Generation gap shrinks with time, poll finds

Stephen Chernin

Janet Huey holds her ticket from the 1969 Woodstock Festival as she visits the site of the music event in Bethel, N.Y., on Friday.

WASHINGTON - Forty years ago, young people moved to music their parents despised, upended the conventions of their elders and did not trust anyone over 30.

These days? All is groovy. So finds a new poll, examining the generation gap four decades after Woodstock, which was held Aug. 15-18, 1969.

The Pew Research Center noticed what could be an eternal truth: The young and old are not on the same page.

What's striking, researchers say, is that the differences don't seem to matter.

Young people, far from rejecting the values of their parents, seem to fault themselves for not living up to those standards. People under 30 tend to think older people have better moral values than they do, the poll said.

"This modern generation gap is a much more subdued affair than the one that raged in the 1960s," said survey authors Paul Taylor and Richard Morin.

Only 10 percent of parents of older children said they often have major disagreements with their kids. Nearly twice that many reported sharp conflicts with their own parents when they were growing up.

Only a quarter of respondents see strong conflicts these days between the generations. That's down from 42 percent who saw such tensions in 1992. Two-thirds now say such conflicts are either weak or don't exist anymore.

Among other findings:

n 73 percent say younger and older people are very different in their use of technology, 69 percent see such differences in musical tastes, 58 percent in the work ethic and 54 percent in moral values.

n Two-thirds of respondents under 30 said older people have a superior work ethic, better values than the younger generation and more respect for other people.

n The young got the nod on matters of tolerance. They are considered more open on race and on groups different from them.

© 2009, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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