Gen Z, millennial, Gen Alpha? Find your generation — and what it means — by your birth year
Where were you when the space shuttle Challenger exploded?
The answer to that question is just one example of how generations identify with a shared experience. Baby boomers may have watched from a break room at the office or heard about it on the radio. Many Generation X kids sat in a classroom and watched live on television as the first space-bound teacher, 36-year-old Christa McAuliffe, perished with six fellow astronauts. The earliest millennials may have witnessed this moment, too, but would probably be too young to remember.
Then there's the rest of us − the roughly 44% of Americans living today (and growing) − who were born after the disaster in January 1986 and did not share the impact it had on the country.
And that's how shared generational experiences work. Identifying with a generation becomes a shorthand for references to shared common cultural experiences, advances in technology and behaviors forged by witnessing collective significant historical events. Generational identity also informs policy-making, particularly around marketing, health care and retirement.
An ESRI analysis of the predominant generation by location in the country shows a higher concentration of millennials in larger urban areas like Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, while baby boomers make up the largest generational subset in vast swaths of rural areas.
Years when each generation was born
While pigeonholing someone to a particular generation based solely on birth year isn't a perfect way to determine that person's identity, it helps policymakers establish a baseline for where that person is the age range. Here are the widely accepted year ranges that define today's generations:
Another example of a generational cultural touchstone is the way we consume music. From the early days of vinyl records and radio to cassettes and CDs to streaming services and social media platforms, music listening formats are nearly baked in to each generation's formative years.
In 2023, millennials maintained their place as the largest segment of the U.S. population, a trend that began in 2019 when they surpassed baby boomers because of aging.
Generations and race in the US
Grouping generational identities by race and ethnicity helps paint a broad picture of how U.S. demographics are changing. In 2023, Gen Alpha was the most racially and ethnically diverse generation, with whites making up less than half of the population of people born in the Gen Alpha birth years (2013 to present).
How generational identity affects retirement outlooks
Though age, as the saying goes, is just a number, categorizing people by age can help researchers frame discussions around important age-specific issues like retirement. According to a report in June by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, nearly half of all workers across four generations from baby boomers to Gen Z either plan to retire past age 65 or not retire at all.
But the confidence in retiring at or before age 65 drops sharply with age: 63% of Gen Z respondents are confident in retiring by 65 versus only 48% of Gen X with similar plans.
SOURCES Pew Research Center; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Purdue Global; Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies