A

BABY BOOMERS BECOME "YUPPIES"

The Rise of the Young Urban Professionals

At the end of the 1970s Jerry Rubin, onetime radical antiwar activist, began working on Wall Street, a surprising event that the media saw as symbolic of a change taking place in the baby-boom generation: the radicals of the 1960s counterculture were growing proestablishment. Mean-while, with less publicity than Rubin, other members of the huge baby-boom generation were also revising their antiestablishment views. Faced with the energy crisis and the runaway inflation of the 1970s, many former student activists were deciding financial power and economic security were goals not to decry but to emulate. Distrust and disdain of corporate America dissipated. Careers in business, once loudly derided, grew increasingly respectable. As the recession of the early 1980s gave way to economic boom times, success American style began to occupy the pedestal baby boomers had once reserved for social justice. Raised during the great period of American prosperity and influenced by the turning inward of the "Me Decade" of the 1970s, many baby boomers responded enthusiastically in the 1980s to Republican calls for reinvigorating the U.S. economy. Gary Hart's presidential campaign in 1984 labeled these baby boomers "yuppies" (young urban professionals), and the name stuck. Frankly and unapologetically materialistic, they focused on careers and the good life promised by the American Dream. Defined by one research group as people between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-nine, with incomes of at least $40,000 from a professional or management job, yuppies were estimated in 1984 to be 4 million strong—and three times more likely than other Americans to have an American Express card. By less restrictive definitions, estimates of the number of yuppies in the United States reached 20 million. Whatever their number, they became highly visible and much discussed, considered by many to be the trendsetters of their generation. Celebrating their increasingly high profile in American life, Newsweek dubbed 1984 "The Year of the Yuppie."

M.B.A. Fever

During the 1980s many yuppies pursued law and medical degrees, believing they could have lucrative careers in those fields. At the same time, the number of students studying for liberal arts degrees steadily declined, while enrollment in business schools boomed. The M.B.A. (master of business administration) began to be touted as the yuppie degree, a passport to high pay and rapid advancement in corporate America. Hearing stories about twenty-six-year-old investment bankers making six-figure incomes at Wall Street firms, would-be yuppies in droves mailed their applications to Harvard Business School and the Wharton School of Business. If they were not accepted by the most prestigious schools, they could earn the degree at many other business schools throughout the country. Enrollment in business schools, having doubled in the 1970s, increased dramatically in each year in the 1980s. In 1980, 55,000 graduate business and management degrees were awarded. In 1985 there were 67,000, and by 1990 the number had risen to 77,000. Moreover, only 3 percent of these degrees were awarded to women in 1971; by 1989 one third of all business graduates were women. During the 1980s the M.B.A. was said to have "sex appeal." Some joked its letters stood for "Making it Big in America." In 1984 alone, according to Forbes magazine, 200,000 students were pursuing M.B.A.'s. Karen Seigler, a student at Columbia University, noted, "In New York there are so many M.B.A.'s on the market that the degree no longer gives you a competitive edge." Yet even while business leaders began to complain about an M.B.A. glut, many yuppies considered the degree a prerequisite to success, and the M.B.A. boom continued. In March 1987 Business Week reported that M.B.A.'s were "hotter than ever." In fact business courses of all kinds became hugely popular. According to The Encyclopedia of Educational Research, the number of business students enrolled in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in 1989 totaled 1.3 million.

The Yuppie Lifestyle

Not all yuppies earned M.B.A.'s, but they did tend to share a fairly identifiable lifestyle, sometimes celebrated and often satirized. Most yuppies lived and worked in metropolitan areas, the centers for the high-paying jobs they usually sought. They seemed to be hard-driving overachievers who thought little of working late at the office, bringing work home, and working weekends if necessary. Yuppies placed high importance on appearance; abiding by the maxim "dress for success," they were frequently identified by their shiny leather briefcases, business suits from upscale stores such as Brooks Brothers, Rolex watches, and, in inclement weather, Burberry raincoats. For more-relaxed occasions yuppies wore trendily fashionable Nike running shoes and bought clothing from stores such as Banana Republic or catalogues such as L. L. Bean's—tending to dress as though they were off on a great outdoor adventure even while running errands around the city. At the same time their favorite sources for home decorating were stores such as Laura Ashley, which allowed them to recreate their urban apartments as ersatz English country houses. One frequent source of humor was the way in which yuppies—with the help of advertisers pitching their products to aging baby boomers—seemed to make even the most mundane activities seem trendy and chic. Though they were snobbish about having the finest foods and wines, yuppies were also health conscious, creating a rage for low-fat dishes, herbal teas, natural fruit juices, and bottled waters such as Perrier. Many were joggers and patrons of health spas. The typical yuppie seemed to thrive on upscale city life, especially the availability of fashionable restaurants, sushi bars, singles bars, theaters, and multiplex cinemas. One trend among yuppies was to move into lower-income or declining neighborhoods, renovate and refurbish the apartments, and attract new yuppie-oriented businesses into the area. Inside their well-appointed apartments and condominiums, yuppies tended to have the latest high-tech gadgets: CD players, VCRs, personal computers, pocket calculators, cordless phones, answering machines, Cuisinart food processors, and microwave ovens. For leisure time their favorite television shows included Hill Street Blues, Dynasty, and L.A. Law. Many yuppies aspired to incomes that would allow them to take regular vacations in Europe, and some succeeded.

Relationships versus Careers

Being intensely career-oriented, many yuppies seemed to regard personal relationships as secondary to career goals. Men and women alike decided to defer relationships, marriage, and children until they had established themselves in their careers. Married yuppies with no children became known as dinks (double-income, no kids). Married yuppies with children frequently employed nannies to look after the children while both parents worked. For single yuppies, dating services such as Great Expectations became extremely popular, partly because they were seen as an efficient way to meet people when one's schedule allowed limited time for socializing. As twenty-eight-year-old Rob Lewis, a yuppie profiled in Newsweek, noted, yuppies were often willing to sacrifice "marriage, families, free time, relaxation." He added, "Our marriages seem like mergers, our divorces like divestitures."

A Generation in a Hurry

Since time was a precious commodity to yuppies, most kept their appointment books filled and used the new technologies of fax machines, personal computers, car phones, and answering machines to stay connected to their business and social networks. Carrie Cook, another yuppie profiled in News-week, remarked, "I don't think earlier generations of young people were as consumed by time as we are. We seem to be moving every minute. If we lose our appointment books, we're through." Because of their hectic paces, yuppies were regular take-out patrons and restaurantgoers. Indeed, dinners out became a major source of yuppie entertainment. After work they often sought out the latest and trendiest restaurants, creating fads for Tex-Mex cooking, Japanese sushi, and other ethnic cuisines. After they finished reading The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Economist, and other financial periodicals, yuppies favored self-help books on time management and how-to business books offering techniques for becoming more productive. Popular phrases such as "A.S.A.P." (as soon as possible), "what's the bottom line?," and "cut to the chase" communicated the yuppies' sense of urgency. Many yuppies were fans of the New Age preacher Rev. Terry Cole-Whittaker, whose upbeat message was "You can have it all—now!" Her phrase, loudly echoed in a Miller Light commercial, was sometimes called, only half facetiously, "the battle cry of the yuppies."

Media Reflections

The yuppie phenomenon waned in the later 1980s, particularly after "Black Monday," the stock-market crash of 1987. Layoffs in the financial industry hit many yuppies hard, and their way of life seemed suddenly less assured. Yet yuppies continued to attract much media attention. To many, their lifestyle easily lent itself to caricature and parody, as in the Dooneshury comic strips that poked fun at yuppie materialism and career obsession. At the same time, the lifestyle was taken seriously by Madison Avenue market researchers vying for the yuppies' disposable dollars. Television, newspaper, radio, and magazine advertisements were filled with products for the good life, 1980s style. Yuppies were the subject of Hollywood movies, including The Big Chill (1983), Baby Boom (1987), and When Harry Met Sally (1989). Oliver Stone explored the dark side of yuppie aspirations in Wall Street (1987). Yuppies were also chronicled and satirized in fiction such as Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City (1984), Louis Auchincloss's The Yuppie Diary (1986), and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987). There was even The Yuppie Handbook (1984), by Marissa Piesman and Manlee Hartley, a tongue-in-cheek guide to achieving ultimate yuppiedom.