The Millennials generation has attracted significant interest of the media during the last years. They are considered the new great generation and have shown behavioral patterns and attitudes that differ notably to the ones of previous generation, such baby boomers or the silent generation.

From a demographic perspective, Millennials are displaying behavioral patterns that differ from previous generations. In terms of life cycle and living arrangements, these patterns are mostly characterized by a delay in the main transitions to the adult life and a postponement of the age at entry to the labor market, in union, marriage or having the first child. There is also evidence that Millennials are changing the residential preferences during, at least, the first years of adulthood: while previous generations chose to live in suburban contexts, Millennials show a remarkable preference for urban cores.

The increasing interest in the Millennials is remarkably noticeable in general media and press but approaches from the academia are much more limited. So far, the topic has focused in the case of United States and there are few studies about their conducts in other countries. Our paper aims to fulfill this gap and to provide empirical evidence about the demographic behavioral patterns of Millennials from a cross national perspective in two main aspects: (i) their living arrangements and transitions into adulthood and (ii) their spatial preferences in urban areas. To achieve this goal, we will use census data of 20 countries from Europe and the Americas. From these countries we have data for the 1990, 2000 and 2010 rounds (from the IPUMS-International database) that allow us to compare Millennials with previous generations.