29th of April 2016
People have gotten used to that work is often characterized by time intervals of 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week of 22 working days per month. For the most part, it is the number of hours worked, rather than the fulfilled objectives that define the size of the salary, and the amount of office hours spent at work positively characterizes the employee in the eyes of the employer: he is always at the workplace – means reliable, stay late to work – purposeful and dedicated to the cause. This approach causes more confusion and dissatisfaction among young professionals in their twenties, who have recently graduated from their universities and turned their attention to the labor market. Proponents of the theory of generations call them Generation Me.
According to this theory, there are several social groups, each of which is characterized not only and not so much by age as values, formed under the influence of social, economic and technological developments, as well as education in the family. Generational change happen about once every 20 years. Now the labor market can meet representatives of 3 generations (Fry).
Baby boomers - people born between 1943-1963. Generation got its name because of the baby boom that happened in the postwar years. They are characterized by collectivism and optimism. Generation X are the people born in the years 1963-1983. Also known as the unknown generation. They were formed in an era of significant social and political changes. When they were children, it first became known about AIDS and drug addiction, and a wave of divorces that had a significant influence on the formation of their values. They are characterized by individualism, hope for themselves, the desire for freedom and independence (Fry).
Finally, the GenMe. Generation of Millennials, or Generation Y, are people who were born in the 1980s at the beginning of the 2000s, and they are the happiest generation that ever lived on Earth. They are smarter, healthier and better educated than their predecessors were. Lusting corporations open doors before them as on them depends the future. Yet, they were not lucky: despite all the benefits, solution of the perennial problems for them are sometimes harder than to all the rest, as older people do not allow them to unleash the potential.
Marketers and consultants are obsessed with the desire to understand how to think and what 20-30-year-olds want today. This is not surprising. According to estimates of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the world's 1.8 billion people live in the age from 11 to 25 years; the Economist magazine has counted the same approximate for the young people aged 18-30 years (Brooks). This is a quarter of the world's population. However, to find out what young people want is not easy: the millennium generation is not interested in any politics or religion, they do not want to linger for a long time at one job, and it seems that they love only themselves and their smartphones (Brooks).
The offspring of baby boomers and Generation X is often accused of narcissism and capriciousness. The last read of "Generation Me" by psychologist Jean Twenge or the bestseller "The Road to Character" by the New York Times columnist David Brooks, both claim that GenMe are really materialistic: 65% of American college students surveyed by Ernst & Young, announced that in the future they want to become millionaires (Twenge). Almost a third (30%) reported that they plan to achieve this goal by the age of forty. About half (47%) believe that they can afford to retire and not work, not waiting when they knock sixty (Brooks).
What else do we know about GenMe? According to a large survey that Pew Research Center conducted in early 2014, exactly half of young people aged 18-33 years, describes themselves as politically independent (although they vote) and 29% say they do not attribute themselves to any of the religions. Both figures are higher than those of the people of all other generations (Fry). However, today's young people do not trust others. If among the generation X who are now 34-49 years old, or baby boomers (50-68 years) there was the notion that most people can be trusted, 31% agreed and 40%, respectively (Twenge). Those among the young people under the age of 33 years, had accumulated only the gullible 19%. This is probably explained by the composition of the generation Me: globalization and liberalization have led to the fact that today's young people are the most racially diverse generation in modern history. In addition, social scientists suggest that the ability to trust others is lesser, the lower the person's confidence in their own security and future (Brooks).
Partly with suspicion, but also, of course, with the desire to first get an education and build a career is linked another feature of the millennium generation: they are in no hurry to start a family (Fry). The already mentioned Pew survey found that among Americans 18-32 years, the proportion of married men is only 26%. The percentage of those who marry at this age is decreasing so fast that they will soon become an endangered species. Compare to previous generations: 17 years ago in this same age group, 36% were married, 34 years ago - 48%, and in 1960 - 65% (Fry).
On the one hand, leaving the question of marriage and children for later is not bad. Young people acquire a family when feel that they will be able to provide full financial coverage, and the development of medicine, including technology, designed to increase fertility in women over thirty, allows them to delay the birth of their first child, and schedule it. However, at the same time later the family points to another problem: For both sexes the way into adulthood today has become harder and longer than for their parents and grandparents. In other words, young people have to learn to last longer and to work longer before they begin to feel sufficiently confident in the future (Fish).
Today's reality is that the income difference between a person with a school and university education is increasing every year. Employers like employees with diplomas, and this love leads to the fact that university graduates receive one and a half times higher wages than high school graduates or holders of an unfinished higher education. However, even those who earn less than half as much, can consider themselves lucky – just look at the depressing statistics on youth employment. In France, 25% are registered as unemployed, in Italy it’s 40%, in Spain and Greece almost 48%. In the US, from a peak of 19.5% in 2010. The youth unemployment rate fell to 11.2% at the end of 2015 (Twenge).
The desire to get a good education and find a well-paid job, in turn, resulted in the generation Me in the developed and developing countries to ensure that it is burdened with a higher level of debt than the one that had once complained to their parents. As a result, today's young adults are forced to deal with more complex economic challenges, more than previous generations (Twenge). Do they know how to solve them? Studies show that 86% of Gen millennium in their 20-30 years have set aside money for the future, and do so on a monthly basis. Only 37% have at least some realistic plan for managing the money. Unlike their parents' the youth do not invest, but simply saves to make it. 75% of students in the famous for its entrepreneurial spirit of America believe that it is not ready to make their own financial decisions (Brooks).
The already difficult lives of 20-30 year olds is complicated by the fact that they have to rely only on themselves (Brooks). Historically, the younger generation lived at the expense of their predecessors, but in the rich countries, this practice is beginning to change. At the level of the family, of course, the parents continue to support the children, but here on the level of government spending on pensions and health care for the elderly are greater than spending on education and social welfare of young people (Twenge). US statistics show that the elderly receive 2.4 times more budget than young people under 19 years (and if you only look at the federal budget, the difference will be seven times greater). Most of these costs are paid by loans, which in the future will fall on the shoulders of those same young people.
Finally, in most of the developed nations the policy takes into account primarily the interests of the older generation - just because it is the older people who elect their politicians (in those countries where they are selected) (Twenge). According to a survey of the Institute of Policy at Harvard University, conducted before the elections of 2014 in the United States only 23% of Gen Me in the age range 18-29 years (comparable to the 59% of voters who wished to vote over 65 years) voted (Brooks). A similar situation was observed in the UK in 2015: among 18-24 year, olds there voted 43% in the category of "65 plus" - 78%. The GenMe representative are interested in politics, it is just they are not interested in the politicians and parties, whom they distrust and by large despise (Brooks).
What will the world be, when it will be ruled by the current 20-30-year-olds? Many fear that it will be more cynical, and these fears are confirmed not only by the 65% of American students, who intend to become millionaires (Fish). Prudence and pragmatism are growing in different parts of the world and cultures. In his book “China's Millennials: The Want Generation” journalist Eric Fish talks about how they appear in Chinese society: eight out of ten Chinese students claim that they want to join the Communist Party. Do they believe in the communist system? Not at all. Among the future idealistic Communists make up only 4%, while the rest rely on the benefits in the future life, which offers membership in the party (Fish).
On the other hand, the world will be more meritocratic, open and tolerant with respect to race and nationality, gender and sexual preferences, young people are more mobile and more productive (Fish). However, that the world has become so, politicians and lobbyists - and they all tend to belong to the older generation - it is necessary to change a lot. Now, despite the best conditions in the history of the millennium generation lives in a world of "The Hunger Games", where the young have to fight to the death to survive (Fish). Contrary to the highest youth unemployment, the legislation requires the payment of benefits companies in the event of dismissal - which, of course, is understandable and useful, but helps keep older workers rather than hiring new ones. At the same time cost of rental housing grows, landlords require a statement of earnings before rent if an apartment for those who begin their life, and politicians deliberately hinder relocation of people from the provinces to the big cities (Twenge). The most vivid example is the Chinese hukou system of residence permits, but China is not the only one: according to the UN, 60% of countries limit migration of the citizens within their borders.
Anyway, the states all over the world to systematically prevent the young generation to reveal its potential. It is fraught. Even rich countries have to understand that, if the "cynical and narcissistic" Generation ME will not work, the first to suffer will be the future retirees. Moreover, the unemployed and angry youth means instability, protests and violence that lead to conflicts, wars and millions of refugee flows. This is a waste of resources and talents of a generation that will soon have to manage the global economy.
Works Cited
Brooks, David. The road to character. New York: Random House, 2015. Print.
Fish, Eric. China's Millennials: the want generation. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Print.
Fry, R. Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s Largest Generation. Pew Research Center. 2016. Web, retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/
Twenge, Jean M. Generation me: why today's young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled--and more miserable than ever before. New York: Atria Paperback, 2014. Print.
