Latest revision as of 11:05, 14 February 2010

In non-technical language the term "generation" is often used loosely to refer to persons of similar age at the same time. In technical literature, the term generation¹ has been given a precise meaning and refers to a group of persons born within a specified period of time, generally taken as a calendar year. More recently the term cohort² has been introduced to denote a group of persons who experience a certain event in a specified period of time: thus a birth cohort is a synonym for generation in the sense of 116-1, a marriage cohort is a group of persons married within a defined period etc. The term generation² may also be used as a synonym for cohort, e. g. a marriage generation. In demography as in genealogy the term generation³ may also be used to denote the descendants of a group of persons who are themselves a generation, in the sense of 116-1. Thus children of a group of migrants are often referred to as the second generation. Sometimes consideration is restricted to lines of descent through one sex only, thus a male generation⁴, or paternal generation⁴ are the sons of a generation of males, a female generation⁵ or maternal generation⁵ the daughters of a generation of females. These distinctions are used particularly when the length of a generation or the mean interval between successive generations (713-1) are computed.

• 2. cohort n. — the term cohort analysis has been used to denote a method of analysing data, in which the experience of individual cohorts is studied throughout their lives, or other specified periods.
  For purposes of military service the number of men who become liable to conscription in a given year is sometimes called the class (cf. 130-8) of that year. In the United States the same term is used for a group who complete their studies at a particular school or university in a particular year.

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