Reports on Generations

Reports are listed in reverse chronological order.

Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.
24 Feb 10 A new national survey focuses on American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium. These young people have begun to forge their generational personality: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.

Black-White Conflict Isn’t Society's Largest : The Public Assesses Social Divisions
24 Sep 09 It may surprise anyone who has been following the charges of racism that have flared up during the debate over President Obama’s health care proposals, but the American public doesn’t see race as the source of the strongest social conflict in the country today. That dubious distinction belongs instead to conflicts between immigrants and the native born, and also to conflicts between rich people and poor people.

Take this Job and Love It: Job Satisfaction Highest Among the Self-Employed
17 Sep 09 Frustrated with your job? You might consider working for yourself. Self-employed adults are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than other workers. They're also more likely to work because they want to and not because they need a paycheck. But don't count on becoming financially secure: Self-employed men and women have virtually identical family incomes as other workers but they feel more financial stress, according to a recent Pew Research survey.

Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer : America’s Changing Work Force
3 Sep 09 The American work force is graying -- and not just because the American population itself is graying. Older adults are staying in the labor force longer, and younger adults are staying out of it longer. Both trends took shape about two decades ago. Both have intensified during the current recession. Both are expected to continue after the economy recovers. One reason, according to a Pew Research survey, is that older workers value not just the economics benefits of work, but the psychic and social rewards.

End-of-Life Decisions: How Americans Cope
20 Aug 09 While most Americans approve of laws that say treatment can be stopped if that's what a terminally ill patient desires, they are split on what they would do personally in that situation. Only 27% have put into writing their own wishes regarding end-of-life care.

Forty Years After Woodstock,
A Gentler Generation Gap
12 Aug 09 They have different values, beliefs and lifestyles, but young and old today are disagreeing without being disagreeable. Both also share a fondness for Woodstock-era rock and roll.

Go West, Old Man: Where Older Adults Feel Young at Heart
7 Aug 09 If a latter-day Ponce de Leon were to search for a modern fountain of youth, he'd do well to explore America's West. There he'd find the highest concentration of older adults in the United States who don't think of themselves as old.

Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality
29 Jun 09 Getting old isn't nearly as bad as people think it will be. Nor is it quite as good. On aspects of everyday life ranging from mental acuity to physical dexterity to sexual activity to financial security, a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey among a nationally-representative sample of 2,969 adults finds a sizable gap between the expectations that young and middle-aged adults have about old age and the actual experiences reported by older adults themselves.

Most Middle-Aged Adults Are Rethinking Retirement Plans: The Threshold Generation
28 May 09 In the midst of a recession that has taken a heavy toll on many nest eggs, just over half of all working adults ages 50 to 64 say they may delay their retirement -- and another 16% say they never expect to stop working.

Different Age Groups, Different Recessions: Oldest are Most Sheltered
14 May 09 Older adults are living through what for them has been a kinder, gentler recession -- relatively speaking. They are less likely than younger and middle-aged adults to say that in the past year they have cut back on spending; suffered losses in their retirement accounts; or experienced trouble paying for housing or medical care.

McDonald's and Starbucks: 43% Yin, 35% Yang
10 Feb 09 In the smackdown between Big Macs and caffe lattes, Americans manage to typecast themselves by just about every demographic and ideological characteristic under the sun.

Baby Boomers: The Gloomiest Generation
25 Jun 08 America's baby boomers are in a collective funk. Members of the large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, according to a new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.

Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good Life
9 Apr 08 Americans feel stuck in their tracks. Most survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven’t moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backward (31%) -- the most downbeat assessment in nearly half a century of polling by the Pew Research Center and the Gallup organization. But at the same time, two-thirds say they have a higher standard of living than their parents had.

U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050
11 Feb 08 If current trends continue, immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their descendants will account for 82% of the population growth in the United States during this period, according to new projections from the Pew Research Center. The nation's racial and ethnic mix will change markedly by mid-century, the projections show, with the Hispanic share rising to 29%. Among non-Hispanic race groups, the Asian share will rise to 9%, the non-Hispanic black share will hold steady at 13% and the non-Hispanic white share will fall to 47%. The nation's elderly population (ages 65 and above) will more than double in size from 2005 to 2050 and by mid-century will make up 19% of the total population.

A Portrait of Generation Next: How Young People View Their Lives, Futures and Politics
9 Jan 07 A new generation has come of age, shaped by an unprecedented revolution in technology and dramatic events both at home and abroad. They are Generation Next, the cohort of young adults who have grown up with personal computers, cell phones and the internet and are now taking their place in a world where the only constant is rapid change.

Baby Boomers: From the Age of Aquarius to the Age of Responsibility
8 Dec 05 As the oldest of the nation's 75 million baby boomers approach the age of 60, a Pew Research Center survey finds many are looking ahead to their own retirement while balancing a full plate of family responsibilities - either raising minor children or providing financial and other forms of support to adult children or to aging parents.