Talk:Millennials

Changing a sentence in the lead

In the lead, currently it says "In turn millennials are often the parents of Generation Alpha." referencingt cite 3. However, the source does not say this, it is inverted; in the source it says (about gen alpha) "The majority of their parents? Millennials." - this is the logical opposite of what is in the article, saying that millenials/geny are "often" the parents of gen alhpa. Early millenials have plenty of kids that are gen z, and absent statistical citations showing that there are more gen alpha than gen z born to millenials (at this time), the current statement is factually unsupported. Instead of being bold, I bring it up here, because of the semi-protected state of the article, for discussion, as a proposed edit, removing the quoted sentence in the first line of this discussion topic. The inverse sentence (from the cited source) would be appropriate on the gen alpha page, not here. Rilmallion (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't object to your proposal. The semi-protected state is mostly due to the conflict over the defining dates and associated wording, which is now subject to a consensus. The edit you are proposing will not impact on that. Betty Logan (talk) 19:57, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

With noone else having replied in 24 hours, I'll choose to "be bold" then Rilmallion (talk) 19:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Reopening this question, as the change was reverted with a comment that I should have found a better source (I may be in the wrong here, but I am of the interpretation that the stated source should reflect what it supports, not that other wikipedians have the responsibility to find sources for unsupported statements).

The new source, in my reading, still does not support the statement "In turn millenials are often the parents of Generation Alpha", it has the same problem the previous source had; that it states that Gen Alphas are children of millenials - not that millenials mostly have Gen Alpha children (which the quoted, and suggested deleted statement says). This again means it is relevant for the Generation Alpha page, but not for the Millenial / Gen Y page. The article also has a US only perspective on numbers and trends (which could be interesting, though probably mostly on Gen Alpha, under a"In the US" heading, but not in the page lead).

@Dilbaggg: Could you weigh in here, so we can reach a consensus? Rilmallion (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I suspect WP:BURDEN applies here. Betty Logan (talk) 04:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Often called unlucky? Then you should two sources right?

Unlucky just sounds like somebody who didn't want to bother doing research into how this happened. "If only there were some science that studied currency or wealth or societies that could shed light on why millenials rolled snake eyes". What a joke that is. 2604:3D09:D78:1000:7A9F:15B2:D016:1D91 (talk) 05:38, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

How millenials are considered less lucky than people who lived through two world wars, spanisfh flu and the great depression is beyond me.

Im guessing that source has the famous "graph go down" type of "evidence" to back that up. 46.7.28.113 (talk) 00:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this page written by hateful boomers looking for a scapegoat?

Seriously?! "The me generation" "Me me me". Did you just look for the most pathetic hateful pandering you could find? 2604:3D09:D78:1000:7A9F:15B2:D016:1D91 (talk) 05:47, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

This article just assumes that changes to tourism must be because of millenials.

it just completely ignores that previous generations are still the majority of vacationers, and that their decisions are driven by economics - mostly a cheap peso. 2604:3D09:D78:1000:7A9F:15B2:D016:1D91 (talk) 05:51, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Key to China's "economic miracle" was its one-child policy?, which curbed population growth and enabled the economy to industrialize rapidly.

Minimum wages and free trade in America had no relation at all? It was ENTIRELY because china limited their population to one kid, for thirty years? 2604:3D09:D78:1000:7A9F:15B2:D016:1D91 (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Jimmy Carter and 1979 State of the Union

There's only reason why I've been saying the first Millennials were born in 1979: President Jimmy Carter said in his State of the Union address that year that "our children who will be born this year will come of age in the 21st century." That's the only reason for my edits to include details about Carter's State of the Union address about the first Millennials. SnoopyAndCharlieBrown202070 (talk) 23:53, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

"the young"

Many of the pics have subtitles like "scooters are popular among the young" or "youngsters at concerts", stemming from 2000-2010. It's been almost two decades, we're basically middle-aged by now.... time for some updates? Photos of Millennials doing Millennial stuff in the 2020s? Mantelmoewe (talk) 10:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Or maybe the images should be kept and the captions updated. Nerd271 (talk) 15:55, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

15-year generation?

I understand many sources say this generation is about 15 years long. However, the article says nothing about Strauss–Howe generational theory. S&H were very clear in previous books that generations are typically 20-25 years long, with a few exceptions such as Silent and Gen X which are smaller. The size of a generation is determined by it's age ie. Boomers are a big generation largely because they lasted for nearly 25 years. Because they were large size they dominated culture. The smaller generations were squeezed out to the margins. This article is saying in effect Millennials are a historically small generation, they only lasted 15 years. It makes no sense. I feel like this article cherry picked sources that support the 15 year age, and avoided reporting sources that give it a longer age, thus bigger size and bigger cultural influence.

What's happened now is every generation is 15 years old. Typically a generation is defined by a daughter -> mother -> grandmother. That's 3 generations. They typically last 20 to 25 years between them. Although these days more like 30 years. So I really do think the generations have gotten messed up, because every commercial interest wants to declare a new generation every couple years, because this is how they sell books, reports, consulting services, advertising, etc..

In any case, our article has no information as to what Strauss–Howe generational theory says is the length of the Millennial generation. Even though they were the first to coin and define it, and are probably the single most influential generation theory writers around. The last I read anything on this topic was a long time ago, but S&H were saying they believed it would end around 2006 or so, and be one of the biggest and most influential generations. Not the smaller shorter less influential generation this article defines. -- GreenC GreenC 17:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The Date Range section deals with the different age theories, and mentions Strauss-Howe in that context: "Author Neil Howe, co-creator of the Strauss–Howe generational theory, defines Millennials as being born from 1982 to 2004". The Baby Boomer article defines the boomer generation spanning 1946–1964 (19 years), and that was based on birthrates rather than a traditional interpretation of a "generation". If we go with the Strauss-Howe definition for millenials, that would put Gen X between 1965–1981 (17 years), and millenials 19 years, so the demographic cohort seems to have 18-year iterations give or take a year. The prevailing date range for millenials (1981–1996) does seem to be prematurely curtailed, and appears to contradict its own definition (i.e. the trans-millennial generation) by excluding those born 1997–2000, but as editors we don't have much control over that. I think the article probably does reflect the weighting of views found in reliable sources, and yes it is at odds with a more intuitive understanding of what a generation is. Betty Logan (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out S&H is mentioned. It should have higher placement and explanation, maybe its own section. After all, they invented the idea of a Millennial generation, and wrote entire books about it.

From our article, it looks like the Pew Research Center report from 2019 was influential in establishing the 1996 end date. What is Pew's generation theory? All I could find was this article that is a black box. Summary: we gather data and analyze it. Compare the many books and articles by S&H published over decades, that are extremely in-depth and justify their positions. S&H theory has an internal consistency that goes back a thousand years or more. Pew barely a few generations.

I can see why all of this is problematic for Wikipedia. No doubt there are editors who consider it FRINGE science and the best we can do is report what sources report. Picking Pew is a safe bet in that atmosphere. But PEW has a peculiar notion that every generation is 15-18 years long. This timespan is impossible to justify when looking backwards in time. And pre-setting hard numbers for the length of a generation is also not justifiable. Sometimes they are 15 years. Sometimes closer to 30 years. It's like centuries. Real historians don't periodize history by 100 year segments. They use terms like Long 19th century or Short 20th century because each "century" is defined by characteristics that may or may not be 100 years chronologically. -- GreenC 01:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it is useful to point out that a social generation or a demographic cohort is different from a biological generation? Today, a biological generation is roughly twice as long as a social one, not least because of rapid technological changes, which certainly have an impact on culture and behavior. Jean Twenge explains this in her recent book, Generations. Nerd271 (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC)