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Happy birthday to Queen @DollyParton - your songs have gotten me through the pandemic! You, like the @MRCLHA 1946 British birth cohort, are 75 this year. Here are some of the ways your awesome life has tracked theirs, and the social changes of the post-1945 decades (thread, 1/6)
The 1940s & 1950s: childhood and schooling in the context of poverty, reconstruction, and the welfare state (2/6)
The 1960s: school-leaving & exams for (some of) the British kids, just as you made your way to Nashville. 7.2% of the cohort got married the same year as you - in 1966, aged 20 (3/6)
The late 1960s & early 1970s: as the 1946 cohort were settling into working life, or for many of the women full-time housewifery, you were on the Porter Wagoner Show. In 1973-4, as economic crisis hit the UK, you gave us #Jolene! (4/6)
1980s & 1990s: 1980 saw your film debut in 9 to 5, along with the anthem of the same name. Meanwhile, the '46 cohort in Britain were still working 9 to 5, & they were also enjoying relative stability and upward social mobility, with 70% owning their own homes by 1982 (5/6)
2000s & 2010s: You moved into bluegrass music and became a social media influencer with the #DollyPartonChallenge going viral just before #COVID19 struck. Although you didn't retire, many members of the cohort began to during these decades (6/6)
