Wikipedia:Defining generations is hard
Essay on editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In most Wikipedia articles, verification is simple. You find the fact you need in a reliable source, add a citation to it, and move on. This is not true of date ranges for recent generations (Generation Z, Generation Alpha, etc.) because different sources all give different dates. Reasons for this include:
- Generations have no scientific definitions.
- Generations have no authoritative or official definitions.
- Definitions of more recent generations are still in flux.
- There are two incompatible systems for setting generation date ranges.
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: It's almost impossible to define the range of birth years for recent social generations (Generation Z, Generation Alpha, etc.) in a way that will satisfy everyone. Take a deep breath, remember that the other editors want the best for Wikipedia too, and try to get along. |
In the face of this, editors are left to specify multiple possibilities, or a range for start and end dates instead of a single year, which many don't find satisfying. But there really is no other way.
No scientific definition
Generations are not a scientific concept.[a] They're used to some extent by social scientists, but their primarily use is in marketing. There is no experiment you can run to determine the start year of a generation.
No official definition
There is no organization with the authority to set the date range for a generation. Wikipedia editors are left to survey the ranges given at different websites.
Recent definitions still in flux
Date ranges for older generations, up to the Generation X or Millennials, are static, but younger generations continue to see new date ranges from different sources.
Pew vs. McCrindle
There are two ways of thinking about named generations. The Pew Research Center, an American think tank which looks at social issues and whose definitions are used by many other organizations, exemplifies the first one. They observe historical events and data from surveys to determine shared experiences which justify calling people in a certain age range a generation. For example, from the 2019 press release announcing their official end year for Millennials, "But for analytical purposes, we believe 1996 is a meaningful cutoff between Millennials and Gen Z for a number of reasons, including key political, economic and social factors that define the Millennial generation’s formative years."[1]
Another approach is taken by McCrindle Research, the Australian marketing and consulting firm that coined the name of Generation Alpha (and now Beta). From a white paper on their website, "Generational definitions are most useful when they span a set age range and so allow meaningful comparisons across generations. That is why the generations today each span 15 years with Generation Y (Millennials) born from 1980 to 1994; Generation Z from 1995 to 2009 and Generation Alpha from 2010 to 2024."[2] This does make sense, but it doesn't have widespread acceptance yet.
One more issue: Generation Beta
The above considerations are also true for the names of generations, and the generation after Alpha could (but probably won't) still settle on a name other than Generation Beta. A deletion discussion in early 2024 determined that there wasn't yet a quorum of reliable sources, and the article was deleted then. It was recreated in January 2025.
As of September 2025 sources all say that the date range is 2025-2039, but this isn't a done deal. The sources are all news outlets (no researchers, consulting companies, census bureaus, etc.), and the sources all cite McCrindle. This may well change (see above).
Notes
- With the possible exception of the Baby Boomers, which are often defined in terms of a period of increased birth rate in the United States.