Debunking Myths about Millennials
Ever since millennials were old enough to enter the workforce in roughly 2004, and perhaps even earlier than that, bashing us has been big business for TV personalities, columnists, and the online commentariat.
Notable conservatives like Joe Scarborough, Senator Ben Sasse, and Rod Dreher have waxed condemnatory of millennials for perceived inability to communicate even with family members, addiction to video games, and laziness, immaturity, and social isolation.
The obsession with denigrating—or at least ignoring—millennials is actually a rare unifying cause for both sides of the isle, contributing to Hillary Clinton’s lack of popularity among millennials despite their majority support for the Democrats in the 2016 election.
Among the most popular beliefs among the haters are that we are not politically active out of apathy and that we don’t trust government and other institutions enough to attempt effecting change through them.
Talk of millennials destroying institutions through grassroots decentralization efforts, including blockchain for everything, may be jumping the gun, but not by much and not for long.
A lagging perception of economic and political dependence on boomer and Gen X bosses and elected representatives may be what’s behind the outdated views.
The evidence, however, is strikingly to the contrary. While media reports right after the 2016 election spoke of millennial apathy, it turns out that a higher proportion of millennials (65 percent) voted in 2016 than the public at large (55 percent), according to a Vice Impact study.
In the almost 2 years since the 2016 election, millennial political activity has spiked dramatically in response to the Trump administration policies. And this is likely only the tip of the iceberg for what’s coming, given the shocking primary win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, beating a 10-term incumbent.
Millennial spending power is also on the rise. Accenture projects millennial spending to increase by more than a factor of two from today to $1.4 trillion by 2020, representing as much as 30 percent of total projected retail sales.
It’s clear that millennials are by and large no longer annoying, dependent teens, with most of us in our 20s and 30s already some years into our careers, many cohabiting or married and raising kids, owning homes and cars, and saving for retirement.
And in that vein, it turns out we’re buying cars, after all. According to a 2018 study by the National Automobile Dealers Association, millennials are no different in terms of car ownership, with a higher automobile buying rate today than 10 years ago, even among the younger, single, and more urban subset. Only 19 percent of us would choose ridesharing over car ownership, according to the same study.
Oh, and we’re also buying homes, despite the increasing prices and decreasing inventory. According to the real estate buying platform Trulia, the increase in those under 35 buying homes far outpaces the overall annual homeownership rate change. As long as the economy continues its strong run, this rate is likely to continue increasing.
Marriage and Religion
On the subject of marriage, it is indeed abundantly clear that millennials are marrying later than previous generations and marrying less, on average, at least to date, partly due to lack of economic security, but also because we are more likely to marry for romantic love and only after getting to know our romantic partner better. That said, millennials are no less likely to want to marry one day, with only 1 in 10 outright opposed to the institution of marriage, per se, which puts them on par with previous generations.
A larger proportion of millennials are cohabiting before or without marriage than previous generations, most even having children before or without getting married. Fewer are religiously observant, on average (more on this later).
As a whole, there has been an erosion of the effects of Judeo-Christian religious norms on—and the resulting stigmas around—marriage, birth control, cohabitation and rearing of children out of wedlock. In 2015, only 51 percent of Americans under 30 felt completely certain about the existence of G-d. Even so, millennials are just as spiritual, if not as religiously observant, on average.
On the side of social acceptance and legal protections, laws and regulations protecting married same-sex couples have been enacted in recent years. Just as importantly, benefits are now routinely extended by federal law and by corporate policy to domestic and same-sex partners. In short, you don’t necessarily even need to get hitched to get health insurance or certain financial benefits.
Intermarriage with other religions and races is more likely than before in this generation. The attitudes around marriage and religion have undoubtedly become more liberal and protected by law, permitting true freedom to choose whom to marry, when, and if.
Habits
On the subject of bad habits related to smartphone and social media usage, the facts quickly deflate the premise that millennials are somehow worse or more addicted than Gen X or boomers. In fact, studies prove Gen Xers actually use social media more than millennials, on average. Smartphone usage for Gen X is nearly at parity with that of millennials, while tablet usage is even higher than for millennials. The pot is just as black as the kettle.
When we look at video game playing for millennials (18 to 34), as opposed to Gen X (35 to 54) and boomers (55+), we see higher rates of video game playing, although the effect size is tempered by the size of the millennial generation (75 million) and their age, which is prime for video game playing. That said, it bears noting that the average age for a gamer today is 35, 81 percent of children 13 to 17 play video games, and more than half of people from 30 to 49 (58 percent) play video games. Apparently, all age groups spend much time gaming, even those quick to point fingers at millennials.
As such, video game playing by millennials isn’t a solely millennial vice or otherwise unexpected, given the age demographic, average free time, and upbringing, as compared with the generation immediately ahead (Gen X) and the generation behind (Gen Z).
When it comes to the on-demand economy for everything from cabs to dates, shares to likes, food to rooms, house help to toilet paper, experiences as much as goods, gaming, and media, with everything in between, millennials are often blamed for being impatient and demanding instant delivery, feedback, and overall, for demanding instant gratification.
But is this a millennial thing or just a structural behavioral shift for all consumers? After all, smartphone use and utilization of on-demand services are quite high for Gen Xers and growing quickly among boomers.
Interestingly enough, one study of customer experience actually suggests that millennials may be the most, rather the least, patient generation when it comes to waiting on the phone for customer service or not flipping out when the wrong drink or dish is served. Go figure.
While the jury is still out on how quickly the on-demand mindset will become the norm with the remaining boomers and Gen Xers with more traditional worldviews, the trends examined here suggest that impatience is very much a universal trait. With inevitably greater adoption of on-demand tools and mindset in all areas of life, it is perhaps unavoidable that we’ll all be flipping out from noninstant delivery options before too long.
And the simple truth remains that time is the single most important nonrenewable resource for all humans, not just millennials.
Work
Finally, we take a magnifying lens to the workplace, that unholy grail of (alleged) millennial misdeeds, according to the cottage industry of corporate, academic, and political leaders bashing millennials.
To rehash, we’ve been called entitled, flaky, disloyal, unengaged, immature, unproductive (due to that social media obsession), distrusting of institutions, too idealistic, and clueless about the hard work it takes to move up in a corporate or political or academic hierarchy, and so on. Not to mention, we’re killing the last remaining bastion of corporate control and respectability, the good old 9-to-5 work week.
Let’s dive in to see what’s fact and what’s fiction here.
Let’s look into average employee tenure, but first, a quick note about methodology.
In order to compare apples to apples, we must look at average tenure for Gen Xers and boomers at the same career stage, rather than compare the average tenure at one point in time, when older workers would obviously be more likely to stay in a job, being much more likely to have spouses, children, and mortgages, among other lifestyle cost commitments.
As such, when we look at average tenure for millennials at this stage in their careers versus Gen Xers at this stage in their careers, a higher percentage of millennials are actually staying 13 months or longer in their job than the Gen X cohort at a comparable time in their career. When we look at the percentage of millennials versus Gen Xers staying 5 years or more in their job at this stage, it is essentially the same percentage.
The narrative that young people tend to job-hop in a healthy economy has been around for a couple of generations before ours, and the data is squarely behind it.
If anything, job churn, a measure of job-hopping—and by implication, employee loyalty—has declined overall since 2000, with the average tenure for young people remaining flat since the 1980s, going from 2.9 years in 2006 to 2.8 years in 2016.
And this is the case despite the stagnant wage growth, disappearance of pensions and lack of meaningful wage insurance, watering down of health and financial benefits for employees and their families, plus weakened labor protections.
In fact, according to Rick Wartzman, author of The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, “good jobs” are those “that offer a decent wage, job security, good, ‘defined’ benefits, including affordable health insurance and a safe way of having money set aside for retirement.” These “purple squirrel” jobs are increasingly difficult, if not impossible to find.
Beyond the job-hopper myth, one of the other most pernicious and damaging myths about millennials is that we’re entitled and lazy and all about short-term perks, especially flexible work arrangements.
When we look at the actual data surrounding factors like productivity, loss of vacation days due to workaholism (also known as vacation shame) and work martyrdom, it quickly becomes clear that millennials are the highest proportion of those employees who work long hours, take the least average vacation days of any age cohort, and qualify as work martyrs.
Odd enough, the disparity between perception and reality. Experts explain this effect from three perspectives. One is the 24/7 connectedness millennials are used to, implying there is no real disconnect at the end of the work day. The other is the pernicious millennial anxiety about a weak economy and the fear of being fired or not being promoted, acquired in the Great Recession. Both perpetuate the always-present, always-connected habits of millennials in the workplace.
Lastly, we are likely seen as entitled and lazy precisely because we are more productive and tech savvy and need to feel a meaningful connection to the company mission. Based on how corporations and institutions have indeed failed us, their often arbitrary and hypocritical hierarchies and rules around promotions and raises make us question—openly, as opposed to in private—why things can’t be done better in the here and now, not after the annual performance review.
Millennials are big on personal and professional development, a subject many (most?) corporations see as a waste of resources and time, since millennials tend not to stick around very long, in their mind (a self-fulfilling prophecy). Digital nativity and constant connectedness, coupled with Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), may also just breed boredom at work.
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And so, the house of cards begins to crumble... The facts about us seem to tell a wildly different story from the one being pushed by gurus and the talking heads that scare and demonize millennials.
As the facts show, our Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the same as everyone else’s, both in life overall and at work, if with certain generational differences that are real and meaningful. But for the things we want from life, whether it be material, spiritual, social, professional or otherwise, we’re mostly like all the generations that came before us.
Our approach, ethos, level of patience, and life stage may be different from grumbling Gen Xers and boomers, but most of the differences are the same differences that show up for every generation maligned by the ones who parent and grandparent it. And in the workplace, these differences originate in the divergent mindsets and incentives of middle management versus “the kids” versus the C-suite.
It’s hardly news that older people tend to be more conservative and set in their ways than younger people.
Despite all the bloviating about us in the media, we millennials are not purposely destroying anything, as much as we’re adjusting to the reality we’ve been given in adulthood. The hand we were dealt with the Great Recession, outdated and often irrelevant college education, high prices of housing and education, high debt load, low social mobility, and a world full of uncertainty has been quite difficult for a great many of us.
We already know we’re worse off than previous generations, not least because of the policies of our gerontocracy in Congress and the Oval Office.
Despite the many and great benefits we have in living in America in our slice of time, there are serious challenges that we must contend with if we are even to desire sustaining the illusion of a meritocracy or a democratic rule of law for everyone. You can’t blame us Millennials for being cynical.
Maybe we are in many ways just as boring and conventional as the blowhards ahead of us in age, except we’re less financially secure, more anxious about it, and have no effective power to reshape the laws and policies and hierarchies that scapegoat us, keep us indebted and compliant, and screw over us and our socioeconomic trajectory as a generation.
Or, more likely, we’re just waiting for our moment of sunshine to step forward, which may not ever materialize.
Many of us are indeed still hurting from the impact of the Great Recession and from the structural problems of our economy. But most of us are long up and out of our proverbial parents’ basement and making a life for ourselves.
Like it or not, agree or disagree, the kids are all right. (You know, sort of. #KiddingNotKidding.) Just as they always have been.
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Debunking Myths about Millennials—we’re not destroying all institutions and existing business models, but improving them quickly and getting rid of invalid ones; what is truth and what is fiction, establishing the facts on the ground about millennials and exposing experts who purport to know and speak for us.
NOTES
- Tenure is the same as for previous generations at this stage
- Flexible work arrangements are key
- Personal and professional development
- Want to be part of something greater than themselves, part of a strong mission
- Want to make an impact on the world
- Want to move up quickly, learn, take on more responsibility
- Loyalty is seen as a two-way street and not critical to career or professional or personal development
- Have a view of entrepreneurship as glamorous, lucrative, or prestigious versus the view of the previous generations and Gen Z
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Further Reading
Richie Norton debunks a few more millennial myths
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So, instead of blaming us for all earthly ills, learn from us and help us to make the world you left for us better.
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Why have millennials not fought back at these characterizations, at least not systematically?
Much of it has to do with age, stage in life, and lack of power through politics, media and other channels.
- lack of transparency due to distrust of institutions and corporations (data leaks and scandals)
- precarious financial situation—being saddled with debt, being unable to secure meaningful full-time employment, dependence on a financial system stacked toward the rich and powerful (highly peopled by boomers and Gen Xers), plus relative lack of spending power, underrepresentation in boardrooms and halls of power, and so on
- essentially forced to play by the rules of others, which we had no hand in making, have little to no voice in changing laws and policies and no political or economic power to force large-scale changes in the financial services or political systems
- ruled by a gerontocracy that blames us for every earthly ill, even while taking little responsibility for leaving us a legacy of war, recession, underemployment, poor financial health and literacy, a broken political system, and an economy that skews heavily toward the already wealthy
- small and shrinking social mobility in the United States and other wealthy Western countries
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Judging by the volume of digital ink spilt on blaming millennials for the death of everything that is good and holy, including matrimony, the news media and online commentariat primarily composed of Gen Xers and boomers have gone to town with blaming millennials for the death of nostalgia, itself.
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