The 'Millennial' Generation Talks Economy, Politics, Media

GENERATION NEXT -- February 24, 2010 at 11:39 AM EDT

The 'Millennial' Generation Talks Economy, Politics, Media

On Wednesday, I'll be spending most of the day focused on "millennials," one of the terms being used for the younger generation. I will moderate a daylong conference sponsored by the Pew Research Center and aimed at providing a portrait of Generation Next, the name we coined a few years ago when I did a series of reports for the NewsHour and NPR's Morning Edition, and a couple of documentaries for PBS.

I look forward to learning more fascinating facts about these young people born after 1980, including why most of them continue to lean Democratic in their politics even though their support for President Obama has slipped a bit this past year.

I'm also curious to know how they're coping with the unemployment that's hit their generation especially hard; and interested to understand why, since they believe marriage and parenthood are important institutions, more than a third of births to millennials are to single mothers -- a far higher share than for older generations at this stage of life.

Read more about the new research being released by the Pew Research Group on millennials Wednesday here and follow the NewsHour Twitter feed for updates from the event.

You can also take a quiz to find out how you compare to the millennial generation here.

And watch an excerpt from the Pew event on millennials here:

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