The term is borrowed from human reproductive biology. To keep this market churning, and to give the consulting industry something to sell to firms trying to understand (i.e., increase the productivity of) their younger workers, we have invented a concept that allows вЂњyouth cultureвЂќ to be redefined periodically.

Today, a little less than a third of the population is under twenty-five, but youth remains a big consumer base for social-media platforms, streaming services, computer games, music, fashion, smartphones, apps, and all kinds of other goods, from motorized skateboards to eco-friendly water bottles. By 1969, it made sense that everyone was talking about the styles and values and tastes of young people: almost half the population was under twenty-five. (The figure for Western Europe was sixteen per cent.) Then, between 19, college enrollment in the United States more than doubled, and вЂњyouthвЂќ grew from a four-year demographic to an eight-year one. By 1955, eighty-four per cent of high-school-age Americans were in school. The rate of high-school attendance kept growing. A social space had opened up between dependency and adulthood, and a new demographic was born: вЂњyouth.вЂќ

In 1940, though, that proportion was seventy-three per cent. Back in 1910, most young people worked only fourteen per cent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were still in school. There was a reason that those things happened when they did: high school. The discovery that you can make money marketing merchandise to teen-agers dates from the early nineteen-forties, which is also when the term вЂњyouth cultureвЂќ first appeared in print.

In the company of women oct 18