Researchers sometimes disagree about how to define each generation in terms of the year of birth.
However, it’s widely accepted that millennials (aka Generation Y) are people who were born in the United States between 1981 and 1996. Some argue for broader categorizations, encompassing 1980 to 2004.
Immediately preceding millennials is Generation X, which includes folks who were born between 1965 and 1980. And before them, you have the so-called baby boomers, which includes Americans born after the Second World War, from 1946 all the way up to 1964.
Meanwhile, fast-forwarding a few decades into the future, you have Generation Z (whose members are widely referred to as Zoomers), which includes people born between 1997 and 2012.
As for the newest generation—Generation Alpha, aka Gen A—it includes people born in the US between 2013 and the mid-2020s. However, seeing as they’re still very young, there’s still some disagreement among some researchers. Some believe that the generation should include kids born from 2010 all the way up to 2024.
Gen A is the first generation born entirely in the 21st century, Investopedia points out. They are the children of millennials and are expected to be the largest generation in history. Members of Gen A have been immersed in technology since they were born. They spend more time online and in front of tech devices than any prior cohort. It’s likely that many members of Gen A may live to see the 22nd century due to longer life expectancy trends.
But cycling back to millennials (aka the parents of Gen A), they are considered to be digital natives, the first to be born into a digital world.
“Technology has always been a part of their everyday lives—it’s been estimated that they check their phones as many as 150 times daily—and serving them has been a major contributing factor to the growth of Silicon Valley and other technology hubs,” Investopedia states.
Generation Y is the biggest generation in United States history, in terms of numbers. However, millennials have plenty of financial obstacles in their way. For example, they have record amounts of student loan debt. Meanwhile, there’s also an increasing wealth gap, meaning that they start off with less household income.
