A new study by the Bay Area Council has found the cost of living in the area may send millennials packing, leaving experts to fear the region's thriving tech industry will suffer. Michelle Roberts reports. (Published Thursday, March 30, 2017) 
 
 The milestones of adulthood for today's millennials: economic security and finishing school — not rushing to get married and have a family. 
 
 And once they are married, young women in America are less likely to see homemaking as a career. 
 
 The share of young women 25 to 34 who opted to forgo outside employment in favor of managing a household plunged from 43 percent in 1975 to just 14 percent last year, according to the Census Bureau. Census demographers believe that number could be among the lowest on record. 
 
 It's part of a long-running trend of higher educational attainment for women but also a reflection of changing attitudes among Americans. 
 
 Hurricane Irma Batters South Florida 
 
 Hurricane Irma brought strong winds and rain to South Florida over the weekend, flooding streets and causing power outages across the state. Follow a livestream of continuing coverage of Hurricane Irma as it barrels through Florida. Get the latest on Irma from NBC 6 anywhere, anytime by downloading our apps for iOS and Android. Click here for full coverage of the powerful storm. (Published Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017) 
 
 "We see more young women who have a college degree and are in the labor force, and they are waiting to get married and have kids," said Jonathan Vespa, a demographer at the Census Bureau. Demographers found changing U.S. sentiment in which more than half of Americans now believe marrying and having children are not important signs of reaching independence. 
 
 More young adults than before are focusing first on receiving a bachelor's degree or higher and securing a job. They are still actively pursuing romantic relationships but opting to cohabitate or court mates while living with mom and dad. 
 
 The findings were part of a census report released Wednesday tracking the changing economics and demographics of young adults from 1976 to 2016, with a focus on the current generation of 25 to 34 year olds, known as millennials. 
 
 Many analysts had expected that as the economy improved, younger adults would increasingly move out on their own, either living independently or starting families. But that hasn't happened. 
 
 Vespa said educational gains for women in particular have led to broader changes as to how Americans view work and family. 
 
 Some things to know: 
 
 MARRIAGE ON HOLD BUT ROMANCE CONTINUES 
 
 Young adults may be delaying marriage but that doesn't mean they aren't finding love. 
 
 Since 1975, young people living with a boyfriend or girlfriend jumped more than 12 times, from less than 1 percent to 9 percent last year. It's part of a growing cohabitation trend of couples living together before marriage. 
 
 Not only are they living together, but they are doing so at around the same age that previous generations would marry. 
 
 Since the 1980s, the age when people cohabitate has remained steady at 22 while the age of marriage has risen from 22 to 27 for women. 
 
 Still, by and large, young adults were more likely to be living with mom and dad last year. 
 
 About 23 percent lived with their parents, compared to 20 percent who were living with a spouse. 
 
 Hurricane Irma’s Path of Destruction 
 
 Hurricane Irma has cut a huge path of destruction through several Caribbean islands on its path toward the United States. See what the aftermath looked like as some of those islands began to recover. (Published Friday, Sept. 8, 2017) 
 
 SOME MEN FALLING BEHIND 
 
 Women are making some gains in the labor force. 
 
 While the share of young men in the workforce is largely unchanged from 1975 at 84 percent, the level of young women working rose from 50 percent to 70 percent. 
 
 In addition, four decades ago almost all young women who chose not to work cited "taking care of home and family" as the main reason. But by 2016, less than half of young women who were out of the labor force were homemakers. 
 
 Meanwhile, more young men are falling to the bottom of the income ladder. In 1975, 25 percent of young men ages 25 to 34 had incomes of less than $30,000 per year. But by 2016, the share of lower income male earners had risen to 41 percent. 
 
 Women saw some economic gains, with median income of working women aged 25 to 34 rising from $23,000 to $29,000. Among higher income earners of $60,000 or more, the share of women grew from 2 percent to 13 percent. Still, the median income of young women remains $11,000 lower than the income of young men. 
 
 Copyright Associated Press ||||| Millennial workers, those ages 18 to 35, are just as likely to stick with their employers as their older counterparts in Generation X were when they were young adults, according to recently released government data. 
 
 And among the college-educated, Millennials have longer track records with their employers than Generation X workers did in 2000 when they were the same age as today’s Millennials. 
 
 Every two years the U.S. Department of Labor collects data on how long workers have been with their current employer as part of the Current Population Survey. Though the data have been collected periodically since the early 1950s, the present tenure questions began in 1996, so we can only compare Millennial workers with Gen X workers when they were the same age. 
 
 In January 2016, 63.4% of employed Millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1998, reported that they had worked for their current employer at least 13 months. In February 2000, somewhat fewer 18- to 35-year-olds (59.9%) – most of whom are today’s Gen Xers – reported similar job tenure. Looking at young workers with longer tenures, 22% of Millennial workers had been with their employer for at least five years as of 2016, similar to the share of Gen X workers (21.8%) in 2000. 
 
 One factor that may be contributing to Millennials staying with employers longer is their relatively high levels of education, which is typically associated with longer tenure. Among 25- to 35-year-old workers in 2016, 38% of Millennial men and 46% of Millennial women had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. The Gen X workforce back in 2000 had significantly lower levels of educational attainment: 31% of male 25- to 35-year-old workers had finished college, as had only 34% of female workers. 
 
 These college-educated Millennials are sticking with their jobs longer than their Gen X counterparts. About 75% of college-educated 25- to 35-year-olds (75% for men and 74% for women) had worked for their employer at least 13 months in 2016. Back in 2000, somewhat fewer college-educated Gen X women (70%) had been on the job that long. Among college-educated Gen X men, 72% had similar tenure. 
 
 The increasing job tenure of college-educated Millennials is consistent with a decline in employer switching among all working-age adults since the 1980s. The reasons for the decline are not well understood. Recent research indicates that the rise of dual-career households, the decline in middle-skill jobs, occupational licensing and the need for employees to retain health insurance cannot account for much of the decline in job-switching. 
 
 The longer tenure of college-educated Millennials compared with that of Gen X workers does not necessarily translate into higher wages or more job security. They may be sticking with their current employers due to a dearth of opportunities to get a better job with a different employer. But, in any event, their reported tenure makes clear that the “job-hopping Millennial” characterization does not fit the broad Millennial workforce. 
 
 The trend is different among less-educated young adults. For example, among Millennials with a high school education, 70% of men and 69% of women had been with their employer at least 13 months. These proportions are similar to their high-school-educated counterparts among today’s Gen Xers in 2000 (72% for men and 71% for women). 
 
 Topics: Educational Attainment, Millennials, Business and Labor, Education, Work and Employment, Generations and Age ||||| For First Time In 130 Years, More Young Adults Live With Parents Than With Partners 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Education Images/UIG via Getty Images Education Images/UIG via Getty Images 
 
 For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans ages 18-34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other living situation, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center. 
 
 In that age group, 32.1 percent of people live in their parents' house, while 31.6 live with a spouse or partner in their own homes and 14 percent live alone, as single parents or in a home with roommates or renters. The rest live with another family member, a nonfamily member or in group-living situations such as a college dorm or prison. 
 
 toggle caption Pew Research Center/NPR 
 
 Pew notes that this is not a record high percentage for the number of young people living at home — in 1940, for instance, approximately 35 percent of people in that age range lived at home. 
 
 But back then, living with a spouse or partner was even more popular than that. Today not so: More people choose an alternative living situation, and out of the crowded field of choices, life with Mom and/or Dad has become the top pick for millennials. 
 
 Well — some millennials. Men, for starters. 
 
 American men ages 18-34 live with their parents 35 percent of the time, and with a spouse or partner 28 percent of the time. For women, the numbers are nearly reversed; 35 percent live with a partner, while 29 percent live with their parents. 
 
 Living with mom or dad: More common for sons than daughters https://t.co/7SxlYSwEBi pic.twitter.com/gQTFUJZKiU — Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) May 24, 2016 
 
 Less educated young adults are also more likely to live with their parents than are their college-educated counterparts — no surprise, Pew notes, given the financial prospects in today's economy. 
 
 Black and Hispanic young people, compared with white people, are in the same situation. 
 
 For black people in particular, the "new" milestone isn't so new at all. Black young adults have been more likely to live with their parents than in any other situation since 1980. Today, 36 percent of black millennials live with their parents, while 17 percent live with a spouse or partner. 
 
 Meanwhile, taken as a whole, women, white people, Asian/Pacific Islanders and people with bachelor's degrees are still more likely to live with spouses or partners than with their parents. 
 
 But the overall trend is the same for every demographic group — living with parents is increasingly common. 
 
 (Young Americans are still less likely to live with their parents than their southern European friends. In Macedonia, more than 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds reportedly live at home, Pew says.) 
 
 For many millennials, Pew's conclusions might seem both unsurprising and easy to explain: The Great Recession happened, of course! 
 
 But the rise in the number of young adults living at home started before the economic crash — and so did the possible contributing factors. Male unemployment has been on the rise for decades, Pew says. Even those who have jobs are making less than they would have in their parents' day — for young men, Pew notes, inflation-adjusted wages have been falling since 1970. 
 
 And then fewer young people are married than in decades past. Even accounting for the increased popularity of cohabitation, there are just fewer paired-up 20-somethings and 30-somethings than there used to be. 
 
 In general, the study shows how dramatically the living situations of 18- to 34-year-olds have changed since 1880, when the data begin. 
 
 Living alone, as a single parent, or with roommates — once a rarity — is now the choice of 14 percent of people in that age group. And a full 25 percent of young men are now living with other family, nonfamily or group quarters. 
 
 Male prosperity rose steadily, and more and more men left the nest — until the '60s and '70s, when wages started to drop and more men stayed home. 
 
 And women? For decades women who worked were more likely to live with their parents than with a partner or spouse — because wives were discouraged from having jobs, per Pew's straightforward interpretation. 
 
 But now more and more young women have jobs, and it's unemployed women who are more likely to live with their parents. And yet, even as female prosperity rose, so did the number of young women living at home. 
 
 Pew speculated it might because of men's lower earnings keeping women from marrying and moving out. Seem plausible? The question might make for a fruitful conversation in households across America tonight ... just ask Mom to pass the peas and the theories. ||||| For decades, Pew Research Center has been committed to measuring public attitudes on key issues and documenting differences in those attitudes across demographic groups. One lens often employed by researchers at the Center to understand these differences is that of generation. 
 
 Generations provide the opportunity to look at Americans both by their place in the life cycle – whether a young adult, a middle-aged parent or a retiree – and by their membership in a cohort of individuals who were born at a similar time. 
 
 As we’ve examined in past work, generational cohorts give researchers a tool to analyze changes in views over time. They can provide a way to understand how different formative experiences (such as world events and technological, economic and social shifts) interact with the life-cycle and aging process to shape people’s views of the world. While younger and older adults may differ in their views at a given moment, generational cohorts allow researchers to examine how today’s older adults felt about a given issue when they themselves were young, as well as to describe how the trajectory of views might differ across generations. 
 
 Pew Research Center has been studying the Millennial generation for more than a decade. But as we enter 2018, it’s become clear to us that it’s time to determine a cutoff point between Millennials and the next generation. Turning 37 this year, the oldest Millennials are well into adulthood, and they first entered adulthood before today’s youngest adults were born. 
 
 In order to keep the Millennial generation analytically meaningful, and to begin looking at what might be unique about the next cohort, Pew Research Center will use 1996 as the last birth year for Millennials for our future work. Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 22 to 37 in 2018) will be considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward will be part of a new generation. Since the oldest among this rising generation are just turning 21 this year, and most are still in their teens, we think it’s too early to give them a name – though The New York Times asked readers to take a stab – and we look forward to watching as conversations among researchers, the media and the public help a name for this generation take shape. In the meantime, we will simply call them “post-Millennials” until a common nomenclature takes hold. 
 
 Generational cutoff points aren’t an exact science. They should be viewed primarily as tools, allowing for the kinds of analyses detailed above. But their boundaries are not arbitrary. Generations are often considered by their span, but again there is no agreed upon formula for how long that span should be. At 16 years (1981 to 1996), our working definition of Millennials will be equivalent in age span to their preceding generation, Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980). By this definition, both are shorter than the span of the Baby Boomers (19 years) – the only generation officially designated by the U.S. Census Bureau, based on the famous surge in post-WWII births in 1946 and a significant decline in birthrates after 1964. 
 
 Unlike the Boomers, there are no comparably definitive thresholds by which later generational boundaries are defined. But for analytical purposes, we believe 1996 is a meaningful cutoff between Millennials and post-Millennials for a number of reasons, including key political, economic and social factors that define the Millennial generation’s formative years. 
 
 Most Millennials were between the ages of 5 and 20 when the 9/11 terrorist attacks shook the nation, and many were old enough to comprehend the historical significance of that moment, while most post-Millennials have little or no memory of the event. Millennials also grew up in the shadow of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which sharpened broader views of the parties and contributed to the intense political polarization that shapes the current political environment. And most Millennials were between 12 and 27 during the 2008 election, where the force of the youth vote became part of the political conversation and helped elect the first black president. Added to that is the fact that Millennials are the most racially and ethnically diverse adult generation in the nation’s history. Yet the next generation – those currently 21 or younger – is even more diverse. 
 
 Beyond politics, most Millennials came of age and entered the workforce facing the height of an economic recession. As is well documented, many of Millennials’ life choices, future earnings and entrance to adulthood have been shaped by this recession in a way that may not be the case for their younger counterparts. The long-term effects of this “slow start” for Millennials will be a factor in American society for decades. 
 
 Technology, in particular the rapid evolution of how people communicate and interact, is another generation-shaping consideration. Baby Boomers grew up as television expanded dramatically, changing their lifestyles and connection to the world in fundamental ways. Generation X grew up as the computer revolution was taking hold, and Millennials came of age during the internet explosion. 
 
 In this progression, what is unique for post-Millennials is that all of the above have been part of their lives from the start. The iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest post-Millennials were 10. By the time they were in their teens, the primary means by which young Americans connected with the web was through mobile devices, WiFi and high-bandwidth cellular service. Social media, constant connectivity and on-demand entertainment and communication are innovations Millennials adapted to as they came of age. For those born after 1996, these are largely assumed. 
 
 The implications of growing up in an “always on” technological environment are only now coming into focus. Recent research has shown dramatic shifts in youth behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles – both positive and concerning – for those who came of age in this era. What we don’t know is whether these are lasting generational imprints or characteristics of adolescence that will become more muted over the course of their adulthood. Beginning to track this post-Millennial generation over time will be of significant importance. 
 
 Pew Research Center is not the first to draw an analytical line between Millennials and the generation to follow them, and many have offered well-reasoned arguments for drawing that line a few years earlier or later than where we have. Perhaps, as more data are collected over the years, a clear, singular delineation will emerge. We remain open to recalibrating if that occurs. But more than likely the historical, technological, behavioral and attitudinal data will show more of a continuum across generations than a threshold. As has been the case in the past, this means that the differences within generations can be just as great as the differences across generations, and the youngest and oldest within a commonly defined cohort may feel more in common with bordering generations than the one to which they are assigned. This is a reminder that generations themselves are inherently diverse and complex groups, not simple caricatures. 
 
 In the near term, you will see a number of reports and analyses from the Center that focus on generations and change over time. Today, we issued a report looking at some of our longest running trends in political and social attitudes and values that continue to show significant generational divides on many critical dimensions. In the coming weeks, we will be updating demographic analyses that compare Millennials to previous generations at the same stage in their life cycle to see if the demographic, economic and household dynamics of Millennials continue to stand apart from their predecessors. And this year we will be launching a number of surveys of 13- to 17-year-olds to begin to look at technology use and attitudes in the next generation of American adults. 
 
 Yet, we remain cautious about what can be projected onto a generation when they remain so young. Donald Trump may be the first U.S. president most post-Millennials know as they turn 18, and just as the contrast between George W. Bush and Barack Obama shaped the political debate for Millennials, the current political environment may have a similar effect on the attitudes and engagement of post-Millennials, though how remains a question. As important as today’s news may seem, it is more than likely that the technologies, debates and events that will shape post-Millennials are still yet to be known. 
 
 We look forward to spending the next few years studying this generation as it enters adulthood. All the while, we’ll keep in mind that generations are a lens through which to understand societal change, rather than a label with which to oversimplify differences between groups. 
 
 Correction: A previous version of this post misstated the ages of the youngest Millennials at two points in recent history. Under our revised definition, most Millennials were ages 5 to 20 on Sept. 11, 2001, and were ages 12 to 27 when Obama was elected. 
 
 Topics: Baby Boomers, Millennials, Generations and Age ||||| Photo: Unspecified 
 
 When it comes to millennials and sex, there are two narratives going on at the moment, and they clash pretty severely. One, expressed in the form of panicky think pieces about Kids These Days, argues that because of the rise of dating apps, a reduced emphasis on commitment, and various other factors, young people are having casual sex at a higher rate than ever before, and this may be causing psychological problems, particularly for young women, who — so the story usually goes — don’t get as much out of casual sex as the guys they are hooking up with. 
 
 The other narrative is that, well, the kids are all right. Even assuming there is something wrong with safe, consensual casual sex (and the proper answer to that question is it’s complicated), some researchers who track generational differences in behavior have found something that might surprise the panickers: if anything, today’s young people are hooking up less than members of past recent generations did when they were the same age. In an article published last year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, for example, Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and Ryne Sherman of Florida Atlantic University wrote that, among adults, the “[n]umber of sexual partners increased steadily between the G.I.s and 1960s-born Gen X’ers [with Boomers in the middle] and then dipped among Millennials to return to Boomer levels.” That is, millennials, on average, appear to be having sex with fewer people than Gen-Xers did when they were at the same age, and about the same amount of sex as the boomers did when they were in their younger years. 
 
 Now, Twenge, who is the author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before, has teamed up with Sherman and with Brooke Wells of Widener University to release a new paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that adds solid new support to the don’t-panic theory. This paper looks specifically at the question of what percentage of millennials reported having had no sex partners since age 18, and it found that a surprising number are, willingly or not, living a life of chastity. 
 
 The researchers looked at responses to the General Social Survey, a survey that has been administered most years since 1972, in which a nationally representative sample of Americans are asked a wide range of questions about their behaviors and beliefs (some of the questions change over time). Specifically, Twenge and her colleagues honed in on two questions that have been asked since 1989: ‘‘Now thinking about the time since your 18th birthday (including the past 12 months), how many female partners have you had sex with?” and the same question with “male” swapped in instead. (Note that someone who responses “0” to both isn’t necessarily a virgin, because they could have had sex before they turned 18.) 
 
 Here are the key findings (note that I’m snipping off a few columns worth of statistical information that are in the paper itself): 
 
 “Millennials,” write the authors, “especially those born in the 1990s, were significantly more likely to have no sexual partners as adults compared to Gen X’ers born in the 1960s.” In some cases, percentage-wise, the difference is stark: 15 percent of those born 1990–1994 reported having no sex partners, for example, as compared to just 6 percent of those born 1965–1969.” And when the researchers conducted some statistical analysis to try to disaggregate the various forces that could give rise to a change like this, they found that “[m]ost of the rise in sexual inactivity was due to cohort rather than time period” — a fancy way of saying something is going on among that age group in particular, rather than in society at large. 
 
 So what is going on with millennials that is causing a relatively high percentage of them to not have sex? Twenge and her colleagues present a few different partial theories. One has to do with the fact that, as Sherman put it in an email to me, “A lot of Millennials and all of IGen [those born 1995–2012, per the researchers’ definition] got sex after AIDS awareness.” I’m sure I’m not the only millennial who remembers that the concept of sex and fear of AIDS were tightly intertwined from the first time we really learned what the former was. Many of us grew up in the shadow of the peak of the AIDS epidemic, and can vividly remember how monumental a national story it was when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive. So, the theory goes, people born in the 1980s or later might be a little less enthusiastic about jumping into sex, since the potential negative consequences seem a lot more dire than they did to past generations. 
 
 Another factor has to do with the changing lifestyle of young people. “With more living with their parents even postrecession (Pew Research Center, 2015), young adults may have fewer opportunities to have sex. In addition, marriage is the traditional outlet for sexuality, and only 26% of Millennials aged 18–32 were married as of 2014, compared to 36% of GenX’ers (born 1965–1979) in 1997 and 48% of Boomers.” So the odds that a young person is unmarried and living with his or her parents today is significantly higher than it was in the past, and that on its own reduces the odds that they will have had sex since turning 18. 
 
 So there’s a lot going on. But the one unifying story line, according to Twenge, is that “Adulthood is being postponed across the board,” as she put it in an email. “People are marrying, having children, and settling into careers later. For GenX, that didn’t change when they started having sex. But for late Millennials and iGen, sex is now joining the later to adulthood party. Sex has caught up to other adult milestones and is being delayed. This is also consistent with data from teens: In data from the CDC, 41% of high school students had sex in 2015, down from 54% in 1991.” (This is something Twenge and her colleagues note in their paper as well: All the same major trends also show up when you look at what various generations were doing as teenagers — this paper just completes the picture, in a sense.) 
 
 While Twenge isn’t a fan of many of the popular horror stories about hookup apps and out-of-control promiscuity among kids, simply because she doesn’t think they’re true — “There are some teens and young adults who are using hookup apps and are very promiscuous; it’s just they are the exception,” she said — she does think technology could be playing a role here, too. “They’re on their phones,” she said. “If young adults have moved their social lives online, they will be with their peers less in person and may have fewer opportunities to have sex. And overall, there’s just so much other entertainment out there.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that young people are making a conscious decision to, say, play video games instead of have sex, but it could mean that video games, and other not-in-person activities, are a bigger part of the fabric of being young today than they were in the past, and that those activities are less likely to lead to the interactions that in turn lead to sex — especially when you mix them with all the other, aforementioned factors that make it less likely today’s young adults have had sex, or had sex recently. 
 
 It’s unlikely this research, or the other studies that have found similar things, will do much to puncture the annoyingly loud myth that young people are all running around, hooking up constantly and heedlessly. But it’s a useful reminder that every generation is the victim of “kids these days” stories from adults, and that those stories shouldn’t be taken at face value. The truth is always more complicated, and, for those willing to look, can reveal some interesting things about how America is changing. ||||| Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028. 
 
 The Millennial generation continues to grow as young immigrants expand its ranks. Boomers – whose generation was defined by the boom in U.S. births following World War II – are older and their numbers shrinking as the number of deaths among them exceeds the number of older immigrants arriving in the country. 
 
 
 
 Generations are analytical constructs, and developing a popular and expert consensus on what marks the boundaries between one generation and the next takes time. Pew Research Center has established that the oldest “Millennial” was born in 1981. The Center continues to assess demographic, attitudinal and other evidence on habits and culture that will help to establish when the youngest Millennial was born or even when a new generation begins. To distill the implications of the census numbers for generational heft, this analysis assumes that the youngest Millennial was born in 1997. 
 
 Here’s a look at some generational projections: 
 
 Millennials 
 
 With immigration adding more numbers to its group than any other, the Millennial population is projected to peak in 2036 at 81.1 million. Thereafter the oldest Millennial will be at least 56 years of age and mortality is projected to outweigh net immigration. By 2050 there will be a projected 79.2 million Millennials. 
 
 Generation X 
 
 For a few more years, Gen Xers are projected to remain the “middle child” of generations – caught between two larger generations of the Millennials and the Boomers. They are smaller than Millennials because the generational span of Gen X (16 years) is shorter than the Millennials (17 years). Also, the Gen Xers were born during a period when Americans were having fewer children than later decades. When Gen Xers were born, births averaged around 3.4 million per year, compared with the 3.9 million annual rate during the 1980s and 1990s when Millennials were born. 
 
 Though the oldest Gen Xer is now 50, the Gen X population will still grow for a few more years. The Gen X population is projected to outnumber the Boomers in 2028 when there will be 64.6 million Gen Xers and 63.7 million Boomers. The Census Bureau projects that the Gen X population will peak at 65.8 million in 2018. 
 
 Baby Boomers 
 
 Baby Boomers have always had an outsized presence compared with other generations. They were the largest generation and peaked at 78.8 million in 1999. 
 
 There were an estimated 74.9 million Boomers in 2015. By midcentury, the Boomer population will dwindle to 16.6 million. 
 
 This post was originally published on Jan. 16, 2015, and updated on April 25, 2016, to indicate that Millennials have officially surpassed Baby Boomers in population. 
 
 Related posts: 
 
 5 facts about Millennial households 
 
 Generation X: America’s neglected ‘middle child’ 
 
 Topics: Baby Boomers, Generations and Age, U.S. Census, Millennials
– It seems to be a rite of passage that "young adults" in the US (classified as those between the ages of 18 and 34, per the US Census Bureau) take a bit of guff from the generations that preceded them. Millennials, ID'd by Pew Research as those born between 1981 and 1997, haven't escaped this fate, but while many label the current younger set as simply hanging out "in the basement playing video games," as USA Today notes, that's not quite the case. The Census Bureau released a population report Wednesday that looks back at the 18-34 demographic over the past four decades, comparing today's young adults to those going back to 1975. "If one theme describes how adulthood has changed over the last 40 years, it is growing complexity," the report notes. A few notable trends stand out, and the internet is buzzing about them: Parents who dread an empty nest can relax, because the Kansas City Star notes your millennial boarders may not be going anywhere anytime soon. In 2005, just 26% of young adults still shacked up with Mom and Dad, but that number settled in at around 34% in 2015—a 30% spike in just 10 years. Per the Miami Herald, millennials seem to look more highly upon a good education than their predecessors, with 37% boasting at least a bachelor's degree in 2016, compared with 23% in 1975. The extra schooling likely explains a drop homeownership among millennials, from 52% in 1975 to 29% today. You won't find millennials starting families as soon as they're done with that schooling, and women especially aren't as eager to be relegated to homemaker roles as past generations, NBC Washington reports. Economic security comes before marriage—and while about 84% of young men are in the workforce (a number that's stayed constant this whole time), that percentage has jumped from 50% to 70% for women since 1975. A separate study finds that the most popular brands among millennials are Victoria's Secret, Sephora, and Nike, reports Bloomberg. Pew Research dispels the myth that millennials are flakes when it comes to holding down a job, pointing out that millennials in 2016 stayed at their jobs for five years or longer at around the same numbers as Generation Xers did when they were the same age—and actually outpaced Gen Xers by a few percentage points when it came to sticking it out with an employer for 13 months or longer. Adulting classes for millennials might not be necessary after all, then?