Millennials, also known as Generation Y (or simply Gen Y), are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with 1981 to 1996 a widely accepted definition. Millennials are sometimes referred to as "echo boomers" due to a major surge in birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s, and because millennials are often the children of the baby boomers. The characteristics of millennials vary by region and by individual, and the group experiences a variety of social and economic conditions, but they are generally marked by their coming of age in the Information Age, and are comfortable in their usage of digital technologies and social media.
gust 1993, an Advertising Age editorial coined the phrase Generation Y to describe those who were aged 11 or younger as well as the teenagers of the upcoming ten years who were defined as different from Generation X.[4][5] According to journalist Bruce Horovitz, in 2012, Ad Age "threw in the towel by conceding that millennials is a better name than Gen Y",[1] and by 2014, a past director of data strategy at Ad Age said to NPR "the Generation Y label was a placeholder until we found out more about them".[6] Millennials are sometimes called Echo Boomers,[7] due to their being the offspring of the baby boomers and due to the significant increase in birth rates from the early 1980s to mid 1990s, mirroring that of their parents. In the United States, birth rates peaked in August 1990[8][9] and a 20th-century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued.[10][11] In his book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom, author Elwood Carlson called this cohort the "New Boomers".[12]
Psychologist Jean Twenge described millennials as "Generation Me" in her 2006 book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before, which was updated in 2014.[13][14] In 2013, Time magazine ran a cover story titled Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation.[15] Newsweek used the term Generation 9/11 to refer to young people who were between the ages of 10 and 20 during the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. The first reference to "Generation 9/11" was made in the cover story of the 12 November 2001 issue of Newsweek.[16] Alternative names for this group proposed include Generation We,[17] Global Generation, Generation Next,[18] The Net Generation[19] and The Burnout Generation.[20]
Chinese millennials are commonly called the 1980s and 1990s generations. At a 2015 conference in Shanghai organized by University of Southern California's US-China Institute, millennials in China were examined and contrasted with American millennials.[21] Findings included millennials' marriage, childbearing, and child raising preferences, life and career ambitions, and attitudes towards volunteerism and activism.[22]
Peter Pan generation
American sociologist Kathleen Shaputis labeled millennials as the Boomerang Generation or Peter Pan generation because of the members' perceived tendency for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood for longer periods than most generations before them. These labels were also a reference to a trend toward members living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations.[23] Kimberly Palmer regards the high cost of housing and higher education, and the relative affluence of older generations, as among the factors driving the trend.[24] Questions regarding a clear definition of what it means to be an adult also impacts a debate about delayed transitions into adulthood and the emergence of a new life stage, Emerging Adulthood. A 2012 study by professors at Brigham Young University found that college students were more likely to define "adult" based on certain personal abilities and characteristics rather than more traditional "rite of passage" events.[25] Larry Nelson noted that "In prior generations, you get married and you start a career and you do that immediately. What young people today are seeing is that approach has led to divorces, to people unhappy with their careers … The majority want to get married […] they just want to do it right the first time, the same thing with their careers."[25]
A 2013 joint study by sociologists at the University of Virginia and Harvard University found that the decline and disappearance of stable full-time jobs with health insurance and pensions for people who lack a college degree has had profound effects on working-class Americans, who now are less likely to marry and have children within marriage than those with college degrees.[26] Data from a 2014 study of U.S. millennials revealed over 56% of this cohort considers themselves as part of the working class, with only approximately 35% considering themselves as part of the middle class; this class identity is the lowest polling of any generation.[27]
Research by the Urban Institute conducted in 2014, projected that if current trends continue, millennials will have a lower marriage rate compared to previous generations, predicting that by age 40, 31% of millennial women will remain single, approximately twice the share of their single Gen X counterparts. The data showed similar trends for males.[28][29] A 2016 study from Pew Research showed millennials delay some activities considered rites of passage of adulthood with data showing young adults aged 18–34 were more likely to live with parents than with a relationship partner, an unprecedented occurrence since data collection began in 1880. Data also showed a significant increase in the percentage of young adults living with parents compared to the previous demographic cohort, Generation X, with 23% of young adults aged 18–34 living with parents in 2000, rising to 32% in 2014. Additionally, in 2000, 43% of those aged 18–34 were married or living with a partner, with this figure dropping to 32% in 2014. High student debt is described as one reason for continuing to live with parents, but may not be the dominant factor for this shift as the data shows the trend is stronger for those without a college education. Richard Fry, a senior economist for Pew Research said of millennials, "they're the group much more likely to live with their parents," further stating that "they're concentrating more on school, careers and work and less focused on forming new families, spouses or partners and children".[30][31]
According to a cross-generational study comparing millennials to Generation X conducted at Wharton School of Business, more than half of millennial undergraduates surveyed do not plan to have children. The researchers compared surveys of the Wharton graduating class of 1992 and 2012. In 1992, 78% of women planned to eventually have children dropping to 42% in 2012. The results were similar for male students. The research revealed among both genders the proportion of undergraduates who reported they eventually planned to have children had dropped in half over the course of a generation.[32][33][34]
Date and age range definitions
Oxford Living Dictionaries describes a millennial as "a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century."[35]
The Pew Research Center defines millennials as born from 1981 to 1996, choosing these dates for "key political, economic and social factors", including the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Great Recession, and the Internet explosion.[36] Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote for The Economist in 2018 that "generations are squishy concepts", but the 1981 to 1996 birth cohort is a "widely accepted" definition for millennials,[37] with many major media outlets having cited Pew's definition including Time magazine,[38] The Washington Post,[39] Reuters,[40] Business Insider,[41] The New York Times,[42] and The Wall Street Journal.[43] Pew Research Center has observed that "[b]ecause generations are analytical constructs, it takes time for popular and expert consensus to develop as to the precise boundaries that demarcate one generation from another"[44][45] and have indicated that they would remain open to date recalibration.[36] According to this definition, the oldest millennial is 38 years old and the youngest is, or is turning, 23 years old in 2019.
The American Psychological Association describes millennials as those born between the years 1981 and 1996,[46] as does the Federal Reserve Board,[47] and Ernst and Young.[48] The birth years of 1981 to 1996 have also been used to define millennials by PBS,[49] CBS,[50] ABC Australia,[51] The Washington Post,[52] The Washington Times,[53] and The Los Angeles Times.[54]
Gallup Inc.,[55][56][57] MSW Research,[58] the Resolution Foundation use 1980–1996,[59] PricewaterhouseCoopers has used 1981 to 1995,[60] and Nielsen Media Research has defined millennials as between 21 and 37 years old in 2018.[61] The United States Chamber of Commerce, a business-oriented lobbying group,[62] uses 1980–1999.[63] In 2014, U.S PIRG described millennials as those born between 1983 and 2000.[64][65][66] The United States Census Bureau used the birth years 1982 to 2000 in a 2015 news release to describe millennials,[67] but they have stated that "there is no official start and end date for when millennials were born"[68] and they do not define millennials.[69][70][71]
Australia's McCrindle Research uses 1980–1994 as Generation Y birth years.[72]
In his 2008 book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom, author Elwood Carlson used the term "New Boomers" to describe this cohort. He identified the birth years of 1983–2001, based on the upswing in births after 1983 and finishing with the "political and social challenges" that occurred after the September 11th terrorist acts.[12] Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe define millennials as born between 1982–2004.[1] However, Howe described the dividing line between millennials and the following Generation Z as "tentative", saying "you can’t be sure where history will someday draw a cohort dividing line until a generation fully comes of age".[73]
Individuals born in the Generation X and millennial cusp years of the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s have been identified as a "microgeneration" with characteristics of both generations.[74] Names given to these "cuspers" include Xennials,[75] Generation Catalano,[76] and the Oregon Trail Generation.[77]
Traits
Psychologist Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers millennials, along with younger members of Generation X, to be part of what she calls "Generation Me".[79] Twenge attributes millennials with the traits of confidence and tolerance, but also describes a sense of entitlement and narcissism, based on "Narcissistic Personality Inventory" surveys showing increased narcissism among millennials[quantify] compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties.[80][81] Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett of Clark University, Worcester has criticized Twenge's research on narcissism among millennials, stating "I think she is vastly misinterpreting or over-interpreting the data, and I think it’s destructive".[82] He doubts that the Narcissistic Personality Inventory really measures narcissism at all. Arnett says that not only are millennials less narcissistic, they’re “an exceptionally generous generation that holds great promise for improving the world”.[83] A study published in 2017 in the journal Psychological Science found a small decline in narcissism among young people since the 1990s.[84][85]
The University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" study of high school seniors (conducted continually since 1975) and the American Freshman survey, conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute of new college students since 1966, showed an increase in the proportion of students who consider wealth a very important attribute, from 45% for Baby Boomers (surveyed between 1967 and 1985) to 70% for Gen Xers, and 75% for millennials. The percentage who said it was important to keep abreast of political affairs fell, from 50% for Baby Boomers to 39% for Gen Xers, and 35% for millennials. The notion of "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" decreased the most across generations, from 73% for Boomers to 45% for millennials. The willingness to be involved in an environmental cleanup program dropped from 33% for Baby Boomers to 21% for millennials.[86] Millennials show a willingness to vote more than previous generations. With voter rates being just below 50% for the last four presidential cycles, they have already surpassed Gen Xers of the same age who were at just 36%.[87]
A 2013 Pew Research Poll found that 84% of millennials, born since 1980, who were at that time between the ages of 18 and 32, favored legalizing the use of marijuana.[88] In 2015, the Pew Research Center also conducted research regarding generational identity that said a majority did not like the "Millennial" label
In March 2014, the Pew Research Center issued a report about how "millennials in adulthood" are "detached from institutions and networked with friends."[91][92] The report said millennials are somewhat more upbeat than older adults about America's future, with 49% of millennials saying the country's best years are ahead, though they're the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt and unemployment.
Fred Bonner, a Samuel DeWitt Proctor Chair in Education at Rutgers University and author of Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs, believes that much of the commentary on the Millennial Generation may be partially correct, but overly general and that many of the traits they describe apply primarily to "white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them." During class discussions, Bonner listened to black and Hispanic students describe how some or all of the so-called core traits did not apply to them. They often said that the "special" trait, in particular, is unrecognizable. Other socio-economic groups often do not display the same attributes commonly attributed to millennials. "It's not that many diverse parents don't want to treat their kids as special," he says, "but they often don't have the social and cultural capital, the time and resources, to do that."[93]
In his book Fast Future, author David Burstein describes millennials' approach to social change as "pragmatic idealism" with a deep desire to make the world a better place, combined with an understanding that doing so requires building new institutions while working inside and outside existing institutions.[94]
Elza Venter, an educational psychologist and lecturer at Unisa, South Africa, in the Department of Psychology of Education, believes members of Generation Y are digital natives because they have grown up experiencing digital technology and have known it all their lives. Prensky[95] coined the concept ‘digital natives’ because this generation are ‘native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet’. This generation spans 20 years and its older members use a combination of face-to-face communication and computer mediated communication, while its younger members use mainly electronic and digital technologies for interpersonal communication.[96]
Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe argue that each generation has common characteristics that give it a specific character with four basic generational archetypes, repeating in a cycle. According to their hypothesis, they predicted millennials would become more like the "civic-minded" G.I. Generation with a strong sense of community both local and global.[2] Strauss and Howe ascribe seven basic traits to the millennial cohort: special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured, and achieving. Arthur E. Levine, author of When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student describes these generational images as "stereotypes".[93]
Strauss and Howe's research has been influential, but it also has critics.[93] Psychologist Jean Twenge says Strauss and Howe's assertions are overly-deterministic, non-falsifiable, and unsupported by rigorous evidence.[79]
Cultural identity
Strauss & Howe's book titled millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation describes the millennial generation as "civic-minded", rejecting the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X.[97] Since the 2000 U.S. Census, which allowed people to select more than one racial group, millennials in abundance have asserted the ideal that all their heritages should be respected, counted, and acknowledged.[98][99] Millennials are the children of Baby Boomers or Generation X, while some older members may have parents from the Silent Generation. A 2013 poll in the United Kingdom found that Generation Y was more "open-minded than their parents on controversial topics".[100][101] Of those surveyed, nearly 75% supported same-sex marriage.
In 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted research regarding generational identity.[89] It was discovered that millennials are less likely to strongly identify with the generational term when compared to Generation X or the Baby Boomers, with only 40% of those born between 1981 and 1997 identifying as part of the Millennial Generation. Among older millennials, those born 1981–1988, Pew Research found 43% personally identified as members of the older demographic cohort, Generation X, while only 35% identified as millennials. Among younger millennials (born 1989–1997), generational identity was not much stronger, with only 45% personally identifying as millennials. It was also found that millennials chose most often to define themselves with more negative terms such as self-absorbed, wasteful or greedy. In this 2015 report, Pew defined millennials with birth years ranging from 1981 onwards.[89]
Millennials came of age in a time where the entertainment industry began to be affected by the Internet.[102][103][104] In addition to millennials being the most ethnically and racially diverse compared to the generations older than they are, they are also on pace to be the most formally educated. As of 2008, 39.6% of millennials between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college, which was an American record. Along with being educated, millennials also tend be upbeat, with about 9 out of 10 millennials feeling as though they have enough money or that they will reach their long-term financial goals, even during the tough economic times, and they are more optimistic about the future of the U.S. Additionally, millennials are also more open to change than older generations. According to the Pew Research Center that did a survey in 2008, millennials are the most likely of any generation to self-identify as liberals and are also more supportive of progressive domestic social agenda than older generations. Finally, millennials are less overtly religious than the older generations. About one in four millennials are unaffiliated with any religion, a considerably higher ratio than that of older generations when they were the ages of millennials.
gust 1993, an Advertising Age editorial coined the phrase Generation Y to describe those who were aged 11 or younger as well as the teenagers of the upcoming ten years who were defined as different from Generation X.[4][5] According to journalist Bruce Horovitz, in 2012, Ad Age "threw in the towel by conceding that millennials is a better name than Gen Y",[1] and by 2014, a past director of data strategy at Ad Age said to NPR "the Generation Y label was a placeholder until we found out more about them".[6] Millennials are sometimes called Echo Boomers,[7] due to their being the offspring of the baby boomers and due to the significant increase in birth rates from the early 1980s to mid 1990s, mirroring that of their parents. In the United States, birth rates peaked in August 1990[8][9] and a 20th-century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued.[10][11] In his book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom, author Elwood Carlson called this cohort the "New Boomers".[12]
Psychologist Jean Twenge described millennials as "Generation Me" in her 2006 book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before, which was updated in 2014.[13][14] In 2013, Time magazine ran a cover story titled Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation.[15] Newsweek used the term Generation 9/11 to refer to young people who were between the ages of 10 and 20 during the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. The first reference to "Generation 9/11" was made in the cover story of the 12 November 2001 issue of Newsweek.[16] Alternative names for this group proposed include Generation We,[17] Global Generation, Generation Next,[18] The Net Generation[19] and The Burnout Generation.[20]
Chinese millennials are commonly called the 1980s and 1990s generations. At a 2015 conference in Shanghai organized by University of Southern California's US-China Institute, millennials in China were examined and contrasted with American millennials.[21] Findings included millennials' marriage, childbearing, and child raising preferences, life and career ambitions, and attitudes towards volunteerism and activism.[22]
Peter Pan generation
American sociologist Kathleen Shaputis labeled millennials as the Boomerang Generation or Peter Pan generation because of the members' perceived tendency for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood for longer periods than most generations before them. These labels were also a reference to a trend toward members living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations.[23] Kimberly Palmer regards the high cost of housing and higher education, and the relative affluence of older generations, as among the factors driving the trend.[24] Questions regarding a clear definition of what it means to be an adult also impacts a debate about delayed transitions into adulthood and the emergence of a new life stage, Emerging Adulthood. A 2012 study by professors at Brigham Young University found that college students were more likely to define "adult" based on certain personal abilities and characteristics rather than more traditional "rite of passage" events.[25] Larry Nelson noted that "In prior generations, you get married and you start a career and you do that immediately. What young people today are seeing is that approach has led to divorces, to people unhappy with their careers … The majority want to get married […] they just want to do it right the first time, the same thing with their careers."[25]
A 2013 joint study by sociologists at the University of Virginia and Harvard University found that the decline and disappearance of stable full-time jobs with health insurance and pensions for people who lack a college degree has had profound effects on working-class Americans, who now are less likely to marry and have children within marriage than those with college degrees.[26] Data from a 2014 study of U.S. millennials revealed over 56% of this cohort considers themselves as part of the working class, with only approximately 35% considering themselves as part of the middle class; this class identity is the lowest polling of any generation.[27]
Research by the Urban Institute conducted in 2014, projected that if current trends continue, millennials will have a lower marriage rate compared to previous generations, predicting that by age 40, 31% of millennial women will remain single, approximately twice the share of their single Gen X counterparts. The data showed similar trends for males.[28][29] A 2016 study from Pew Research showed millennials delay some activities considered rites of passage of adulthood with data showing young adults aged 18–34 were more likely to live with parents than with a relationship partner, an unprecedented occurrence since data collection began in 1880. Data also showed a significant increase in the percentage of young adults living with parents compared to the previous demographic cohort, Generation X, with 23% of young adults aged 18–34 living with parents in 2000, rising to 32% in 2014. Additionally, in 2000, 43% of those aged 18–34 were married or living with a partner, with this figure dropping to 32% in 2014. High student debt is described as one reason for continuing to live with parents, but may not be the dominant factor for this shift as the data shows the trend is stronger for those without a college education. Richard Fry, a senior economist for Pew Research said of millennials, "they're the group much more likely to live with their parents," further stating that "they're concentrating more on school, careers and work and less focused on forming new families, spouses or partners and children".[30][31]
According to a cross-generational study comparing millennials to Generation X conducted at Wharton School of Business, more than half of millennial undergraduates surveyed do not plan to have children. The researchers compared surveys of the Wharton graduating class of 1992 and 2012. In 1992, 78% of women planned to eventually have children dropping to 42% in 2012. The results were similar for male students. The research revealed among both genders the proportion of undergraduates who reported they eventually planned to have children had dropped in half over the course of a generation.[32][33][34]
Date and age range definitions
Oxford Living Dictionaries describes a millennial as "a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century."[35]
The Pew Research Center defines millennials as born from 1981 to 1996, choosing these dates for "key political, economic and social factors", including the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Great Recession, and the Internet explosion.[36] Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote for The Economist in 2018 that "generations are squishy concepts", but the 1981 to 1996 birth cohort is a "widely accepted" definition for millennials,[37] with many major media outlets having cited Pew's definition including Time magazine,[38] The Washington Post,[39] Reuters,[40] Business Insider,[41] The New York Times,[42] and The Wall Street Journal.[43] Pew Research Center has observed that "[b]ecause generations are analytical constructs, it takes time for popular and expert consensus to develop as to the precise boundaries that demarcate one generation from another"[44][45] and have indicated that they would remain open to date recalibration.[36] According to this definition, the oldest millennial is 38 years old and the youngest is, or is turning, 23 years old in 2019.
The American Psychological Association describes millennials as those born between the years 1981 and 1996,[46] as does the Federal Reserve Board,[47] and Ernst and Young.[48] The birth years of 1981 to 1996 have also been used to define millennials by PBS,[49] CBS,[50] ABC Australia,[51] The Washington Post,[52] The Washington Times,[53] and The Los Angeles Times.[54]
Gallup Inc.,[55][56][57] MSW Research,[58] the Resolution Foundation use 1980–1996,[59] PricewaterhouseCoopers has used 1981 to 1995,[60] and Nielsen Media Research has defined millennials as between 21 and 37 years old in 2018.[61] The United States Chamber of Commerce, a business-oriented lobbying group,[62] uses 1980–1999.[63] In 2014, U.S PIRG described millennials as those born between 1983 and 2000.[64][65][66] The United States Census Bureau used the birth years 1982 to 2000 in a 2015 news release to describe millennials,[67] but they have stated that "there is no official start and end date for when millennials were born"[68] and they do not define millennials.[69][70][71]
Australia's McCrindle Research uses 1980–1994 as Generation Y birth years.[72]
In his 2008 book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom, author Elwood Carlson used the term "New Boomers" to describe this cohort. He identified the birth years of 1983–2001, based on the upswing in births after 1983 and finishing with the "political and social challenges" that occurred after the September 11th terrorist acts.[12] Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe define millennials as born between 1982–2004.[1] However, Howe described the dividing line between millennials and the following Generation Z as "tentative", saying "you can’t be sure where history will someday draw a cohort dividing line until a generation fully comes of age".[73]
Individuals born in the Generation X and millennial cusp years of the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s have been identified as a "microgeneration" with characteristics of both generations.[74] Names given to these "cuspers" include Xennials,[75] Generation Catalano,[76] and the Oregon Trail Generation.[77]
Traits
Psychologist Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers millennials, along with younger members of Generation X, to be part of what she calls "Generation Me".[79] Twenge attributes millennials with the traits of confidence and tolerance, but also describes a sense of entitlement and narcissism, based on "Narcissistic Personality Inventory" surveys showing increased narcissism among millennials[quantify] compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties.[80][81] Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett of Clark University, Worcester has criticized Twenge's research on narcissism among millennials, stating "I think she is vastly misinterpreting or over-interpreting the data, and I think it’s destructive".[82] He doubts that the Narcissistic Personality Inventory really measures narcissism at all. Arnett says that not only are millennials less narcissistic, they’re “an exceptionally generous generation that holds great promise for improving the world”.[83] A study published in 2017 in the journal Psychological Science found a small decline in narcissism among young people since the 1990s.[84][85]
The University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" study of high school seniors (conducted continually since 1975) and the American Freshman survey, conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute of new college students since 1966, showed an increase in the proportion of students who consider wealth a very important attribute, from 45% for Baby Boomers (surveyed between 1967 and 1985) to 70% for Gen Xers, and 75% for millennials. The percentage who said it was important to keep abreast of political affairs fell, from 50% for Baby Boomers to 39% for Gen Xers, and 35% for millennials. The notion of "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" decreased the most across generations, from 73% for Boomers to 45% for millennials. The willingness to be involved in an environmental cleanup program dropped from 33% for Baby Boomers to 21% for millennials.[86] Millennials show a willingness to vote more than previous generations. With voter rates being just below 50% for the last four presidential cycles, they have already surpassed Gen Xers of the same age who were at just 36%.[87]
A 2013 Pew Research Poll found that 84% of millennials, born since 1980, who were at that time between the ages of 18 and 32, favored legalizing the use of marijuana.[88] In 2015, the Pew Research Center also conducted research regarding generational identity that said a majority did not like the "Millennial" label
In March 2014, the Pew Research Center issued a report about how "millennials in adulthood" are "detached from institutions and networked with friends."[91][92] The report said millennials are somewhat more upbeat than older adults about America's future, with 49% of millennials saying the country's best years are ahead, though they're the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt and unemployment.
Fred Bonner, a Samuel DeWitt Proctor Chair in Education at Rutgers University and author of Diverse Millennial Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs, believes that much of the commentary on the Millennial Generation may be partially correct, but overly general and that many of the traits they describe apply primarily to "white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them." During class discussions, Bonner listened to black and Hispanic students describe how some or all of the so-called core traits did not apply to them. They often said that the "special" trait, in particular, is unrecognizable. Other socio-economic groups often do not display the same attributes commonly attributed to millennials. "It's not that many diverse parents don't want to treat their kids as special," he says, "but they often don't have the social and cultural capital, the time and resources, to do that."[93]
In his book Fast Future, author David Burstein describes millennials' approach to social change as "pragmatic idealism" with a deep desire to make the world a better place, combined with an understanding that doing so requires building new institutions while working inside and outside existing institutions.[94]
Elza Venter, an educational psychologist and lecturer at Unisa, South Africa, in the Department of Psychology of Education, believes members of Generation Y are digital natives because they have grown up experiencing digital technology and have known it all their lives. Prensky[95] coined the concept ‘digital natives’ because this generation are ‘native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet’. This generation spans 20 years and its older members use a combination of face-to-face communication and computer mediated communication, while its younger members use mainly electronic and digital technologies for interpersonal communication.[96]
Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe argue that each generation has common characteristics that give it a specific character with four basic generational archetypes, repeating in a cycle. According to their hypothesis, they predicted millennials would become more like the "civic-minded" G.I. Generation with a strong sense of community both local and global.[2] Strauss and Howe ascribe seven basic traits to the millennial cohort: special, sheltered, confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured, and achieving. Arthur E. Levine, author of When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student describes these generational images as "stereotypes".[93]
Strauss and Howe's research has been influential, but it also has critics.[93] Psychologist Jean Twenge says Strauss and Howe's assertions are overly-deterministic, non-falsifiable, and unsupported by rigorous evidence.[79]
Cultural identity
Strauss & Howe's book titled millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation describes the millennial generation as "civic-minded", rejecting the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X.[97] Since the 2000 U.S. Census, which allowed people to select more than one racial group, millennials in abundance have asserted the ideal that all their heritages should be respected, counted, and acknowledged.[98][99] Millennials are the children of Baby Boomers or Generation X, while some older members may have parents from the Silent Generation. A 2013 poll in the United Kingdom found that Generation Y was more "open-minded than their parents on controversial topics".[100][101] Of those surveyed, nearly 75% supported same-sex marriage.
In 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted research regarding generational identity.[89] It was discovered that millennials are less likely to strongly identify with the generational term when compared to Generation X or the Baby Boomers, with only 40% of those born between 1981 and 1997 identifying as part of the Millennial Generation. Among older millennials, those born 1981–1988, Pew Research found 43% personally identified as members of the older demographic cohort, Generation X, while only 35% identified as millennials. Among younger millennials (born 1989–1997), generational identity was not much stronger, with only 45% personally identifying as millennials. It was also found that millennials chose most often to define themselves with more negative terms such as self-absorbed, wasteful or greedy. In this 2015 report, Pew defined millennials with birth years ranging from 1981 onwards.[89]
Millennials came of age in a time where the entertainment industry began to be affected by the Internet.[102][103][104] In addition to millennials being the most ethnically and racially diverse compared to the generations older than they are, they are also on pace to be the most formally educated. As of 2008, 39.6% of millennials between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college, which was an American record. Along with being educated, millennials also tend be upbeat, with about 9 out of 10 millennials feeling as though they have enough money or that they will reach their long-term financial goals, even during the tough economic times, and they are more optimistic about the future of the U.S. Additionally, millennials are also more open to change than older generations. According to the Pew Research Center that did a survey in 2008, millennials are the most likely of any generation to self-identify as liberals and are also more supportive of progressive domestic social agenda than older generations. Finally, millennials are less overtly religious than the older generations. About one in four millennials are unaffiliated with any religion, a considerably higher ratio than that of older generations when they were the ages of millennials.
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