13er Facts

* The 13th is the most aborted generation in American history. After rising sharply during the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the abortion rate climbed by another 80 percent during the first six years (1973-1979) after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. Through the birthyears of the last-waver 13ers, would be mothers aborted one fetus in three.

* From the 1960s to the 1980s, the proportion of household heads age 18 to 24 owning their own homes fell by one-third-the steepest decline for any age bracket. In 1990, three out of four young men were still living at home, the largest propostion since the Great Depression.

* Before 13ers came along, postwar sociologists generally assumbed that hardening cynicism was a function of advancing age. No longer. From 1965 to 1990, the share of all Americans under age 35 who look at a newspaper daily declined from two-thirds to less than one-third-by far the steepest drop of any age bracket. In the late 1980s survey of "Cynical Americans," researchers noted that "the biggest surprise" was how "cynicism now seems to defy the traditional partnership of youth and idealism." Today, cynicism is "hitting hardest among adolescents-more than half of those age 24 and under...They think is't all bull."

This was taken from Generations-The History of American's Future 1584-2069 by William Strauss & Neil Howe 1991.