IMO nobody highly typical reaped major returns from '2013 - 2019' unless they already had excess income.

Even restricting to CS (and I haven't tracked my graduating CS classes that closely from the '08 - '11 range) my memory is that many of the smartest ones didn't end up working in CS for reasons that were never clear to me and sort of muddled by for years. (To a certain extent I'm still not sure how college grads who didn't get internships or work in the field are supposed to land their first job in the field if they're great at c and algorithms but can't and won't market themselves or move.) The only ones who made out like bandits were the ones who landed internships at places like Google or MS or had preexisting connections or niche interests of some form. A solid chunk ended up at big old companies, like IBM, Lockheed Martin, etc. They mostly made out well because getting paid $60k - $90k out of college around then made it easy to buy a house, and because they worked somewhere that made a job switch or career progression work out well enough to start getting paid more circa mid '10s. That said, a solid chunk ended up in smaller companies, government, or non-tech companies that needed devs, and I think for many of them it didn't work out or lead to years of low pay before being able to get more on track. For many, it seems like things didn't really lead to big benefits until the pandemic, which I think unlocked opportunities for more folks to work remote.

Back to speaking more generally, I think many more people probably could have reaped the benefits of home ownership than did so in the '08 to '19 interval because houses seemed to stay cheap all over the country for much of that period. But many folks in the age bracket seem like they either (a) didn't realize they could afford to when houses were quite cheap, (b) actually couldn't (student loans?) or (c) were afraid to, because that whole generation never feels secure in a job or their ability to find a job if their current one cuts them, and got somewhat chilled by the foreclosures they saw in the '08 crash. Many of these folks I think only realized how this was screwing them when rents started to skyrocket, though I don't think I clearly have a sense of how student loans play out - I do think college enrollment as a percentage of high school graduates was pretty high, but I'm not sure how big a percentage of those enrolled in high cost vs low cost situations in both absolutes and loans.

But IMO it's important to realize that for most typical workers in those years, median income was not high enough for single income to invest significantly beyond their house if they did save towards home ownership. The number of folks who didn't know how to find anything gainful to do with their degrees and so went back to school for master's or higher in those '08 - '11 years seems significant to me. I personally know plenty of folks who got masters degrees or better in various fields and basically eke out a living doing stuff like writing website copy, teaching at charter schools, and various other things that don't pay well and seem likely to be sort of demoralizing for someone with an advanced degree.

So IMO it's only with two income households and above median incomes that you can realistically do both (invest and own housing) over those years, particularly if there are any student loans. And during those years marriage ages have gone up.

The thing I'm seeing now is that folks who did get housing are kind of stuck doubling or tripling their payment to get a large place if they want to have kids, etc. Which will likely further negate many folks' ability to participate in the market. Or lead to further birth rate decline.