Generation Beta has arrived — here’s everything you need to know about the 2025 babies

Move over, Generation Alpha. (And take your luxe skin care, skibidi slang (new window) and fancy tech with you.)

As of Jan. 1, 2025, there’s a newer, younger generation to contend with. And they’re called Generation Beta (new window). Generation Beta (new window), or Gen Beta for short, will be born from 2025 to 2039, according to Australian trends and demographic analysis company McCrindle (new window), which also coined the previous cohort Gen Alpha (2010-2024).

These will be the children of young millennials and older Gen Zs, and McCrindle projects that by 2035 they will make up 16 per cent of the global population. Many will also live to see the 22nd century.

They will only know a post-COVID world. They’ll roll their eyes at old-fashioned slang like rizz. And they’ll ask us to switch off the oldies when we try to play Taylor Swift in the car (The horror!).

They will also be raised in an era of technological integration alongside Gen Alpha, McCrindle explains, which is the reason for the move to the Greek Alphabet back in 2010 — these are not just new generations, but the first … that will be shaped by an entirely different world.

For Generation Beta, the digital and physical worlds will be seamless, McCrindle explains on its website.

While Generation Alpha has experienced the rise of smart technology and artificial intelligence, Generation Beta will live in an era where AI and automation are fully embedded in everyday life — from education and workplaces to health care and entertainment.

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Labelling generations

While there’s no consensus on the years of birth and their assigned generations (new window), broadly, they can be defined as (new window):

• Silent Generation: Born 1928 to 1945, known to be pragmatic and cautious (new window).
• Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964, named after the spike in births following the Second World War (new window).
• Gen X: Born 1965 to 1979, and one of the smaller generations (new window) (also called the Baby Bust or middle child (new window) generation).
• Millennials (Generation Y): Born 1980 to 1994, and the first generation to reach adulthood (new window) in the new millennium.
• Gen Z: Born 1995 to 2009, known for its diversity (new window), and also called the iGeneration for growing up in the iPhone era.
• Generation Alpha: Born 2010 to 2024, the first generation to be assigned a Greek letter, and sometimes called “mini millennials” for their millennial parents (new window).
• Generation Beta: Born 2025 to 2039, will grow up in an AI-saturated world. Are currently … two days old.

It’s worth noting that in recent years, there’s been growing criticism regarding the naming and labelling of generations.

Generational research has become a crowded arena. The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology, the U.S.-based Pew Research Centre wrote in 2023 (new window).

Pew points out that the existing generational definitions can also be too broad and arbitrary to capture all the differences between the cohorts.

“A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience and behaviour within generations,” Pew writes.

More tech, but less online sharing?

That said, here’s what we know about Gen Beta so far.

According to McCrindle, this generation of kids will likely be the first to experience autonomous transportation at scale, wearable health technologies and immersive virtual environments as standard aspects of daily life.

AI algorithms will tailor their learning, shopping and social interactions in ways we can only begin to imagine today, McCrindle writes.

But the company also notes that their Gen Z parents will likely take a different approach to technology (new window) and what they share about Gen Beta online.

CBC News has previously reported that there’s been a recent sharenting reckoning (new window). A term that describes parents who share their children’s lives online, sharenting (new window) has existed since the 2000s, with the rise of so-called mommy bloggers and family influencers. But research suggests the trend increased dramatically (new window) during the pandemic.

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A public health advisory says today’s parents face unique challenges that can impact their mental health. Some parents from older generations say raising children has always been, and always will be, a struggle. Can we really say which generation has had it the worst?

Now, some kids of parenting influencers (new window) are growing up and sharing their negative experiences (new window).

While many millennial parents used social media to document their children’s lives, Generation Z knows more about both the positives and challenges that come with social media use from a young age, McCrindle notes.

This generation will also be the first to be born after the COVID-19 pandemic, but as generational researcher Jason Dorsey told the news site Today (new window), their families and older siblings will have been irrevocably shaped by the school shutdowns and social isolation.

This article is republished from RCI.