Baby Boomers and Gen Z are utterly disparate generations, from the environments they grew up in to how they work, to even how they save for retirement.
Baby Boomers grew up when television was still considered a new technology. Gen Z entered a world that already had high-speed internet, and social media, and the ability to watch TV on your phone. Baby Boomers are known for prioritizing work above all else, and remaining loyal to their employers through thick and thin. Gen Zers won’t think twice about leaving companies that are misaligned with their values, and they’re much more concerned about having an even work/life balance.
How they save for retirement is awfully divergent, too. Much of this simply has to do with where they are in the investment journey—most Boomers are either near or already in retirement, while Gen Z has several decades to go. But at least a few of their investment preferences might surprise you.
Which generation feels more confident in their investing skills? Who believes collectibles are a risky investment? Read on for the answers to these questions and more. Let’s take a peek at how Baby Boomers and Gen Z differ in the investment realm.
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The information and analysis contained within this article appears for your consideration, but it does not constitute individualized financial advice. Always act at your own discretion.
Gen Z and Baby Boomer Investment Statistics
“Boomers” and “Zoomers” might sound alike, but that’s one of only a few similarities they share.
When it comes to investing, Baby Boomers and Gen Zers often have different belief, preferences, and practices.
Here is a wide sampling of how these generations differ when it comes to saving for retirement.
1. Gen Z started investing at a far younger age than Baby Boomers on average.
According to the Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey 2024, the average age at which a Gen Zer started investing was only 18 years old.
The average age for Baby Boomers? 34!
This is the result of a long-term trend that has seen each subsequent generation investing younger and younger in life—the average starting age of a Gen X investor was 31, and it was 24 for Millennials.
Why the difference? You could point at any number of things.
For instance, the older the generation, the more likely they were to have jobs with built-in pensions, reducing their need to invest independently. Today? Few jobs with pensions exist; instead, workers increasingly save through 401(k) or other workplace plans, not to mention individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and other personal savings vehicles.
You could also cite awareness of the importance of having enough retirement savings—young people have more access to information about investing and finances than ever before, and along with that is a steady drumbeat of articles about how many people in other generations haven’t saved enough.
Also helping is more access to investing accounts. Adults didn’t have nearly the accessible options they have today; heck, even teens have access to specialized brokerage accounts nowadays.
2. Gen Z investors are over 5X more likely to own crypto than Baby Boomer investors.
Baby Boomers and Gen Z are worlds apart when it comes to embracing digital currencies.
According to YouGov’s US Investment Trends Report 2025, about 42% of Gen Z investors own cryptocurrency, compared to just 8% of “Baby Boomers+” (which YouGov defines as age 60 and above).
This isn’t because of a difference in how risky the asset is; around 84% of Gen Z investors and 89% of Baby Boomer investors agree that crypto is a risky investment. That said, because Boomers are near or in retirement and thus need more stability in their portfolios, they’re far more risk-adverse, and thus less likely to accept crypto’s inherently deep potential downside.
Related: What Are the Average Retirement Savings By Age?
3. Fractional shares are more popular among Gen Z than Baby Boomers.
A fractional share is a unit of stock or other asset whose value is less than a full share.
Let’s say you just started investing, and you have $200 in your account. You want to buy a share of stock in the fictional firm Riley Holdings (RHLD), which trades at $500 per share.
Historically, the only answer to this problem would be to save up $300 more. However, fractional-share brokerages allow you to buy pieces of stock—sometimes for as little as $10, $5, even $1.
The obvious takeaway here is that low-dollar investors are more able than ever to get started in the stocks they want to own, when they want to own them. And they do: In Schwab’s Modern Wealth survey, nearly half (48%) of Gen Z respondents said they currently owned fractional shares, which is roughly twice the adoption rate of Boomer respondents (25%).
Related: 8 Best Micro-Investing Apps [Start Saving With Less]
4. Baby Boomers have significantly higher average contribution rates than Gen Z.
A JPMorgan report, Retirement by the Numbers, looks at a number of statistics concerning workers and defined-contribution plans such as 401(k)s.
Here are the average contribution rates for Gen Z:
- Lowest one-third of earners: 4.1%
- Middle one-third of earners: 3.7%
- Highest one-third of earners: 4.5%
Comparatively, Baby Boomers have the following average contribution rates:
- Lowest one-third of earners: 6.5%
- Middle one-third of earners: 7.2%
- Highest one-third of earners: 8.6%
There’s not much mystery here. Contribution rates tend to grow as age and income do. 50 years down the line, Gen Z will likely have higher contribution rates than they do today—and they’ll likely be much higher than the youngest generation.
Related: Super Catch-Up Contributions: Who Gets Them + How They Can Boost Your 401(k)
5. Gen Z members are more likely to engage in short-term trading than Baby Boomers.
A short-term trade can last days or as little as a few minutes. This is a high-risk, potentially high-reward investing strategy.
More than half of Gen Z investors (52%) use short-term trading, per Schwab Modern Wealth Survey data. Meanwhile, only 20% of Baby Boomers do the same.
Again, this should be expected—younger investors generally have a much higher risk tolerance than older investors, which makes them more prone to more aggressive behavior like short-term trading.
Related: How Long Will My Savings Last in Retirement? 4 Withdrawal Strategies
6. Baby Boomer investors are more likely than Gen Z investors to consider collectibles a risky investment.
Collectibles are a tangible form of alternative investment, such as comic books, vintage wines, rare art, or antique jewelry.
The majority of surveyed Baby Boomer+ investors (53%) view collectibles as a risky investment, according to YouGov’s US Investment Trends Report. By comparison, just 38% of Gen Z investors see these as risky assets.
This is a difference in perception, not behavior, making it a little more difficult to ascertain the “why.” But it could be a difference in education about the risks of collectibles, or familiarity with the asset class.
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Related: How to Invest for (And in) Retirement: Strategies + Investment Options
7. Direct indexing is more popular with Gen Z investors than Baby Boomers.
An index is a hypothetical portfolio of assets that is meant to measure the performance of a market or market segment. It’s dictated by some sort of rule set—for instance, an index might only contain companies with a market cap of $1 billion or more, that trade at least 1 million shares a day, and belong to the energy sector.
You generally can’t invest directly in an index—instead you have to either replicate the index yourself (extremely difficult) or purchase an index fund (easy), which aims to own either all or a representative sample of the stocks in an index in similar proportions to how they are in the index.
Direct indexing is something of a personalized way of index investing. It involves attempting to own the individual securities that form an index, but with exceptions that are in some way expected to benefit you. For instance, you might own the S&P 500, but exclude consumer staples stocks to give your overall investment a greater weight in growth-oriented companies. Or you might work for Nvidia (NVDA) and own a ton of its stock, so you purchase all of the stocks in the Nasdaq-100 but exclude NVDA because you don’t need additional weight in that stock.
This strategy is a way to personalize your portfolio, plus it offers significant tax benefits. However, it’s also a complicated process—one that’s best left to professionals.
Some 44% of Gen Zers use direct indexing, while only 23% of Baby Boomers do.
Direct indexing is a relatively newer strategy with roots going back to the 1970s, but that truly didn’t begin to go mainstream until the past 10 or 15 years. So it’s unsurprising that older generations haven’t adopted direct indexing at nearly the rate of younger generations.
Related: What Does the Average 55- to 64-Year-Old Have in Retirement Accounts?
Want to talk more about direct indexing? Schedule a call with Riley to discuss what a program might look like for you.
8. Gen Z investors feel more confident managing their own investments than Baby Boomer investors.
When asked by YouGov, “How confident do you feel in managing your own investments?” Gen Z investor results were as follows:
- Low confidence: 30%
- Confidence: 42%
- High confidence: 28%
Baby Boomer+ investors asked the same question responded as follows:
- Low confidence: 52%
- Confidence: 28%
- High confidence: 20%
We could go in two very different directions on this. On the one hand, Gen Z could be more confident because younger people are more likely not to “know what they don’t know.”
On the flip side, DIY investing has only become more prominent and easier with technology over the years—and as mentioned above, Gen Z started investing at a much younger age. So it could be that Gen Z actually is better-versed in DIY investing, and their confidence is warranted.
Also, considering the different levels of confidence in managing one’s own investments, it isn’t surprising that a higher percentage of Baby Boomers (51%) are working with a financial advisor than Gen Z investors (31%).
Related: You May Want to Skip These Popular Retirement Rules
9. Gen Z uses robo-advisors more than Baby Boomers.
Robo-advisors use algorithms and sometimes artificial intelligence (AI) to select investments and manage clients’ portfolios.
Perhaps unsurprisingly (given everything we’ve revealed already), members of Gen Z are far more likely to use robo-advisors than Baby Boomers. In Schwab’s Modern Wealth Survey, 40% of Gen Z respondents said they use robo-advisors versus a thin 11% of Boomers.
Related: 9 Best Robo-Advisors for Investing Money Automatically
10. A higher percentage of Gen Z investors consider ESG important than Baby Boomers when choosing financial products.
Environment, social, and governance (ESG) investing refers to screening investment choices based on how companies score on metrics such as safeguarding the environment and maintaining good relationships with employees.
YouGov posed the question, “How important is it for you, when deciding to purchase from a bank or financial institution, that they integrate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) into their business decisions?”
In response, 66% of Gen Z investors said it was important and 23% said it was somewhat important, for a total of 89% assigning some level of importance to ESG. However, a mere 26% of Baby Boomers+ said it was important, while 19% said it was somewhat important—a total of just 45%.
Again, no surprises here: These responses reflect well-known generational differences concerning the importance of environmental stewardship, social justice, and other related concepts.
Related: 10 Common Financial Mistakes That New Retirees Make
11. Baby Boomers are far less likely to participate in thematic investing than Gen Z.
The goal of thematic investing is to target ideas, trends, and personal values that don’t neatly fit into standard classifications. For instance, an artificial intelligence-themed ETF might own not just technology-sector companies, but also communication services, consumer discretionary, and even financial firms.
Around 41% of Gen Z investors use thematic investing, according to Schwab’s survey. That compares to a 9% sliver of Baby Boomers.
The likeliest explanation here is a combination of two factors:
- While thematic investing has technically existed for nearly 80 years, it has really only exploded in popularity alongside the massive growth in ETFs of the past couple decades. So while it really only came to the fore when many Boomers began saving, thematic investing was well-established by the time most Gen Zers were getting started.
- The most popular thematic funds heavily skew toward high growth; thus, many thematic investments might be far more appropriate for younger, risk-hungrier Gen Zers than they would be for Baby Boomers.
Related: How Does Medigap Work? Our Guide to Medicare Supplemental Insurance
12. Gen Z and Baby Boomers rely on different sources for financial advice.
Baby Boomers are most likely to seek financial advice from a financial professional or institution, while Gen Z prefers social media and the internet.
In its Modern Wealth Survey, Schwab posed the question, “Have you ever considered financial information or advice from any of the following sources?” Baby Boomers’ responses were as follows:
- Financial Professional/Institution: 64%
- Friends and Family: 46%
- Social Media/Internet: 19%
In contrast, Gen Z’s results were as follows:
- Financial Professional/Institution: 50%
- Friends and Family: 70%
- Social Media/Internet: 72%
Despite what Gen Z’s response about social media and the internet might indicate, they (as well as most Americans) aren’t relying on social influencers.
Overall, 76% of respondents explicitly said they don’t follow influencers for financial information. Boomers were an expectedly high 92%, but even a majority (58%) of Gen Z said they weren’t looking to influencers for advice.
