A new analysis from the Pew Research Center compares millennials today to the Silent Generation 50 years ago, finding some striking differences in educational attainment, workforce participation, living preferences, and more.
Today’s young adults are better educated and more ethnically and racially diverse than the Silent Generation, Pew found. Millennial women are four times as likely as their Silent predecessors to have a bachelor’s degree. In addition, more young women have bachelor’s degrees than young men today, a reversal from the Silent Generation. While 58% of young women were not working in 1965, 71% of millennial women today are employed, Pew found.
About six-in-ten Millennials (57%) have never been married, reflecting broader societal shifts toward marriage later in life. In 1965, the typical American woman first married at age 21 and the typical man wed at 23. By 2017, those figures climbed to 27 for women and 29.5 for men.
In addition, while about two-thirds of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers lived in metro areas when they were young, about nine-in-ten Millennials do (88%).
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