Modern sociologists and social/cultural anthropologists divide folks born in different eras with a cohort name. Right now it’s all the rage to speak about the Millennials, those folks who are adults 18 to 34 years old. Especially when speaking of the future of the Church. Unlike those of us who are Baby Boomers, adults 51 to 69 years old, (I just barely made the cut! :p) who highly identify with our cohort name at a whopping 79%, only 40% of Millennials identify with the name. While 33% of Millennials identify themselves as Gen Xers, the next older cohort, adults 35 to 50 years old. 58% of Gen Xers identify as Gen X.
The Pew Research Center (PRC) has just now published (3 SEP) the results of the survey, the American Trends Panel, which was taken 10 MAR to 6 APR. The survey included 3,147 adults who answered a question asking them which of five generational cohort names did they associate themselves with; Greatest Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials.
Additionally the subjects were asked to classify their own generation with a list of both positive and then negative characteristics. Older generations saw themselves in a positive light, while the younger generations were most likely to view their generation negatively.
The article on the PRC website is a very interesting summation of the results of the survey. And it has a number of well crafted, easy to understand graphs which map the findings.
The image is from the PRC article.