Editing Generation X (section)

===== As children, adolescents and young adults =====

====== Political environment ======
The United Kingdom's [[Economic and Social Research Council]] described Generation X as "Thatcher's children" because the cohort grew up while [[Margaret Thatcher]] was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, "a time of social flux and transformation". Those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s grew up in a period of social unrest. While unemployment was low in the early 1970s, industrial and social unrest escalated. Strike action culminated in the "[[Winter of Discontent]]" in 1978–79, and [[the Troubles]] began to unfold in [[Northern Ireland]]. The turn to neoliberal policies introduced and maintained by consecutive conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 marked the end of the [[post-war consensus]].<ref name=":0" />

====== Education ======
The almost universal dismantling of the [[grammar school]] system in Great Britain during the 1960s and the 1970s meant that the vast majority of the cohort attended [[comprehensive school]]s. [[Compulsory education]] ended at the age of 16.<ref>{{cite book|last=Reitan|first=Earl Aaron|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7qaMqwGRE00C&pg=PA14|title=The Thatcher Revolution: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, and the Transformation of Modern Britain, 1979–2001|year=2003|page=14|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9780742522039 |access-date=11 April 2021|archive-date=3 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203080703/https://books.google.com/books?id=7qaMqwGRE00C&pg=PA14|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> As older members of the cohort reached the end of their mandatory schooling, levels of educational enrollment among older adolescents remained below much of the [[Western world]]. By the early 1980s, some 80% to 90% of school leavers in France and West Germany received [[vocational training]], compared with 40% in the United Kingdom. By the mid-1980s, over 80% of pupils in the United States and West Germany and over 90% in Japan stayed in education until the age of eighteen, compared with 33% of British pupils.<ref name="MacDowall2000">{{cite book|last=MacDowall|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eyK2MgEACAAJ|title=Britain in Close-up: An In-depth Study of Contemporary Britain|publisher=Longman|year=2000|access-date=11 April 2021|archive-date=3 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203080704/https://books.google.com/books?id=eyK2MgEACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> There was, however, broadly a rise in education levels among this age range as Generation X passed through it.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bolton|first=Paul|date=27 November 2012|title=Education: Historical statistics|url=https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04252/|access-date=10 April 2021|website=House of commons Library|archive-date=25 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210525002800/https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04252/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1990, 25% of young people in England stayed in some kind of full-time education after the age of 18, this was an increase from 15% a decade earlier.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Coughlan|first=Sean|date=26 September 2019|title=The symbolic target of 50% at university reached|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/education-49841620|access-date=10 April 2021|archive-date=11 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411010003/https://www.bbc.com/news/education-49841620|url-status=live}}</ref> Later, the [[Further and Higher Education Act 1992]] and the liberalisation of higher education in the UK saw greater numbers of those born towards the tail-end of the generation gaining university places.<ref name=":0">{{cite news|date=11 March 2016|title=Thatcher's children: the lives of Generation X|publisher=Economic and Social Research Council|url=http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-events-and-publications/news/news-items/thatcher-s-children-the-lives-of-generation-x/|url-status=dead|access-date=2 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160729024605/http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-events-and-publications/news/news-items/thatcher-s-children-the-lives-of-generation-x/|archive-date=29 July 2016}}</ref>

====== Employment ======
The 1980s, when some of Generation X reached working age, was an era defined by high unemployment rates.<ref>{{Cite news|date=9 April 2013|title=The Thatcher years in statistics|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22070491|access-date=10 April 2021|archive-date=11 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411010003/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22070491|url-status=live}}</ref> This was particularly true of the youngest members of the working aged population. In 1984, 26% of 16 to 24 year olds were neither in full-time education or participating in the workforce.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Nicola|date=15 December 2009|title=1980s recession was worse for young people|url=https://leftfootforward.org/2009/12/1980s-recession-was-worse-for-young-people/|access-date=10 April 2021|website=Left Foot Forward|language=en-GB|archive-date=11 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411010004/https://leftfootforward.org/2009/12/1980s-recession-was-worse-for-young-people/|url-status=live}}</ref> However, this figure did decrease as the economic situation improved reaching 17% by 1993.<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 2010|title=Youth Unemployment: Déjà Vu?|url=https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/2117/1/SEDP-2010-04-Bell-Blanchflower%5B1%5D.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161012200101/https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/2117/1/SEDP-2010-04-Bell-Blanchflower%5B1%5D.pdf |archive-date=12 October 2016 |url-status=live|website=University of Sterling}}</ref>