Age & Generations

Millennials rely on Facebook for their political news, while Baby Boomers turn to local TV. And while Millennials are less engaged with political news, they trust news sources as much as older generations do.

Here’s a roundup of our most-visited blog posts over the past year, along with some insights into the editorial thinking behind them.

At least one-in-five people in Japan, Germany and Italy are already aged 65 or older, and most other European countries are close behind.

The United States is turning gray, with the number of people ages 65 and older expected to nearly double by 2050. This major demographic transition has implications for the economy, government programs such as Social Security and families across the U.S.

America is turning gray, with the share of people ages 65 and older expected to rise more than 50% by 2050 – a trend that may burden more families. But Germany and Italy are already there, with a fifth of their population in that age range.

In recent years, the share of Americans who identify with mainline Protestantism has been shrinking significantly, a trend driven partly by generational change.

The growth of the religiously unaffiliated in the U.S. is occurring across genders, generations and racial and ethnic groups.

The 35% of Millennials who do not identify with a religion is double the share of unaffiliated Baby Boomers (17%) and more than three times the share of members of the Silent generation (11%).

More than half (50.9%) of the nation's nearly 8 million unemployed for April are ages 16 to 34 – even though that group makes up just over a third of the civilian labor force.

Although Americans and Germans were adversaries in World War II, they became allies during the Cold War and remain strategic trading and military partners today. Our survey, conducted in association with the Bertelsmann Foundation, shows that the relationship faces new challenges.