By Survey Center Staff

Few Gen Zers Grew Up Having Family Dinners

Featured Data February 9, 2022

Chart showing that Gen Z is less likely to have family dinners growing up

The family meal, once a regular part of American family life, has become a rarity. Americans who belong to Generation Z are far less likely to report having grown up sharing daily meals with their family than other Americans. Less than half of Gen Zers (38 percent) and Millennials (46 percent) say that their family had daily meals together, compared to more than three-quarters (76 percent) of Baby Boomers. The decline in family mealtime may come at a cost. Americans who grew up having regular family meals have been shown to have lower rates of depression and better relationships with their parents.

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Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since

Few Gen Zers Grew Up Having Family Dinners

Generation Uncoupled

Survey Reports

A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience

Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging

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