Millennials

For the blog by Yoani Sánchez, see Generación Y.

Generation Y is a term used to describe the demographic cohort following Generation X. Another common name for this cohort is Millennial Generation with the members of this generation referred to as Millennial. Precise dates are disputed but Generation Y roughly consists of those people born from around 1981 to 2001. Generation Y has been referred to as the offspring of the Baby Boomers, Generation Jones, and Generation X cohorts. A transitional generation between Gen X and Y is occasionally referred to as the MTV Generation.

Millennials are the first generation without mature memories of communism and a powerful Soviet Union. In newly rich countries such as South Korea or Greece, they have known nothing but developed world standards of living, while their grandparents often grew up in developing world conditions, causing considerable social changes and inter-generational difficulties as the young reject many traditional ways of life. Generation Y was the first generation in countries like India and China to experience modern western amenities on a wide scale due to the liberalization of their economies.

Attempts to Name and Demarcate Generation Y/Millennials

The term Generation Y first appeared in an August 1993 Ad Age editorial to describe those teenagers born between 1974 and 1976 (now usually considered a part of Generation X). The scope of the term has changed greatly since then to include, in many cases, anyone born as late as 2001. There is no precise definition of years.

Use of the term Generation Y (often shortened to Gen Y) to describe any cohort of individuals is controversial for a variety of reasons. "Generation Y" alludes to a succession from "Generation X", a term which was originally coined as a pejorative label. Some members of this demographic group find it offensive and prefer a unique name that appropriately captures the specific generation.

The name "Echo Boomers" relates to the size of the generation and its relation to the Baby boomer generation. The actual "Echo Boom" was a five year span between 1989 and 1993 when for the first time since 1964, the number of live births reached over four million. It wouldn’t be until 1985 that the live birth number would even match that of 1965 at 3.760 million. Also it should be noted that the birthrate of 1971’s 17.2% has yet to be reached according to the 2000 census.

"First Digitals" refers to the generation first adopting digital social interaction, and exploring its opportunities and limitations. Described in books such as Born Digital and Generation Digital, the First Digitals are those born in the late 1970s until the late 1980s, who first experienced a high school and then undergraduate education utilizing digital technologies, and nearly fully adopted social networking technologies such as MySpace and Facebook, inherently determining their trajectory and features due to their requests.

As this generation comes of age, its experience with newly possible community building, prosumership, economic production and collective action mobilization is already remaking human society. While the generations that follow will certainly re-create the world—digital and physical—in their image, the First Digital Generation will remain as the turning point generation for human society in the Information Age.

Books on Millennials

Howe and Strauss: "The Millennials"

Following the publication of their book, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, much credit has been given to the names used for various American cohorts by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe. Howe and Strauss use the term "Millennials" as opposed to "Generation Y", arguing that this cohort actually coined the term Millennials themselves and have expressed a wish not to be associated closely with Gen X. They followed up their large study of the history of American demographics with a new book specifically on that generation, titled Millennials Rising.

In Generations, Howe and Strauss use the years 1982-2001 as the birth years of the Millennial Generation, using the 18 childhood years of the high school graduating class of 2000 as their marking points. They reasoned that the high school class of 2000 received notable public attention and political initiatives during their youth that provided a contrast between Americans born before this class and those born after. This term relates to the generation's young age during the turn of the millennium.

Alsop: "The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace"

As millions of millennial generation students graduate from college and join the work force, it’s becoming quite clear that the workplace will never be the same. Employers are bracing for some of the biggest management challenges they’ve ever faced as they try to integrate the most demanding and most protected generation in history into a workplace shaped by baby-boomers. Alsop's book provides a rich portrait of the millennials, told through the eyes of millennials themselves and from the perspectives of their parents, educators, psychologists, recruiters, and corporate managers. Millennials represent a new breed of student, worker, and global citizen, and this book explores in depth their most salient attributes. It also describes how companies are changing tactics to recruit millennials in the Internet age and looks at some of this generation’s dream jobs and employers.

Junco and Mastrodicasa: Research on "The Net.Generation"

In their 2007 book, Junco and Mastrodicasa expanded on the work of Howe and Strauss to include research-based information about the personality profiles of Millennials, especially as it relates to higher education. They conducted a large-sample (7,705) research study of college students. They found that Net.Generation college students were frequently in touch with their parents and they used technology at higher rates than people from other generations. In their survey, they found that 97% of students owned a computer, 94% owned a cell phone, and 56% owned an MP3 player (iPod, Zune, Sansa, etc.). They also found that students spoke with their parents an average of 1.5 times a day about a wide range of topics. Other findings in the Junco and Mastrodicasa survey included the following:

Instant Messaging (IM)

• 76% of students used Instant Messaging
• A typical IM user was logged on to IM 35 hours each week.
• 15% of IM users were logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week.
• IM users typically chat 80 minutes per day.
• 80% of IM users send messages to someone in their vicinity.

Multitasking and Academics

• 92% of IM users reported doing something else on the computer while IMing.
• 75% of IM users reported doing something else (e.g., talking on the phone) while IMing.
• 75% of IM users reported doing schoolwork at the same time as IMing.
• 57% of IM users reported that their academics had suffered because of IM use.
• 40% of students reported that their academics had suffered because of surfing the web and 16% reported their academics had suffered because of playing games.

Information Streaming

• 40% of students reported that the television was their primary source of obtaining news while 34% reported that websites were their primary source (newspapers were the primary source for 11% and radio for 8%).

Blogs

• 28% reported owning a blog and 44% reported reading blogs.

File Sharing

• 56% reported downloading music using peer-to-peer file sharing (15% reported downloading movies and 16% reported downloading software).

Facebook

• 69% of students reported having a Facebook account.
• Students who had Facebook accounts reported typically logging in twice a day.

Generation Y in the Workforce

The Millennials are sometimes called the "Trophy Generation", or "Trophy Kids," a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports (as well as many other aspects of life) where "no one loses" and everyone gets a "Thanks for Participating" trophy and symbolizing a perceived sense of entitlement. It has been reported that this is an issue in corporate environments." Some employers are concerned that Millennials have too great expectations from the workplace and desire to shape their jobs to fit their lives rather than adapt their lives to the workplace. To better understand this mindset, many large firms are currently studying this conflict and are trying to devise new programs to help older employees understand Millennials, while at the same time making Millennial more comfortable. For example, Goldman Sachs conducts training programs that use actors to portray Millennials who assertively seek more feedback, responsibility, and involvement in decision making. After the performance, employees discuss and debate the generational differences they have seen played out "

Carol Elam and Nicole Borges discuss some issues with Millennials in a medical school environment.

Multiculturalism

In America

Being amongst the first generations to be born and actively grow up in an American society desegregated by law (Brown v. Board of Education), imposing sexual equality by law (Title IX), and proactively defending the rights of various minority groups by law, in addition to the effects of '60s and '70s era influence on their generation, Millennials have been conditioned by the state, educational institutions, and by cultural influence to take a supportive outlook on multiculturalism.

From this outlook you will find petitions to abolish affirmative action to a seemingly conflicting proactive support for extensive multiculturalism. During their formative years this generation has seen the largest ethnic demographic shift in the US so far, exposing the millennial generation to far more cultures and foreign influences than any previous one. The role of the increasingly available and global internet even prior to the web has had a substantial impact in exposing them to more cultures than previously possible for any preceding generation's youth.

These combined influences have served to create what is a more culturally tolerant and open-minded generation, at least with concerns to race, and a dramatic decrease in racial and ethnic conflicts. Most members of this generation (who were old enough to vote) voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election. (66% of 18-29 year olds voted for Obama, much higher than his performance in any other age group).

Social studies education has changed significantly particularly during this generation's childhood and adolescence, with tolerance and multiple points of views on divisive issues being introduced into school literature (such as Columbus controversy, MLK, civil rights era, sexual education, etc...).

Worldwide

Institutionalized racism in countries such as South Africa and the United States was abolished by the time Millennials grew up, and they know of it only as history.

In Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States, Millennials themselves are far more multicultural, which may explain their tendency to be more accepting of others in the fields of gender, homosexuality and race. In Ireland they are known as "Celtic Tiger Cubs", as a reference to the economic boom of the late 90's early 00's.

See also

• http://www.answers.com/topic/generation-y#cite_note-Tovar2007-1
• Generation "We...", a characterization of Generation Y and Generation Z based on changing relationships to technology
• After-eighty generation
• After-ninety generation

External links

• Financial Times Podcast - how to keep Generation Y Motivated
• Blending Generational Knowledge and Talent Strategies - Gen|Blending
• Who's filling Y's shoes - The origin of Gen Y
• Generation Next, A PBS Documentary
• USA Today
• The "Millennials" Are Coming
• Resource Library: New World, New Workforce: Gen Y Views on Today's Workplace January 2009
• Generation Y's Goal: Wealth and fame?
• Attracting the twentysomething worker
• The Gen Y Perceptions Study

International

• China's Generation Y: Understanding the Future Leaders of the World's Next Superpower
• A new switched-on and cynical generation
• Generation Y, the Internet, and mindfulness From a Gen Y'ers point of view, not PR or marketing-related. March 2009

References

• 5- "Drug Survey of Students Finds Picture Very Mixed" by KATE ZERNIKE, New York Times, 12/20/05
• 6- Time Magazine, August 1, 2005.
• 7- The Wall Street Journal, 7/28/05.
• 8- William Strauss and Neil Howe Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069:Perennial; Reprint edition (September 1, 1992)
• 9- After X Comes Y - echo boom generation enters workforce - Brief Article HR Magazine, April, 2001 by Julie Wallace
• 10-Brandchannel.com: Dr. Pete Markiewicz: Who's filling Gen Y's shoe's?
• 11-Millennial Manifesto: Scott Beale and Abeer Aballa-InstantPublisher (November, 2003)
• 12-CensusScope-Dominate Generations http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_generations.html
• 13-CDC report- Table 1-1. Live Births, Birth Rates, and Fertility Rates, by Race: United States,1909-2000