Just 22 percent of American adults say they have at least one close friend who is 15 or more years older or younger than themselves, according to a major new national study from AARP Research. Those who do cross the age divide report markedly stronger social well-being than those who stick strictly to their own generation.
What the study measured
AARP’s Friendship Study drew on a nationally representative online survey of 1,488 US adults aged 18 and older, conducted from October 23 to November 10, 2025, with survey data weighted by generation to reflect the broader adult population.
The research also included 45-minute qualitative interviews with pairs of close friends, spanning both same-age and intergenerational pairings. The report was published by AARP Research in March 2026.
The study found that 77 percent of adults say their closest friends are within 15 years of their own age. Only 22 percent reported having one or more close intergenerational friendships, defined as friendships with someone at least 15 years older or younger.
The 22 percent figure is a notable drop from an earlier AARP benchmark. A 2019 AARP survey found that 37 percent of adults had a close friend who was at least 15 years older or younger, based on a spring 2019 online survey of 1,500 adults.
Who has them and where they form
The connections vary by generation. Gen Xers are most likely to have a close friend from another generation, with 41 percent reporting such friendships, compared with 39 percent of Boomers and 32 percent of Millennials, according to the 2019 AARP survey.
As Americans age, expectations shift. The 2019 survey found that 46 percent of Millennials were surprised to have made a connection with someone at least 15 years apart in age, while just 22 percent of Boomers said the same, suggesting older adults treat age-gap friendships as more natural.
Americans most often meet friends from another generation at work, cited by 26 percent of respondents. Others connected as neighbors at 12 percent, at church or temple at 11 percent, or through mutual friends at 10 percent, according to the 2019 AARP survey.
That workplace figure carries particular weight as remote and hybrid arrangements have reduced casual cross-generational contact for many workers. Researchers say this pattern may partially explain the decline in the overall share of intergenerational friendships.
When these friendships do form, they tend to endure. Almost half of close intergenerational friendships have lasted at least 10 years, and one in five has lasted more than 20 years.
What both sides say they get from it
From the younger person’s perspective, older friends are valued for providing another point of view, inspiring them, and serving as role models.
Adults with friends from different generations also view their social well-being more positively. The prevalence and benefits of intergenerational friendships, and widespread openness to forming new ones, point to meaningful opportunities to support stronger social connection across ages, though the report describes such associations as correlational rather than proof of causation.
The findings arrive against a broader backdrop of thinning social networks. The percentage of Americans reporting no close friendships increased from 12 percent in 2021 to 17 percent in 2024, according to the Survey Center on American Life. That compares with 3 percent who reported no close friends in a 1990 Gallup poll.
Researchers studying the geography of adult friendship formation have separately noted that proximity and repeated exposure remain the strongest predictors of whether a new bond takes hold at all.
A potential opening most adults are not taking
The prevalence of intergenerational friendships and widespread openness to forming new ones point to meaningful opportunities to support stronger social connection across ages, the AARP report concluded.
That general difficulty compounds the challenge of forming bonds across age lines, where existing social circles, routines, and daily environments rarely mix generations by default.
The data land at a moment when broader social life is under pressure. The American Time Use Survey shows time spent with friends dropped 37 percent between 2014 and 2023.
For many Americans navigating those shrinking windows of time after work and commuting demands, age-diverse social investment may represent one of the more accessible, and underused, levers available to them.
