Generations · 10 of 11
Today's kids, born into a world of tablets.
Who is Gen Alpha?
Gen Alpha are the children born from 2010 to 2024, in the lines drawn by McCrindle, which named them. They are mostly the children of Millennials. They were born the year the iPad launched, and many started school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Strauss and Howe count them in the Homeland Generation.
The years, by who you ask
Nobody owns these lines. Each researcher draws them for their own reasons, so the edges move.
| McCrindle | 2010–2024 1 |
|---|---|
| Strauss & Howe | part of the Homeland Generation, born from 2005 2 |
| Pew Research Center | not yet defined |
Some writers start them in 2013, after Pew's Gen Z. McCrindle, which named them, uses 2010. 3,1
The world they were born into
What was going on while they were small, and while they were young enough for it to stick.
- Tablets2010Apple launched the iPad in January 2010, the year the first Gen Alpha were born. 4
- Fewer babies2010–2025US births fell from about 4.3 million in 2007 to 4.0 million in 2010, and to 3.6 million in 2025. 5,6
- The pandemic2020WHO characterised COVID-19 as a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Many Gen Alpha children started school in lockdown or behind masks. 7
- Connected2025By 2025, 96 percent of American adults used the internet and 91 percent owned a smartphone: the world Gen Alpha takes for granted. 8,9
Where the name came from
Mark McCrindle named them while researching his first book. When the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season ran out of names and switched to the Greek alphabet, he did the same after X, Y and Z. 1
How they're usually described
The generalities: what researchers and writers say about the group as a whole. A group portrait, never a person.
Too young to describe. The oldest are teenagers. Anything said about their character is forecasting. McCrindle notes many may live at home into their late twenties, and advises parents to teach human skills rather than assume technology will do it. 1
Next to the other generations
Who raised them, who they raised, and where the friction and the common ground show up in the data.
Millennials. Their parents, mostly. McCrindle calls them the children of Generation Y. 1
Gen X. Their grandparents, increasingly. Gen X are mostly Gen Z's parents, not Gen Alpha's. 10
Gen Z. Their older siblings and cousins, and their first teachers and coaches.
In the long cycle
A theory, not a finding: Strauss and Howe's idea that generations come round in a four-part pattern. How the theory works, and its critics.
In the four-turnings theory, children born during a Crisis are Artists. Strauss and Howe's Homeland Generation, from 2005, takes in Gen Alpha; its claimed counterpart is the Silent Generation, also born in a crisis. 2
The decades they were born in
Gen Alpha were born from 2010 on, after the decades this site covers so far. Their parents were mostly born in the 1980s and 1990s.
Questions people ask
What years is Gen Alpha?
2010 to 2024, in McCrindle's definition. Some writers start them in 2013.
Why is it called Generation Alpha?
Because after X, Y and Z, McCrindle went to the Greek alphabet, as the hurricane naming system did in 2005.
Who are Gen Alpha's parents?
Mostly Millennials, with some older Gen Z.
A whole new alphabet. Your card is still just about you.
Your generation is the crowd you were born into. Your card is worked out from your own birthday, minute and place: the sky that night, your numbers and your Chinese year. Sealed until you print it.
What your card covers
See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
1 Who you are
2 The machine says
3 Your sky
4 Love & your people
5 Work & money
6 Your year ahead
Sources
- Generation Alpha defined, McCrindle Research, Mark McCrindle. Read on .
- Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist and Suzanne Newcombe (Inform), 2017, updated 15 January 2021. Read on .
- Generational Cohorts, Wordorigins.org, David Wilton, 20 October 2020. Read on .
- Apple Launches iPad, Apple Newsroom, 27 January 2010. Read on .
- NCHS – Births and General Fertility Rates: United States, 1909–2018, CDC, NCHS (data.gov dataset). Read on .
- U.S. Births down 1% in 2025, CDC, NCHS press release, 9 April 2026. Read on .
- WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, WHO, 11 March 2020. Read on .
- Internet, Broadband Fact Sheet, Pew Research Center, 20 November 2025. Read on .
- Mobile Fact Sheet, Pew Research Center, 20 November 2025. Read on .
- How Gen X Parents Raised Gen Z Kids: Different Than Millennials, Financial Advisor magazine (Bloomberg reporting), Matthew Boyle, 29 July 2019. Read on .