What Generation Am I

Generations by Birth Year

A generation is found by one rule: look for the range of years that holds the birth year. The ranges are Pew Research Center's for the Greatest Generation through the Millennials; for Gen Z Pew sets the start and uses 2012 as a working end without having fixed it officially; Alpha and Beta are McCrindle Research's.

Where the lines come from. Pew Research Center drew the line between Millennials and Generation Z (1996/1997) in Michael Dimock's "Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins", January 17, 2019; the article does not fix where Gen Z ends. The names Generation Alpha and Generation Beta come from Australia's McCrindle Research; McCrindle starts Alpha in 2010, and this chart in 2013, right after 2012, the cut-off Pew uses for the end of Gen Z in its research.

How to Find Your Generation, Step by Step

1. Take your birth year — the month and day do not matter, generation lines run between years.
2. Find the chart row whose range holds the year: 1985 lies between 1981 and 1996, so it is a Millennial year.
3. Check whether it is a cusp year: within two years of a line, other sources may put it in the neighbouring generation, and the result page says so.

Why Sources Disagree

No single body sets the lines of every generation. Only the Baby Boomers have an official definition — the U.S. Census Bureau's 1946–1964; the other lines are a research convention, and each researcher draws them by its own criteria. One line as an example: Pew Research Center starts the Millennials in 1981, while William Strauss and Neil Howe, who coined the word "Millennials", start them in 1982.

Where It Is Used

• Marketing — segmenting audiences by generation in research and campaigns
• Sociology and surveys — comparing the answers of different birth cohorts
• Demography — describing a population by year of birth
• Work and HR — talking about several generations in one team
• Family history — which generations parents, children and grandchildren belong to

Limits and Caveats

• A US frame. Pew's ranges describe American generations; other countries have their own periodization.
• The lines are conventional. Someone born a year before a line is much like someone born a year after it, which is why cusp years are marked separately.
• Micro-generations. Xennials and Zillennials are informal names for the seams between generations, with no agreed years; they are never the answer.
• This is not your age. How old someone is, the age calculator works out; this page gives only the generation.