If one were to assume that the Millennial generation, like the famously-large Baby Boomer generation, encompasses everyone born over an 18-year span, the two generations would be about equal in size (77 million). However, this is not because fertility rates in recent times have been especially high — they were about 70% higher during the baby boom from 1946 to 1964 — but because population growth, including a big wave of immigration since then, has added more women of child-bearing age. As a result, the Millennial generation is more ethnically diverse, including about twice as many persons of Hispanic origin (19% of all Millennials) as did the Boomer generation (10%). Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.