Birth year · Generation Z · 1997–2009
Born into a world of 6.50 billion people, where women had 2.7 children on average and a newborn could expect to live to 68.
Someone born in 2004 is Generation Z — the generation born 1997–2009, a boundary Pew Research Center uses too. They turn 22 in 2026. About 136.6 million babies were born worldwide in 2004, about 4 million of them in the United States (UN estimates).
| World population | 6.50 billion |
| Babies born worldwide | 136.6 million |
| Babies born in the United States | 4 million |
| Children per woman, worldwide | 2.65 |
| Life expectancy at birth, worldwide | 67.7 years |
Every figure is a UN World Population Prospects 2024 estimate, republished by Our World in Data. Life expectancy is a period figure for the conditions of 2004, not a forecast for anyone born that year. Pages for years before 2010 list no events: we add history only where each item has been checked, and would rather show nothing than something half-remembered.
Age 18 — already passed
Age 21 — already passed
Age 30
Age 40
Age 50
Age 60
Age 65
Age 70
The cohort this year belongs to
Born 1997–2009 on the boundaries used here, Gen Z is the last cohort with any memory of a pre-smartphone world and the first to reach adolescence on social media.
Cohort boundaries are hard lines drawn through a continuous thing. A child born a day before or after one of them lands in a different generation with an identical childhood.
They are Generation Z, the cohort born from 1997 to 2009. Pew Research Center draws the same boundary. Some other sources put the lines a year or two away, so a year near a boundary can be labelled differently elsewhere.
They turn 22 during 2026, or are already 22 if their birthday has passed.
About 136.6 million worldwide and about 4 million in the United States, according to UN World Population Prospects 2024 estimates.
About 6.50 billion, according to UN World Population Prospects 2024.
About 68 years worldwide at birth, as a period estimate. That is the average for the conditions of 2004, not a prediction for any one person, and it is pulled down heavily by deaths in infancy.
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