Classifying age groups into “generations” is by no means a perfect science. Nonetheless, it’s almost always helpful when assessing economic, political, and cultural trends to group people based on the year they were born. The “Baby Boomer” generation is, of course, defined as those being born following WWII– as GIs returned home to the US, settled down, and started families. “Millennials” have the distinction of growing up with the Internet, social media, and mobile technologies. Generation Xers were born in the years between the spans of these two widely discussed generations; they are a bit more difficult to pin down, characterized most often simply as a demographic bridge between Boomers and Millennials. Defining “Generation X” as those born between 1965 and 1980, the AJC recently published an article bringing attention to the fact that Georgia, along with New Jersey, currently have (among states) the largest concentrations of people from this generation. Based on 2016 population estimates, 21.5% of the state’s population were between 36 and 51 years old.
The map below represents an attempt at visualizing the distribution of “Generation X” by county for the core Atlanta Metro region. Whereas a more refined age break down is available for states, at the county level age data is only available in 5-year cohorts. As such, to create this map “Generation X” was defined as people born between 1967 and 1981, or those aged 35 to 49 in 2016. Data availability issues aside, it’s clear that, in our metro region, Gen Xers are most heavily concentrated in Cherokee, Cobb, Douglas, Fulton, and Gwinnett Counties.
Data Source: US Census, American Community Survey (ACS) 2016, 1-year estimate