The normal convention in Vietnam defining 8x and 9x is only
generations, which does not guarantee a clear distinction for marketing
or management. Generation cohort, defined by events that were happening during the "come of age" (16 - 22 years old), is a better way of classification. This post proposes a cohort system for Vietnam, and call for comments from readers.
Back in 2004, I talked to a few friends studying MBA and social studies about building up a generational cohort system for Vietnam, something similar to one of US. Nonetheless, we didn't come up with any clear plan due to many reasons. After that, I myself did some of the work, mainly from spending's and saving's point of view for multiple Vietnamese cohorts that I identified.
A year later, the concept of 8x generation started to be widely accepted in Vietnam. Now, people started talking about the 9x generation. However, when it comes to application, generation is in most cases used interchangeably with cohort, which makes it inaccurate.
First, let's look at the definition of generational cohort and make the distinction between cohort and generation. Cohorts are defined by Charles Schewe, Geoffrey Meredith and Stephanie Noble as "groups of individuals who are born in the same period and travel through life together. They experience similar external events during their late adolescent/early adulthood years. These "defining moments" influence their values, preferences, attitudes, and buying behaviors in ways that remain with them over their lifetime." The events that was happening during the "come of age" defining the cohorts, therefore the cohort can be long or short depending on these events.
The normal convention in Vietnam defining 8x and 9x is based on generations, i.e. the decade of birth, is unreliable. On one hand, there is no special reason why year of birth may cause the difference. On the other hand, the length of 10 years does not guarantee that the difference is significant between generations, especially among years close to the decade transition.
Proposed Vietnamese Cohorts
From all of these, cohort promises a better result in segmenting age groups than generation, even though the former is still a way to build stereotype of people. Based on the major events happening in Vietnam recently, I propose the following cohorts for people born and lived in Vietnam till their early twenties:
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