ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that significant value changes can be expected among baby boomers and predicts some of the implications of these shifts for American society. The chapter highlights the chief environmental forces that reshape the value systems of baby boomers, as they experience middle age and continue to endure the generational competition that has ruled their fortunes throughout their lives. But, with few exceptions, intracohort competition due to the numerical size of a generation has not received much attention as an antecedent of cohort members and value priorities. The chapter lays out the implications of this realignment in boomers' value priorities and predicts the types of attitudes and behaviors that will become commonplace among baby boomers. These represent lifestyle patterns that should surface as trends in American society during the first two decades of the 21st century.
