China has 5 times the number of millennials the US has

Think the Millennial generation has been a boon to New York City real estate? Well consider this: China has about 400 million millennials. That’s more than the total population (all ages) of the United States and Canada combined.

China has five times as many people born between 1982 and 1998 than the 80 million here in the United States, according to the New York Post.

Some 90 percent of Chinese millennials own a smartphone. And even though only 6 percent of the country’s population has a passport, China represents the largest outbound travel market in the world, in large part due to younger globe trotters.

The country’s international tourism expenditure was $261 billion in April 2017, according to World Tourism UNWTO. That’s compared to the relatively small $122 billion for the U.S.

Yet while China saw its GDP grow 25 times since 1990 – compared to 2.5 times growth here in the states – the younger generation faces economic challenges. Due to the country’s child birth policies, the millennial generation – albeit large in raw numbers – is still relatively small compared to the total population. Older generations are living longer, and there are fewer younger people to take care of them than there had been in past generations.

Chinese cities are growing under the millennial generation and the country’s government is responding by putting policies in place that encourage rental development. [NYP] — Rich Bockmann