employment – those lucky enough to be employed. Those middle-aged down and outs on the streets are also Baby Boomers. So are the Vietnam vets suffering from post-traumatic stress. So are the heads of charities and service organisations.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything more selfish than insisting that one group of workers give up their jobs so that your bunch can get ahead, or that the needs of your group are more important than those of others. I truly sympathise with younger people trying to make a career today, especially in the crumbling tertiary education sector, but I have to say that their expectations are far, far higher than ours ever were.

I hate this fake generation war, which divides society into warring tribes and vilifies people for something they can’t help – their age. It’s against the best values of our society: respect and opportunity for all, regardless of race, colour or creed – or age.