What Is Millennial Generation?

Generations

“Generation” refers to a group of people who were born and came of age together over a period of roughly 20 years. This is an approximate period, which refers to an individual’s birth to early adulthood. To date, current generations can be divided into six periods: The Greatest Generation (G.I.) (1901–1924), Silent (1925–1942), Boom (1943–1960), Gen-X (1961–1981), Millennial (1982–2002), and post-9/11, whom some have termed 20-20 (2003–present). It is worth noting that the Boom Generation refers to “Baby Boomers,” and the Millennial Generation is also called “Generation Y”, “Generation Me,” and the “Net Generation.” Additionally, each generation experiences the same events during the same period, and has similar values, and, viewpoints, both cultural and economic, so they are called a generation cohort (Özçelik, 2015; Sauser & Sims, 2012). Sauser and Sims (2012) indicate that writers use different names for these generations, and even the birth dates are different. However, Özçelik’s (2015) account of the eras of Boom, Gen-X, and Millennial differs from Sauser and Sims’s (2012) version. Özçelik (2015) describes as the Baby-Boomer Generation, those who were born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X those who were born between 1965 and 1980; and the Millennium Generation those who were born between 1981 and 2000. Furthermore, Murphy (2012) reports different periods for the six generations. Table 1 shows the period of the six generations from these three authors’ viewpoints. The Millennial Generation have already started or are about to start their careers, and the Baby-Boomer Generation are nearing retirement age. Both generations (Baby Boomers and Millennials) have roughly twice as many members as Generation X (Murphy, 2012). In this study, “Boom Generation” and “Baby-Boomer Generation” are used interchangeably.

Note: “-” means the authors do not mention the era.