A landmark study led by York University follows Class of '73 high school graduates over the span of five decades in The Story of a Generation, a book that offers powerful insights on the baby boomer generation.
Culminating in a new book titled The Story of a Generation, the research marks the longest-running Canadian generational study of its kind, following nearly 50 years in the lives of a cohort of high school students who graduated in 1973.
The project originated with Paul Anisef, professor emeritus at York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies who began with a survey of high school students to help the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities understand and project post-secondary enrolment.
“I didn’t have in my mind at all that this would become a long-standing longitudinal study,” says Anisef. “It started as a ministry-sponsored survey of high school students, and one thing led to another.”
Encouraged by colleagues after the initial survey, Anisef returned repeatedly to the same group of students – just under 2,500 members of the class of 1973 – surveying and interviewing them in seven waves, from adolescence through midlife and into their early to mid-'60s.
The final phase, conducted between 2019 and 2021, captured their reflections as many approached retirement, offering a rare, lifespan perspective on Canadians.
The newly released book is co-authored along with York Faculty of Education professors Paul Axelrod and Carl James, as well as York PhD student Erika McDonald, and includes contributions from Wolfgang Lehmann, Karen Robson and Erica Fae Thomson. It’s a follow-up to an earlier volume, Opportunity and Uncertainty: Life Course Experiences of the Class of ’73 (2000).
Read the full story in the January 16, 2026 issue of Yfile