Gen Beta: A new generation is born. What will it look like?

Generation Beta is anyone born between 2025 and 2039. They are projected to make up roughly 16 per cent of the world’s population by 2035.

A new generation has arrived that will shape the world we know in the coming decades.

Meet Gen Beta: anyone born between 2025 and 2039. They follow Generation Alpha, who are born between 2010 and 2024.

The terms were coined after the Greek alphabets by Australian-based research firm McCrindle, which provides generational analysis and demographics services.

“We named them Alpha and Beta to signify not just new generations, but the first generations that will be shaped by an entirely different world,” McCrindle says on its website.

“That is why we moved to the Greek alphabet, to signify how these different generations will be raised in a new world of technological integration.”

Born to mostly younger millennials (aged 31 to 45) and older Gen Zs (aged 16 to 30), Gen Beta will make up roughly 16 per cent of the world’s population by 2035, according to McCrindle’s projections.

“In my view, the relative size of this cohort will be relevant, as children will be making up a smaller and smaller proportion of Canada’s population,” Don Kerr, a demographer at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ont., told Global News in an email.

Millennials became the most populous generation in the country in July 2023 and Canada’s fertility rate is at a record low of 1.26 children per woman, so unless the fertility rate rebounds, Gen Beta will likely make up less than 14 per cent of the country’s population by 2040, says Kerr. That’s according to Statistics Canada’s “medium growth” scenario, he said.