How Old Was Gen Alpha When Schools Closed? Four Birth Years Were Not Born Yet
In March 2020 Generation Alpha was aged 0 to 10 — and its last four birth years did not exist yet. The cohort most associated with the closures largely missed them.
When schools closed in March 2020, Generation Alpha was aged 0 to 10, and the 2021 to 2024 birth years had not been born at all — meaning roughly a quarter of the cohort was never alive during the closures.
Generation Alpha is routinely described as the cohort shaped by the pandemic. The arithmetic complicates that considerably.
In March 2020, Generation Alpha was aged 0 to 10 — and the cohort was not finished being born. Its last four birth years, 2021 through 2024, did not exist yet.
Where each birth year was
| Born | Age in March 2020 | Where they were |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 10 | Upper primary |
| 2012 | 8 | Primary |
| 2014 | 6 | Early primary |
| 2016 | 4 | Pre-school |
| 2018 | 2 | Toddler |
| 2020 | 0 | Born during it |
| 2021–2024 | — | Not born |
Two groups, not one
The cohort splits cleanly, and the split is worth holding on to.
The 2010–2015 birth years were aged 5 to 10 — in primary school when it closed. If there is a group for whom the closures were a schooling event, it is this one, and it is six of the cohort's fifteen birth years.
The 2016–2020 birth years were 0 to 4. Pre-school or not yet in it. Whatever happened to them happened to households and early years settings, not to classrooms.
The 2021–2024 birth years were not alive. Roughly a quarter of Generation Alpha has no relationship to the closures at all except through the households they were born into.
The cohort that actually sat exams
The group whose formal examinations were disrupted was not Alpha at all. It was the older part of Generation Z — the 2001 to 2005 birth years, aged 15 to 19 in March 2020, at or approaching the leaving-examination years.
Generation Z as a whole was aged 11 to 23 at that moment. Generation Alpha was 0 to 10. The two cohorts met the same event at entirely different points, and much of what gets written as a Gen Alpha schooling story is describing Gen Z.
The date that matters more for this cohort
For Generation Alpha, the more consequential arrival is probably the later one. Consumer AI became widely available in late 2022, when Alpha was aged 0 to 12.
That means:
- The 2010 birth year was twelve — most of their primary schooling predates it entirely.
- The 2024 birth year will have no memory of its absence and will start school in a system that has already adapted.
Unlike the closures, this one reaches the whole cohort, including the birth years that were not alive in 2020. If there is a single event that will end up characterising Generation Alpha, the arithmetic points to that one rather than the pandemic.
See what the cohort's ages are now at how old is Gen Alpha, or the dates still ahead at Generation Alpha's fixed calendar.