Methodological aspects of generational differentiation: on the example of determining nutritional attitudes of Russian millennials

The article is devoted to the description of the original method of generational differences analysis. This method is called the maximum differentiation scheme. With the help of the scheme we investigated unique trends in the millennial generation (born 1982–2000), which were observed neither in the entire sample nor in the other two generations for three types of data collection methods (cross-sectional analysis, analysis of temporal changes and long-term analysis). To satisfy the mechanics of the scheme, in addition to millennials, the Soviet generation (born 1947–1967) and the reform generation (born 1968–1981) were used for systematic comparisons. The research was conducted using data from the Russian Target Group Index. Thanks to the scheme, the author showed that only the statement “I prefer vegetarian food” can be considered a truly characteristic attitude of millennials. However, the scheme has two important limitations: 1) it is not sensitive to trends that are not unique to a particular generation; 2) the scheme cannot be used as the only type of analysis and needs additional methodological procedures. Taking into account these limitations, the maximum differentiation scheme can be useful both as a unique type of preliminary analysis of generational differences, and included in a broader approach to working with age and period effects.