Generation Beta: Born into climate change and shifting demographics

Babies born on the first day of 2025 aren’t going to be just the first of the year — they’re the first of a new generation. The incoming Generation Beta — people born between 2025 and 2039 — is the seventh concurrent generation of our times. They’re expected to make up 16 per cent of the global population and many of them are expected to live long enough to see the dawn of the 22nd century. 

 

Unlike Gen Z, who witnessed the transition from analogue to digital technology, Gen Beta will grow up in a highly technologically integrated world, significantly altered by the emergence of artificial intelligence. As a result, they are expected to  exhibit ultra-high technological fluency. Gen Beta is also being born into a world where trust in traditional institutions that defined not just a generation but entire centuries is waning. So, they may have to set new rules to run their new world.  

But does this generational change of gears really matter? From the “Lost Generation” to Screenagers, different generations have defined the course of history over the past 150 years. But what exactly is meant by “generations”? As much as the word “generation” can take on different meanings, in the humanities, it refers to a group of individuals, spanning a range of ages, who have lived in the same period, been shaped by the same events, and — as a result — carry common values and show a similar outlook on the present and their prospects for the future. 

The Lost Generation is a definition popularised by Ernest Hemingway in his book A Moveable Feast. By that term he referred to individuals born in the late 19th century, who witnessed the end of the Belle Époque and the rearmament that culminated in World War I, in which many of them served. 

The Greatest Generation (1901–1924), a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw, on the other hand, experienced the aftershocks of the Great Depression in the USA, which followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and fought in World War II, developing values of sacrifice, hard work and patriotism. 

The Silent Generation (1925–1945) refers to individuals who grew up during the McCarthy era and then became the “Silent Majority” during the youth protests of the late 1960s. 

Its members began to benefit from the post-war economic growth that most strongly characterises the Baby Boomers (1946–1964). The latter were given this name because of the demographic boom following World War II, but today they are seen to be the bearers of conservative or paternalistic values, seasoned with a naive approach to contemporary society. This generation was characterised by a break with the past that led to the introduction of issues such as ecology, feminism, and the fight against racism into the public discourse. 

Generation X, 1965–1979, takes its name from Canadian author and artist Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. “X” stands for a hidden generation that was partly raised in the shadow of the Boomers. It witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the consecration of the US as the world’s sole superpower, and the advent of the internet. 

The term Millennial, 1980–1994, was introduced by American sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe. Having grown up in the digital age, Millennials have a highly integrated approach to technology. They have experienced firsthand the waves of economic recession that have come since the end of the first decade of this century (or millennium) and have developed more of a need for a work-life balance than their predecessors. 

Gen Z, 1995–2012, is composed of individuals immersed in digital technology from birth: These are the so-called digital natives. The favourite ecosystem for centennials is social media. Members of this generation show a strong propensity for social activism and the search for job satisfaction based more on passions than on mere financial compensation.  

The first letter of the Greek alphabet is used for defining the youngest generation on Earth today: Gen Alpha (2013–2025). It is, in fact, the first generation to have been born entirely in the 21st century. Its members have been growing up in a fully digital and interconnected world, where technology has been an integral part of daily life since they were born (hence the term “Screenagers”), and the internet has permanently supplanted television as an entertainment medium. 

Back to Gen Beta. Climate change, sustainability, global population shifts, rapid urbanisation, technology acceleration — it is not going to be easy being born into this world!    The author is chairman of Rediffusion