The oldest Gen Z's are turning 27 in 2024 (1997 births). The NY Post article above cited two 29 years olds, who are late Millennials.
The 1997-2001 birth group hasn't had a fun otime in life as I'll illustrate below.
I think some of the them lost their childhood innocence with the Great Recession. Perhaps they had a parent lose a job in the 2008-2011 time period. 1980s born Millennials who weren't parents in the late 2000s/early 2010 took the worst of the Great Recession, not parents of 1997-2001 born Gen Z'ers. As a 1980s born Millennial myself, I consider Gen Z fortunate to have still been in childhood when the Great Recession hit.
These 1997-2001 born Gen Z'ers graduated into the employment market affected by a bad pandemic. That had to be not so good.
Social media and smartphones were a part of their junior high and high school years. I got to do junior high and high school before social media and smartphones. That's not good either. In my senior year of high school (2000-2001 school year), very few of my classmates even had basic cell phones, let alone smartphones.
Male sexlessness rates have been higher for late Millennials and early Gen Z.
nypost.com
