Generations · 5 of 11
The latchkey kids. The ones nobody writes about.
Who is Gen X?
Gen X were born from 1965 to 1980, after the baby boom. Smaller than the Boomers and Millennials around them, they grew up with high divorce rates, the Great Inflation and the first home computers. Pew calls them America's "neglected middle child". Strauss and Howe use 1961 to 1981 and call them Nomads.
The years, by who you ask
Nobody owns these lines. Each researcher draws them for their own reasons, so the edges move.
| Pew Research Center | 1965–1980 1 |
|---|---|
| Strauss & Howe | 1961–1981, the "13th Generation" 2 |
| McCrindle | ends 1979 (Gen Y starts 1980) 3 |
Pew points out that Gen X spans only 16 years where most generations span about 20, and that nobody really knows why. Strauss and Howe called them the 13th Generation because they counted twelve American generations before them. 4,5
The world they were born into
What was going on while they were small, and while they were young enough for it to stick.
- Fewer babies1965–1976Births fell from 4 million in 1964 to 3.1 million in 1973, the low of the decade. That "birth dearth" is why Gen X is small. 6
- Money1973–1982They were children in the Great Inflation: the 1973 oil embargo quadrupled crude prices, inflation topped 14 percent in 1980, and the 1981–82 recession pushed unemployment near 11 percent. 7
- Trust1972–1975They grew up through Watergate, the scandal Pew uses as its standard example of an event that shook trust in government across every age group. The break-in was in June 1972; Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974. Saigon fell in April 1975. 8,9,10
- Home life1970s–1980sThey were the latchkey kids, raised in an era of high divorce rates and expected to look after themselves after school. 11
- Computers1981–1984IBM unveiled its PC on 12 August 1981 at $1,565. By 1984, 8.2 percent of American households had a computer, and the Commodore 64 was the most popular one. 12,13
- The wall1989–1991They were young adults when the Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989 and when the Soviet flag came down over the Kremlin on 25 December 1991. 14,15
Where the name came from
Pew traces "Generation X" to the photographer Robert Capa in the 1950s. It was the title of a 1964 book about British youth and of Billy Idol's punk band in 1977, and Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture finally fixed it to the children born after the boom. 4,5
How they're usually described
The generalities: what researchers and writers say about the group as a whole. A group portrait, never a person.
Savvy, sceptical, self-reliant. Those are Pew's words for them. They are also the generation least sure it is special: in a 2010 Pew survey about half of Gen Xers said their generation was unique, against about six in ten Boomers and Millennials. 4
Worried about money. In midlife they were more pessimistic than Boomers or Millennials about having enough to retire, which Pew partly puts down to the financial squeeze of middle age. 4
Overlooked. Pew calls them "a low-slung, straight-line bridge between two noisy behemoths": about 65 million strong in 2014, against 77 million Boomers and about 83 million Millennials. 4
Gloomy teenagers, practical parents. Bloomberg's reporting found that today's Gen Z high-school seniors share the pessimism Gen X seniors showed at the same age in a University of Michigan survey run since 1975. 11
Next to the other generations
Who raised them, who they raised, and where the friction and the common ground show up in the data.
Gen Z. Mostly their children, and the best-documented good relationship Gen X has. Researchers describe Gen X raising Gen Z the way they were raised: with looser reins, expecting them to figure things out. Pew's 2023 surveys found 77 percent of parents of 18-to-34-year-olds rating the relationship excellent or very good, and the researcher Karen Fingerman said these Gen X parents are especially likely to enjoy their grown children's company. 11,16,17
Boomers. Their older siblings and, for many, their parents. Gen X grew up in the Boomers' shadow: Pew notes the media have followed the Boomers from the start and mostly skipped Gen X. 4
Millennials. Their younger siblings and workmates. Pew's data puts Gen X between them on most questions, from marriage rates to trust. 18
Gen Alpha. Mostly the children of Millennials, though older Gen Xers are now becoming their grandparents. 3
What is opinion. The idea that every other generation clashes with Gen X is popular opinion; we found no survey that shows it. What the data do show is that Gen X is the generation least talked about. 4
In the long cycle
A theory, not a finding: Strauss and Howe's idea that generations come round in a four-part pattern. How the theory works, and its critics.
Strauss and Howe make Gen X their modern Nomads, matched with the Lost Generation born 1883 to 1900. Both were born during an awakening, a time when adults were busy with their own rebellion; both grew up with less protection than the children before them; both came of age into a loud, individualist decade. In the theory, Nomads become the hard-headed, practical leaders of the next Crisis. 2
The other comparison people often make, with the 1950s, is a cultural one: Gen X grew up on 1950s nostalgia, from Happy Days to Back to the Future. The theory itself does not draw it. 19,20
The decades they were born in
Gen X runs from 1965 to 1980 in Pew's lines, so it covers the late 1960s, the whole 1970s and the first year of the 1980s.
Questions people ask
What years is Gen X?
Pew Research Center uses 1965 to 1980. Strauss and Howe use 1961 to 1981. People born in the late 1970s and early 1980s are also called Xennials.
Why is Gen X called the forgotten generation?
Because it is smaller than the Boomers before it and the Millennials after it, and gets far less attention. Pew called it "America's neglected middle child" in 2014.
Do Gen X and Gen Z get along?
The best evidence is family data. Gen Z was largely raised by Gen X, and Pew's surveys of parents and young adult children find mostly warm relationships and frequent contact. Claims that other generations clash with Gen X are opinion, not survey findings.
What is a latchkey kid?
A child who let themselves into an empty house after school because both parents worked or the family had one parent. It is the image most often used for Gen X's childhood.
The overlooked generation. A card that looks only at you.
Your generation is the crowd you were born into. Your card is worked out from your own birthday, minute and place: the sky that night, your numbers and your Chinese year. Sealed until you print it.
What your card covers
See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
1 Who you are
2 The machine says
3 Your sky
4 Love & your people
5 Work & money
6 Your year ahead
Sources
- Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins, Pew Research Center, Michael Dimock, 17 January 2019. Read on .
- Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist and Suzanne Newcombe (Inform), 2017, updated 15 January 2021. Read on .
- Generation Alpha defined, McCrindle Research, Mark McCrindle. Read on .
- Generation X: America's neglected 'middle child', Pew Research Center, Paul Taylor and George Gao, 5 June 2014. Read on .
- Generational Cohorts, Wordorigins.org, David Wilton, 20 October 2020. Read on .
- NCHS – Births and General Fertility Rates: United States, 1909–2018, CDC, NCHS (data.gov dataset). Read on .
- The Great Inflation, 1965–1982, Federal Reserve History, Michael Bryan. Read on .
- How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward, Pew Research Center, Kim Parker, 22 May 2023. Read on .
- Nixon and Watergate (American Originals), U.S. National Archives. Read on .
- Ending the Vietnam War, 1969–1973, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Read on .
- How Gen X Parents Raised Gen Z Kids: Different Than Millennials, Financial Advisor magazine (Bloomberg reporting), Matthew Boyle, 29 July 2019. Read on .
- The IBM PC, IBM. Read on .
- Measuring America: Computer & Internet Trends in America, U.S. Census Bureau, January 2014. Read on .
- The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, Library of Congress, 4 Corners of the World blog, November 2019. Read on .
- The Collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Read on .
- Parents' relationship with their young adult children, Pew Research Center, Rachel Minkin, Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Carolina Aragão, 25 January 2024. Read on .
- Surprising Outcome of Parents Involved with Adult Children, The New York Times, Claire Cain Miller, 9 February 2024 (republished by Rethinking65). Read on .
- Millennials in Adulthood, Pew Research Center, 7 March 2014. Read on .
- Happy Days: '50s Nostalgia Turns 50, The Saturday Evening Post, Troy Brownfield, 16 January 2024. Read on .
- Fixing the Fifties: Reaganism, Nostalgia, and Back to the Future (in Back to the Fifties: Nostalgia, Hollywood Film, and Popular Music of the Seventies and Eighties), Oxford Academic, Michael D. Dwyer, 2015. Read on .