A new study from the MetLife Mature Market Institute, The MetLife Study of Generation X: The MTV Generation Moves into Mid-Life, has found new findings on the lives of the Gen X generation. According to the study, 70 percent of Gen Xers live with a spouse or partner. They have an average of 2.5 children and 82 percent own their own homes, though 17 percent of those report that the value of those homes is less than the debt attached to them. Forty-three percent have remained in the same type of career throughout their working years and just more than 40 percent have been with the same employer for ten years or more. Seventy-five percent are working full- or part-time. Most are part of a dual-earner household.

Now in its sixteenth year, the MetLife Mature Market Institute is MetLife’s center for aging, longevity, and the generations.

Approaching or in middle age, Gen Xers are part of the sandwich generation because many are caring for both their children and their parents. Ten percent are grandparents. Aged thirty-six to forty-seven, just 19 percent earn less than $35,000 per year and fully 29 percent earn more than $100,000. They are arguably better educated than any generation before them—43 percent graduated from college.

The nationally representative survey was conducted by GfK Custom Research North America. A total of 1,000 interviews were completed by phone—respondents were all born between the years of 1965 and 1976.

The term Generation X was coined in the 1991 novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, by Douglas Coupland.

Other aspects of Generation X found in the study include:
• The majority (63 percent) of Gen Xers still have both parents living and almost two in ten regularly
provide care for their aging parent(s)
• Almost six in ten Gen Xers report they include exercise in their daily routines
• Approximately 20 percent have never been married
• Most would like to retire at age sixty-two, but believe working until at least age sixty-seven is inevitable
• Many Gen Xers identify as baby boomers
• Two in ten Gen Xers have been married more than once