It's Hard to Define Generation Names and Years, But Some Consensus Has Emerged

The naming and defining of generations wasn't as strict at the beginning of the 20th century. Before that, there was "The Lost Generation" — or people who were born in the late 1880s and came of age in the 1920s — named after a remark Gertrude Stein made to Earnest Hemingway, who used it as an epigraph in The Sun Also Rises. And F. Scott Fitzgerald popularized the term "The Jazz Age" for the era that spans the 20s and 30s when he titled a short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.

Pew doesn't have a specific definition of the age cohort that lasted from 1900 to 1927. Instead, "The Greatest Generation" was named by journalist Tom Brokaw in his book of the same name, which celebrated those who heeded the call to fight in World War II. "They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest," he writes. "At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting, often hand to hand, in the most primitive conditions possible, across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria." Brokaw also celebrates how this generation returned from war to begin "the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted," but we know what else that began when they returned: the baby boom.

This generation, the eldest of which grew up during the Great Depression, lived through World War II and fought in conflicts in Korea, was named by a 1951 Time magazine article. It compared members of this cohort to rowdier previous generations that were more likely to "issue manifestos, make speeches, carry posters," or make more of a general ruckus. "The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence," Time says. "With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers and mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame."

But that silence doesn't indicate sadness. According to a 2022 survey published in JAMA Psychiatry, the Silent Generation is also the happiest one, despite also being one of the oldest. The study asked survey respondents to rate their lives in six different areas — happiness, health, meaning, character, relationships and financial stability — and found that the older you are, the happier you get.

Baby Boomers sure live up to their name. "During the post-World War II baby boom, the United States experienced 18 years of elevated fertility rates," Sandra L. Colby and Jennifer M. Ortman write for the United States Census Bureau. "Although the fertility rates observed during the baby boom were not the highest ever seen in the United States, the number of births during those years was unprecedented."

This means, for most of their lives, Baby Boomers were the largest generation. (That is, until their own children — the Millennials — surpassed them in 2019.) With greater numbers, Baby Boomers were and are able to exert huge influence over institutions, including schools, government and the economy. Even today, Boomers still hold more than 60 of the 100 seats in the Senate,along with nearly 40% of the House of Representatives, and it's also the generation holding onto the most wealth. With an eye toward the fact that all Baby Boomers will be over the age of 65 by 2030, members of this generation will set future policies around aging, health care and retirement.

Writer Douglas Coupland famously named Generation X (and his novel) after a chapter heading in the book Class by Paul Fussell. Titled "The X Way Out," the chapter described people who didn't care about the trappings of the upper crust — an attitude emblematic of the stereotypical Gen X "slacker" ethos. But while Coupland named the generation, it might be Esquire writer Jeff Gordinier who found the perfect word to define it in his book X Saves the World: athazagoraphobia, or the fear of being forgotten. "Generation X had a very good run between 1991 and 1999," he writes, "but media curiosity about our reticent, dark-horse demographic began to dribble away at the end of the nineties."

A smaller cohort sandwiched between two mega-generations — the Boomers and the Millennials — Gen X can feel overlooked, misunderstood and like it's had a few unlucky breaks. Indeed, this generation was hit hard by the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the 2008 recession. But they seem to have rebounded, and a recent study by real-estate database Point2 says that Gen X is the post-Boomer generation most likely to be able to afford homeownership, a big part of the American dream.

While Boomers are the only generation that has a singular event to define their generation, Millennials come close. "Most Millennials were between the ages of 5 and 20 when the 9/11 terrorist attacks shook the nation, and many were old enough to comprehend the historical significance of that moment, while most members of Gen Z have little or no memory of the event," Pew's Dimock writes. "Millennials also grew up in the shadow of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which sharpened broader views of the parties and contributed to the intense political polarization that shapes the current political environment. And most Millennials were between 12 and 27 during the 2008 election, where the force of the youth vote became part of the political conversation and helped elect the first black president."

Millennials are also known for being slower to get married and have children than previous generations. Only three in 10 Millennials lived with a spouse and child in 2019, "compared with 40% of Gen Xers, 46% of Boomers and 70% of Silents when they were the age Millennials are now," Pew reports. Millennials were also the most diverse generation, until Gen Z stripped them of that title.

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Many Millennials came of age alongside the internet, but for Gen Z, this technology was there from the start. They're "the first generation to grow up with the internet as a part of daily life," says a report by consulting company McKinsey. "As the first real digital natives, Gen Zers — speaking generally — are extremely online. Gen Zers are known for working, shopping, dating and making friends online."

But there's a flip side to all this connectivity. Gen Z is coming of age in a time of pandemic, climate crisis and global war — and these digital technology offers endless access to information about these topics — McKinsey says that Gen Z has "the least positive outlook and the highest prevalence of mental illness."

Pew puts the beginning of Generation Alpha at 2013, but "Understanding Generation Alpha," a popular paper by Mark McCrindle and Ashley Fell, starts them off in 2010. It was "the year the iPad was launched, Instagram was created and App was the word of the year," they write. "And so from their earliest years, they have been screenagers." The researchers also note that, though they are the youngest generation, they have power beyond their years. "They shape the social media landscape, are the popular culture influencers, the emerging consumers and by the end of the 2020s will be moving into adulthood, the workforce and household formation, ready or not," they write.

Though they may scoff at the name, kids born into this most recent generation have a big future ahead of them — and one that's full of new, emerging tech. "For Generation Beta, the digital and physical worlds will be seamless," McCrindle writes. "While Generation Alpha has experienced the rise of smart technology and artificial intelligence, Generation Beta will live in an era where AI and automation are fully embedded in everyday life — from education and workplaces to healthcare and entertainment." Some of them might even live to see the 22nd Century.

McCrindle argues that Generation Beta is likely to band together to handle future challenges. "With climate change, global population shifts and rapid urbanisation at the forefront, sustainability will not just be a preference but an expectation," the report notes.
"This will result in Generation Beta being more globally minded, community-focused, and collaborative than ever before."