By the numbers: Who is Generation Z?

For much of the past decade, Millennials have received the brunt of the attention — and frankly, pretty much all of the derision — from brands and marketers hoping to harness the buying power of the biggest demographic generation since the baby boomers. But their days may soon be numbered, as Millennials’ younger siblings in the next rising generation, Generation Z, already outnumber them. While Gen Z members are still getting their college IDs as freshmen or their driver’s licenses, they nonetheless already exert a fair amount of economic output and even more influence over trends in marketing, social media and popular culture. According to a presentation prepared by branding agency Sparks & Honey, many of the emerging characteristics of Generation Z are a product of the era in which they’ve grown up: a post-9/11, recessionary economy that has had a major effect on their parents and older siblings. While there is still time to prepare for Generation Z’s ascendance, 1851 Magazine gathered a few important numbers from Sparks & Honey’s research. 1995 — Generally speaking, members of Generation Z are children born in or after 1995 and primarily are in high school or the first few years of college. 25.9 percent — Generation Z is already the most populous demographic cohort in the United States, based on U.S. Census data, as more than a quarter of citizens are younger than age 19. In terms of size, Gen Z just edges out Millennials, who constitute 24.5 percent of the population, compared with 23.6 percent for baby boomers, 15.4 percent for Generation X, and 10.5 percent for the “swing generation” of Americans age 69 and older. $44 billion — This generation already punches above its weight in terms of total buying power, at $44 billion worth of annual purchases. Members of Generation Z receive an average weekly allowance of about $16.90, according to Mintel. 55 percent — Slightly more than half of Gen Z respondents to a survey, conducted by Internships.com and Millennial Branding, said they felt pressure from parents to gain early professional experience by working a part-time job while in high school or college. Sparks & Honey pointed to several statistics like this that reflect Generation Z members having grown up and come of age in the Great Recession. The firm added that many Gen Z members’ attitudes toward money and careers have been shaped by seeing older siblings struggle to establish careers and move back in with the family. +50 percent — “Multiracial” is the fastest-growing youth ethnicity in the United States, growing more than 50 percent since 2000 to about 4.2 million people, Sparks & Honey noted. Increasingly, Generation Z children are born to parents in multiracial marriages, which as a trend have increased several times over the past 30 years. 72 percent — Nearly three-fourths of current high school students want to start a business someday, compared with 64 percent of college students, suggesting that Generation Z is showing more of an entrepreneurial streak than the Millennials. In the Internships.com survey cited above, 61 percent of high school students responded that they wanted to be entrepreneurs rather than employees, compared with 43 percent of college students. 1 in 2 — Half of Generation Z members plan to get a college degree, compared for the one in three Millennials who plan to be college educated and the one in four Gen Xers who completed college. 25 percent — One-quarter of 13-to-17-year-olds surveyed said they stopped using Facebook in 2014, highlighting a trend of Generation Z expressing serious privacy concerns regarding social media, which has driven their interest in services like Snapchat, Secret, Whisper and Yik Yak. This age cohort also prefers to communicate with more visually driven social media, trending more toward YouTube and Instagram than Facebook or Twitter. 66 percent — About two-thirds of 6-to-11-year-olds list gaming and video games as their main source of entertainment, according to Mintel. Among teen boys, 51 percent list gaming as their main source of entertainment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Generation Z reports higher average rates of obesity, suggesting that Gen Z is not nearly as active as generations before it.