Birth year · Generation Z · 1997–2009
Born into a world of 6.93 billion people, where women had 2.6 children on average and a newborn could expect to live to 70.
Someone born in 2009 is Generation Z — the generation born 1997–2009, a boundary Pew Research Center uses too. They turn 17 in 2026. About 143 million babies were born worldwide in 2009, about 4.1 million of them in the United States (UN estimates).
| World population | 6.93 billion |
| Babies born worldwide | 143 million |
| Babies born in the United States | 4.1 million |
| Children per woman, worldwide | 2.62 |
| Life expectancy at birth, worldwide | 69.7 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 2009, 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.
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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 17 during 2026, or are already 17 if their birthday has passed.
About 143 million worldwide and about 4.1 million in the United States, according to UN World Population Prospects 2024 estimates.
About 6.93 billion, according to UN World Population Prospects 2024.
About 70 years worldwide at birth, as a period estimate. That is the average for the conditions of 2009, not a prediction for any one person, and it is pulled down heavily by deaths in infancy.
Generation Z. 2009 is the last year of Generation Z and Generation Alpha starts in 2010. People born near a boundary often identify with both, and the line is a convention rather than a measured break.
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