The real threshold between Generation X and Generation Y

I was born on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y. More timelines tend to put me in Gen Y than in Gen X., but, while I do have characteristics of both, I've always tended to identify more with Gen X.

Reading this article I've figured out why, and figured out where the dividing line between the two generations is.

Gen X was economically aware during the 1990s recession. Gen Y was not yet economically aware. I was (somewhat - enough for these purposes) economically aware during the 90s recession, so I identify with Gen X.

I hadn't given much thought to the economy before the 90s recession. What with being a child and all, I was far more interested in smurfs and ninja turtles. But reality as I knew it was that you have a job for life. My grandparents worked in the same factories for decades, earning enough to support their families. My parents and aunts and uncles went to university and got good white-collar jobs with benefits and pensions that they'd had my whole life. Then, suddenly, just as soon as I reached the age where I read the newspaper, job losses! Good jobs gone forever! Welcome to contract hell! People with university degrees flipping burgers and having to live with their parents! I couldn't see any way things could possibly ever change at all ever (I think we can forgive my 10-year-old self for not predicting the dotcom boom), so I read all this assuming it applied to me was well, and thus came to identify with the Gen. Xers who were currently trying to make their way in that job market.

So initially I was looking at the people in the Toronto Star article and wondering WTF they were expecting income security - they're about my age, why don't they remember the 90s recession? Then I realized, yes, they're about my age, but they're a year or two younger. That's insigificant now, but it was a huge difference back in the 90s. I was a 10-year-old reading about job losses in the newspaper, but they were eight years old at the time and not quite up to reading much beyond the comics. They don't identify with the 90s recession, and are therefore Gen Y. They're experiencing first hand the uncertainty of economic turmoil for the first time in their lives, while the couple of years I have on them made me economically aware enough to lose my recession virginity last time around.

But here's the great mystery of that article:

Generation Y grew up being told that if they were willing to work and study hard they could have it all: well-paying, fulfilling jobs that provided all the comforts.

Why were their grownups telling them this? My grownups tell me that too. They tell me that I'm smart, I have a university degree, I'll have no trouble getting a job. As though I haven't always had trouble getting jobs. As though I (and others like me) haven't had employers who don't want to hire me because they think I'm too educated. As though they don't remember the 90s meme of degrees not being worth the paper they're printed on. What's up with members of the Boomer generation who forget the lessons of the 90s?