Why Are So Many Gen Z Women Getting Tattoos?

A majority of young women now have tattoos, but is this something new?

I recently came across a fascinating study by the Pew Research Center which showed that roughly one in three Americans reported having a tattoo in 2023. More than one in five had multiple. But the real story isn’t how many tattoos we’re getting, but who is getting them. In the write-up, Pew helpfully breaks down the results by various demographic groups. Who’s inked up? Younger Americans, those with less formal education, Americans with lower incomes, and women. Especially young women. An astounding 56 percent of women ages 18 to 29 report having a tattoo. (I should note that this was only surprising to me. My 20-something-year-old research assistants were not terribly surprised by this fact.)

Even if this does not seem high, it certainly seems higher than it once was. What do we know about how things have changed? It turns out this is not the first time Pew has asked about tattoos. And the results are very different. Young women were far less likely to report having a tattoo in 2010 t…