Book Review — The Perennials by Marco Guillén

Sociologist and business economist Marco Guillén disavows conventional labels for generational cohorts in favor of a new paradigm

Photo by the Author

As many of you already know, one of my greatest passions in life is the concept of intergenerational solidarity. It’s why I started my “Jigsaw Gens” series — to motivate people from all different age groups to reach out to one another and unite behind common causes.

Amidst my continuous research in this topic area, I came across a 2023 book by Dr. Marco Guillén — a lecturer, researcher, television correspondent, op-ed writer, and author of multiple books. This newer offering by Guillén is *The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society*. Here, he dissects the ways in which generational labels (and related marketing) are quickly becoming outdated. By doing so, Guillén challenges us to reimagine how we view the workplace — and our own roles within it.

At the intersection of scholarly data and cultural trends, Guillén sketches out a broad blueprint for how global employers must adjust their expectations to account for the unprecedented challenges of the Twenty-First Century

WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK

The foundation for Guillén’s premise is sound. I think he echoes the basics of why we need intergenerational solidarity across the American landscape. Guillén also backs it up with relevant research to boost this framework.

However, when reading through The Perennials, I’d caution readers to really pinpoint how his concepts and proposed solutions are relevant to the reader’s objective. Guillén’s narrative is helpful in a macroscopic context. But he doesn’t provide quite as much detail as he could, in places.

STYLE / FORMAT

Running for 208 pages, Guillén has a fairly clear nonfiction narrative. He divides the book into ten chapters, along with a Forward, an Introduction, and an Acknowledgements Section.

Guillén’s background is in sociology and business economics. He has taught at the Wharton School (where he currently serves as Vice Dean of its MBA Program for Executives), going on to present (as a public speaker) and consult on global market trends. His lectures and online courses have won multiple awards and acclaim.

Introduction — the author defines the “sequential model of life,” which is a paradigm through which each generation has been commanded to play out their lives in phases. In 1900, the average American life expectancy was the age of 46; by 2022, it had jumped to 78. Guillén explains how improved “health spans” have also enhanced our activity levels. Due to more complex life transitions (between these stages/phases), he proposes a “postgenerational revolution” with more flexibility and reframed expectations. He frames “Perennial” status as “a method” rather than “a solution” — citing the multigenerational climates of zoos and a German BMW plant.

Chapter One — entitled “The Four Stations in Life,” Guillén examines compulsory education and pensions systems as two tools for obedience and life planning. Across history, “four stations in life” have been accepted: play, study, work, and retirement. The sequential model of life contains the benefits of predictability, as it divides us into “active” and “passive” participants — but it also evokes shame and judgement.

Guillén showcases the work of Frank & Lillian Gilbreth, married efficiency experts who raised twelve children; two of their offspring coauthored *Cheaper by the Dozen*, which served as a model for parents to pressure their children’s education via “performance maximization.” He talks about “transageism” being the fear of one’s children succumbing to Peter Pan Syndrome. Guillén likewise covers the roles of midlife crises and loneliness in raising health care costs. He likens our present century’s intergenerational warfare to the World Wars of the Twentieth Century.

Chapter Two — entitled “Soaring Longevity and Health,” the author delves into how women have seen their life expectancy advantage over men decrease due to escalating stressors (diet, single motherhood, workplace risks, unequal division of labor, disease, addiction). Guillén looks at the lingering “health span vs. lifespan” debate in the face of humanity’s thirst for immortality. Both younger and older generations alike have mutually-beneficial reasons for enacting mutually-beneficial economic policies. More people are delaying retirement as their pensions become unstable. Guillén discusses potential reforms (and their likely levels of controversy) in order to solve this conundrum.

Chapter Three — entitled “The Rise and Fall of the Nuclear Family,” Guillén focuses on the evolving role of the nuclear family in American life. He tracks the occupational misogyny embedded within this structure; then, he chronicles how the nuclear family has dwindled in prevalence due to single-person households, adults moving back in with their aging parents, the rise of “grandfamilies” (multigenerational households), and gender-diverse language.

Chapter Four — entitled “Rebels Without a Cause?,” the author draws the conclusion that teenagers are only worse than adults at decision-making when decisions must be made hastily or under pressure (e.g. being rushed to determine their career path before they’ve graduated). He believes parents meddle too much in their kids’ career choices, since long-term planning becomes less practical as human lifespans increase. Statistically, foster children and recovering addicts lag behind their peers in academic success. Hybrid skills and adaptability need greater emphasis. Guillén wants to see more emphasis on literacy, critical-thinking skills, multilingualism, financial literacy, interpersonal skills, and transactional learning.

Chapter Five — entitled “Three Careers in a Lifetime,” Guillén continues to assess the ramifications of longer human lifespans and advancing technology. More people are changing careers in their middle age. He lays out a case for greater opportunities in online schooling as well as intergenerational classrooms (with the latter still existing alongside traditional modes of learning). Differing historical events have influenced variant motivations amongst successive generations in their careers. However, it’s an exaggeration to say that the various generations have drastically different values.

Within this chapter, Guillén credits digital thought leader Gina Pell as having coined the term “Perennials” to refer to people who embrace intergenerational synergy.

Chapter Six — entitled “Reimagining Retirement,” the author assesses how retirement can often create more stress (over finances) and sedentary lifestyles. Guillén analyzes data from countries where retirement ages have been dropping — while he examines their declining trends/problems. Anti-elder ageism from potential employers remains a problem, even though people who work past the retirement age are showing some encouraging signs of economic empowerment (with reduced dependency on Social Security and pensions).

Guillén has noticed that the sequential model of life gets upended by post-retirement workers who either partially or fully reenter the workforce. Remote work, remote learning, and the gig economy provide unprecedented levels of flexibility. Income inequality has led to a supermajority of wealth concentrated in the hands of a superminority of older retirees. Thus, he advocates for the reorganization of such flexibility at all stages of life.

Chapter Seven — entitled “Inheriting at One-Hundred,” Guillén explains how the U.S.’s modern inheritance systems have their roots in the Middle East. He compares and contrasts data about inheritance within different countries based on wealth levels, fertility rates, and life expectancy. Japan has one of the lowest inheritance rates out of all developed nations. Parents who remarry when they’re older create inheritance woes for children (heirs) if prenuptial agreements aren’t signed to protect the inheritance of birth children. Meanwhile, Egypt possessed the most gender-balanced ancient society when it came to inheritance. Women are accumulating greater percentages of wealth based on their longer life expectancy and being socialized to financially plan.

Chapter Eight — entitled “A Game Changer for Women,” the author surveys the “biological clock” as a concept that trains women to feel guilt and shame over not giving birth (or refusing to put their careers on hold) within an idealistic timeframe. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the unequal division of household labor for women with children. Pregnant women or working mothers face a distinct trend of misogyny when it comes to being passed over for promotions. By contrast, working fathers tend to get favored for workplace promotions.

In 1989, feminist Felice Schwartz proposed “the mommy track” where women have to choose between careers or parenthood. Guillén points out how even most countries with paid maternity leave don’t offer paternity leave for fathers — meaning the global culture itself hasn’t changed. Single teenaged mothers also often lack support to advance through a career path; this should be remedied, he says, through more flexible employment models.

Chapter Nine — entitled “The Postgenerational Consumer Market,” Guillén highlights the dwindling relevance of generational labels. Traditionally, marketers have engaged in segmentation due to the perceived purchasing power of younger generations. Australian millionaire Tim Gurner accidentally created the “avocado toast” label as a throwaway line; he never intended for it to be weaponized against Millennials (Gen Y) the way it has. In a similar vein, American journalist Tom Wolfe excoriated the Baby Boomers in 1976 — igniting a decades-long stigma that remains with our society. Almost a decade later, the rise of the “Brat Pack” created ageist proclamations about GenXers allegedly being “entitled.” 2013 saw Time magazine’s editorial staff characterizing Millennials as “The Me Me Me Generation.” These literary follies have only intensified animosity between generational cohorts.

Guillén cites various researchers who’ve displayed how generational boundaries can be amorphous and fluid. He calls out the ageism from marketers and advertisers against older consumers, and he opines that they need to get on the “ageless” bandwagon. Guillén glimpses at “granfluencers” — older social media influencers who market products to nontraditional audiences. Strategic advisor Karla Martin has talked about “Perennial” being a postgenerational reference to advertisers emphasizing values over age. Marketers, says Guillén, need to link together more threads related to shared values across generations.

Chapter Ten — entitled “Toward a Postgenerational Society of Perennials,” the author summarizes his book in a final chapter, reiterating how the “Perennial” mindset rejects a sequential model of life. He believes this will mitigate stress, bad luck, disruptions, inequity, loneliness, exclusion, and discrimination. Policymakers must recognize their own biases in terms of age discrimination. He calls for DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) to feature generational cohorts as an attribute. Online education, Guillén concludes, can offer untapped possibilities to further such goals.

Overall, Guillén makes astute observations about the past, present, and future of career planning. He is extremely mindful of important factors such as work-life balance, psychology, education reform, and family planning.

The Perennials does succumb to some of the standard flaws often found in publishing and age-based prose. For example, this book employs the culturally-racist juxtaposition of “Lowercase-white” alongside of “Capital-Black” beginning in Chapter Two (although it should be noted how that doesn’t necessarily mean the author himself is a racist person, as publishing houses and/or editors sometimes request such punctuation from their authors).

He also uses the ageist faux-noun of “GenZer” in multiple chapters (beginning in Chapter Five), which can be distracting and off-putting amidst what is the author’s otherwise-keen insight and forward-thinking mindset. I did wish he would have clarified the differences between “learning,” “relearning,” and “unlearning.” I also disagree with his critique in Chapter Three that “seminar” and “penetrate” are somehow misogynistic words. And I disagree with his suggestion (in the final chapter) of how there should be direct quotas in employment based on age.

Guillén’s conceptual shortfall, by the end of the book: he remains rather unclear about what would be the functional usage of the term “Perennials” as part of applied conversation. In other words: who exactly should be seeking to adopt the “Perennial” namesake, and why? And in what context?

However, I must give Guillén high praise for challenging the anachronisms and antiquity of the sequential model of life. He wants our society to face the reality that this paradigm is unraveling. Once us readers are aware of that, he offers a wide array of fixes and inspirational challenges that we can put into practice as we move through (or switch, altogether!) our chosen careers.

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