At 79 million, do boomers make up the largest generation in U.S. history?

raidersruleall

False. The largest generation in U.S. history is the millenials (people born after the beginning of the 21st century), which has over 95 million people. http://ndn.org/node/4009 May 19 09, 3:03 PM

davejacobs

There's something very arbitrary and subjective about these definitions of 'generation' The extract from raider's reference for instance is comparing 1946-1964: 19 years, with 1965 - 1981: 16 years, and 1982 - 2003: 22 years, and calling each of these periods a generation. This is hardly scientific, and a poor basis for making comparisons. "A new generation, the millennial generation (born between 1982 and 2003), is coming of age to make over or realign The approximately 95 million millennials compose the largest American generation in history. There are now about 17 million more millennials alive than there are baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), previously the largest generation, and 27 million more millennials than members of generation X (born between 1965 and 1981), the relatively small generation between the boomers and the millennials." May 19 09, 3:41 PM

queproblema

Dave, those generations are based on social science, not math. Therefore: 1946-1964 includes those persons conceived between WWII and the Vietnam War. We're called the baby boomers. (When did the Vietnam War begin? Maybe 1957, but, "U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s and combat units were deployed beginning in 1965." Also Operation Rolling Thunder began in 1965.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War I don't think I need to supply a reference for the fact that WWII ended in August, 1945. 1965-1982 are the people born between the baby boomers and the millenials. 1982-2003 are those who came of age or were born in the new millenium. (If you were born in 1982 you turned 18 in 2000.) Also see this page for links to generational cohorts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_generations May 19 09, 4:38 PM

scottietwenty3

This was a good post by zb when I posted about generations. Date ranges are not set in stone and are approximate and dependent upon who you talk to. Birth cohorts classified as "generations" have tended to cover periods of around 15 or 20 years (more or less the length of a childhood), with different sources establishing different ranges for them. For the most part, the ranges given below reflect common usage. 1901-1913: Interbellum Generation - grew up during World War I, the Roaring Twenties and through Prohibition. 1914-1929: The G.I. Generation, the generation of veterans that fought and won World War II. 1930-1941: The Silent Generation was the generation born between the two World Wars, who were too young to join the service when World War II started. 1942 to around 1953: The Baby Boom Generation was the generation born just after World War II, a time that included a 14-year increase in birthrate worldwide. 1954 to 1965: Generation Jones was the generation of children in the 1960s, who came of age in the middle to late 1970s and early 1980s. *Generation X is the generation born between approximately 1965 to 1980, and connected to the pop culture of the 1980s and 1990s they grew up in. *MTV Generation is the generation born approximately between 1975 and 1986. They are typically conceived as a "cusp" generation between Generation X and Generation Y that possess definable traits of both. *Generation Y, or "Millennial", born from around 1980 to around the mid 1990s. *Generation Z are modern children, born from somewhere in the second half of the 1990s to the present. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also see Question #52609: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question52609.html May 19 09, 6:19 PM