The makings of the Greatest Generation Of the 16 million Americans who fought in World War II, only about 167,000 were still alive as of 2022.
The Greatest Generation members also tend to be the parents of the Baby Boomer generation. There are fewer than 100,000 of the Greatest Generation left today in the U.S.
In the developed world, they tended to reach retirement and average life expectancy during the decades after the conflict, but some significantly outlived the norm. The last surviving person who was known to have been born during the 19th century was Nabi Tajima, who died in 2018.
The last member of this generation to be elected president was George H. W. Bush (1989–1993), and as of 2023 the last surviving president from this generation is Jimmy Carter (1977–1981).
The Greatest Generation – born 1901-1924
If still with us, these folks are between the ages of 98 and 121.
Gen X is sometimes called the “Forgotten Generation.” They are the smallest generation by population, with about 65 million people.
The Pew Research Center uses 1928 to 1945 as birth years for this cohort. According to this definition, people of the Silent Generation are 77 to 95 years old in 2023.
The term “Silent Generation” was first documented in a 1951 Time magazine article, which claimed that the most startling fact about this generation was its silence: “By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers and mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame.” The generation's “silent” behavior ...
We generally figure three or four generations to every 100 years — in rare instances only two, in others five. The average span from one generation to the next is about 25 to 30 years. In the space of 350 years, you can estimate that there will be roughly 12 generations.
It's rare to have six living generations. Guinness World Records say the current record for most living generations in a family is seven.
Today, fewer than 389,000 of the 16 million Americans who fought during World War II remain.
Generation Alpha encompasses those born between 2010 and 2025. Gen Z is the first digital native generation, while Gen Alpha is the first generation to grow up in an entirely digital world.
Generation Alpha are the youngest people alive today. Sources suggest that the final members of the cohort will be born in the mid-2020s, often citing 2024 or 2025 specifically.
They tend to play it safe. That's very like the Silent gen. In fact, Time magazine gave Silents their name because they played it safe, keeping their heads down and not speaking out about issues like McCarthyism and civil rights. Silents were shaped by the Great Depression when millions of Americans lost their jobs.
The “silent generation” are those born from 1925 to 1945 – so called because they were raised during a period of war and economic depression. The “baby boomers” came next from 1945 to 1964, the result of an increase in births following the end of World War II.
Baby boomers have the highest household net worth of any US generation. Defined by the Federal Reserve as being born between 1946 and 1964 (currently in the ages between 59 and 77), baby boomers are in often in the sunset of their career or early into retirement.
Gen Z is also the smartest and best educated generation. Having an unlimited wealth of information at our disposal has not gone to waste. In America, 57 percent of Gen Z is reported to have enrolled in a two-year or four-year college, compared to 52 percent of Millenials and 43 percent of Gen X.
However, Gen Zs also are more likely than previous generations to seek help for their depression, stress, and anxiety which can help them manage their shared and personal stressors. This article looks at possible reasons for depression among Gen Z and discusses ways they can seek help.
Generation Jones and the Boomers
The Baby Boomer generation was born between the post-war years of 1946 to 1964. A subset of the Boomers, Generation Jones, was born in the later years of the Baby Boom, from 1954 to 1964.
The United States Census Bureau defines baby boomers as "individuals born in the United States between mid-1946 and mid-1964". Landon Jones, in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980), defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1946 through 1964.