The New Kids on the Block: Say hello to the Beta Babies
Babies born on 1st January this year up until 31st December 2039 will be part of Generation Beta, a new label replacing Generation Alpha as our world’s youngest cohort. The Australian research firm McCrindle predicted that Gen Beta will make up 16% of the world’s population by 2035, and, in a rather shuddering thought, many will live to see the 22nd century.
It wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about millennials as kids – but kids, they are no longer. In fact, many of them will have teenage children of their own by now.
The starkest difference for this new Generation Beta is they are being born into a completely post-pandemic world. Whilst the lockdown of cities around the world isn’t something they experienced first-hand, it is something they’ll almost certainly learn about in history classes. Much like the youngest of Gen Alpha, who didn’t experience school shutdowns themselves or make their way around restrictions on their freedom, Generation Beta’s families and their older siblings will have been irrevocably shaped by it.
Indeed, when Generation Beta finds out that for a significant period of time meeting friends in a restaurant was illegal, I’m sure it’ll be met with the same bemused expression millennials had when we learned that the Victorians used to shove kids up chimneys.
The way Gen Beta will be brought up will be radically different from their Millennial and Generation Z parents. For Gen Beta, artificial intelligence, automation, and the seamless integration of the digital and physical worlds will be the norm.
Whether in Preston or Paris, Boston or Barcelona, the children of Generation Beta will heavily rely on digital tools to learn and play, which will influence the way they’ll develop and see the world around them. Generation Beta will be surrounded by technology from the moment they are born: the first truly digitally immersed humans. In the same way that they develop everyday relationships with family members, this group will grow accustomed to interacting with technology that is on-demand, instant, intuitive and personalised from a very early age.
Generation Beta will never know the struggle of having to rewind the three and a half hour Titanic tape before returning it to Blockbuster Video; or having to rely on your dad’s copy of Encyclopaedia Britannica for your homework – a copy that was three decades out of date. They’ll also never know a world in which you only got the day’s news when you came home and turned on the TV; nor will they ever know the stress of relying on the London A-Z Street Map to find that house party.
But it won’t all be plain sailing. They will likely grow up with climate change as a dire reality with more direct consequences on their lives. And as they mature, they will see the Gen X and Boomer leaders tackling these problems replaced over time by millennials and Generation Z.
But no matter what the world has in store for them, and despite the speed at which the world is evolving, a bit of scepticism and pragmatism is needed when it comes to clumping hundreds of millions of people across a 15-year age range into one label. Yes, we are shaped by moments in time that we collectively experience at the same time, at similar ages. For millennials, it was arguably events such as the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, and the rise of the internet. For Generation Z it was the arrival of the smartphone and the 2020 pandemic. It’s too early to predict what those will be for Generation Beta, but one thing is for sure – there’ll be plenty of life-defining events around the corner.
So yes, breaking people down into generational splits does provide some steer as to their world view but there are clear drawbacks to generational labels: demographic differences like race and class are arguably bigger factors in shaping a group’s commonalities. And, as marketers, whilst we do like to put people into boxes, typographies and labels, it’s important to remember: whenever you were born, we’re all still individuals.
Gen Beta: 2025-2039
Gen Alpha: 2010-2024
Gen Z: 1997-2009
Millennials: 1981-1996
Generation X: 1965-1980
Boomers: 1946-1964
The Silent Generation: 1928-1945
