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Switzerland

The Smoking Generation: Where 1946 Babies Are Today

What has become of the generation of people born in 1946? Le Temps' Joëlle Kuntz ponders the past seven decades and the findings of a watershed study of her age group.

Old Gold advertisement
Old Gold advertisement
Joëlle Kuntz

-Essay-

GENEVA — Seventy years ago, tobacco was considered a kind of medicine. The fragility of our beliefs is enough to take your breath away. I feel a terrifying awe every time I glance at the advertisement for Villiger cigars stuck on my fridge. In it is a working-class man in his thirties, neat and tidy, with a cigar dangling from his lips. His blonde little girl, sitting on his lap, is lighting it for him, and the match glows at the center of this scene.

In March 1946, English scientists enrolled 14,000 babies born in Britain during the same week in an interdisciplinary study about generational cohorts. It's the most extensive such study ever undertaken, and it continues to this day, with a separate focus on children born in 1958, 1970, 1991 and 2000. The individuals in the 1946 group, who have answered regular questionnaires throughout their lives, are celebrating seven decades this year. This group intrigues me, because its members benefited from the best in terms of peace and social, medical and cultural progress.

What happened to the little girl?

The little girl sitting on the lap of the working-class Swiss man may have attended university. She was allowed to vote, she knew about the birth control pill, she was free to get married or stay single, she was also able to divorce without great expense, to travel cheaply and, after gaining some weight in the 1980s, she was able to replace a weak hip thanks to government health care coverage. She had a job and a salary, and her pension allows her to contemplate the next 20 years with reasonable confidence. Her only regret is a substantial one: Her children and grandchildren aren't nearly as well off as she has been.

[rebelmouse-image 27090104 alt="""" original_size="612x612" expand=1]

Happy 70! — Photo: Gurini

The British study clearly shows that social mobility has declined. For people born in 1970, their adult standard of living was more correlated with their parents' income than was the case for people born in 1958 and 1946.

Did she smoke, this little girl dressed all in blue, posted on my fridge? In 1970, when she was 25, 40% of pregnant English women smoked, and nobody appeared to worry about it. Except for the rather curious doctor who added a new survey question for the mothers of babies who were to be born in Great Britain during the chosen week that year: Do you smoke? Two years later, in 1972, an analysis of their responses crossed with a study of newborn mortality brought proof — the first on such a large scale — of the harmfulness of tobacco: 1,500 children had died from it, before birth or just after.

Researchers who were focused on studying the lifestyles of each generation asked all sorts of questions about the habits of babies' mothers, too: How much milk did they drink every day? What were their husbands doing while they were in labor? What did they spend on their baby's clothes and on their own? But Helen Pearson, who discusses these studies in the book The Life Project, the Extraordinary Story of Our Ordinary Lives, notes that no one ever asked mothers about sex!

What's left of a generation

Of those from the 1946 group studied, 13% have died. Wealthier men have the same mortality rate as poorer men and women, while wealthier women's mortality rate is half what it is for everyone else. Scientists have yet to explain why this is.

Women now make up the majority of living members of the 1946 group, and researchers are looking into the ways in which the men and women in this group are declining. About 85% of them have at least one of the 15 conditions that ultimately cause death for many people: hypertension, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, respiratory problems, cancer, etc. According to the study, the people who suffer from these ailments are often not aware of them.

I'm vaping as I look at the little girl with the blue ribbon in her hair. The cigar she's lighting with such enthusiasm doesn't produce any smoke. Villiger sells tobacco, matches and family happiness, but apparently smoke is not for sale.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Why The U.S. Lost Its Leverage In The Middle East — And May Never Get It Back

In the Israel-Hamas war, Qatar now plays the key role in negotiations, while the United States appears increasingly disengaged. Shifts in the region and beyond require that Washington move quickly or risk ceding influence to China and others for the long term.

Photograph of U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken  shaking hands with sraeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

November 30, 2023, Tel Aviv, Israel: U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Chuck Kennedy/U.S State/ZUMA
Sébastien Boussois

-Analysis-

PARIS — Upon assuming office in 2008, then-President Barack Obama declared that United States would gradually begin withdrawing from various conflict zones across the globe, initiating a complex process that has had a major impact on the international landscape ever since.

This started with the American departure from Iraq in 2010, and was followed by Donald Trump's presidency, during which the "Make America Great Again" policy redirected attention to America's domestic interests.

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The withdrawal trend resumed under Joe Biden, who ordered the exit of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. To maintain a foothold in all intricate regions to the east, America requires secure and stable partnerships. The recent struggle in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demonstrates that Washington increasingly relies on the allied Gulf states for any enduring influence.

Since the collapse of the Camp David Accords in 1999 during Bill Clinton's tenure, Washington has consistently supported Israel without pursuing renewed peace talks that could have led to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While President Joe Biden's recent challenges in pushing for a Gaza ceasefire met with resistance from an unyielding Benjamin Netanyahu, they also stem from the United States' overall disengagement from the issue over the past two decades. Biden now is seeking to re-engage in the Israel-Palestine matter, yet it is Qatar that is the primary broker for significant negotiations such as the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire —a situation the United States lacks the leverage to enforce.

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