11 Reasons Millennials Are The Best Generation Yet

It is hard to go more than a month or two without reading an article exposing Millenials as lazy, selfish, immoral, too sexually active, or generally ruining the otherwise-perfect fabric of American society with some combination of terrible characteristics. It is time to hear a bit more on the other side of the argument. The team behind the Brookings’ Social Mobility Memos blog thinks that Millennials are getting a bad rap. There is a more positive portrait of Millennials. On many fronts, they are superior to their Boomer parents.

1. Millennials are the best educated generation in American history.

Via Pew Research Center

2. Teen pregnancy rates are the lowest they've been since the 1940's.

Via Center for Disease Control

(And it might even have something to do with all of the MTV that Millenials watch!)

3. You might have heard that the Millennials have given up on marriage. But it’s more accurate to say that most of them are wisely choosing to get married later.

Via Pew Research Center, U.S. Census Bureau (Nathan Yau)

And guess what: People who marry later tend to be happier and have longer lasting marriages.

4. Millennials value being a good parent more than the previous generation.

5. Millennials are more tolerant of interracial marriage ...

6. ..and of same-sex marriage.

7. Oh, and they’re less sexist about gender roles. (Sensing a trend here?)

Via The Brookings Institution Tabulations of General Social Survey data

8. Millennial women are getting educated, and are attending and graduating college at higher rates than their mothers.

Via Pew Research Center

9. Millennials have prettier smiles. (Or at least smiles with fewer cavities.)

Via Center for Disease Control

10. They also don’t think smoking is cool.

Via Monitoring the Future

(Perhaps all those D.A.R.E. classes they had to sit through helped?)

11. Far from being selfish narcissists, Millennials volunteer earlier and more often than previous generations.

Via Corporation for National and Community Service

Maybe it is too early to say that Millennials are shaping up to be a great generation, but they look pretty good--and much better than you might imagine from a glance at their press coverage.