In recent years, the media landscape has been particularly harsh toward Millennials. Whether Millennials are at school, in the workplace, or at home, their behavior is confounding older generations—prompting many to label this generation as entitled, narcissistic, and lazy. But most of these widely held views betray ignorance about who Millennials really are.
Hedgeye interviewed Demography Sector Head Neil Howe to set the record straight on who Millennials are and why they act the way they do. Below is the second part of a three-part interview. Here, we dispel other commonly held notions about Millennials—such as their perceived immaturity.
Read part one of the interview here.
Hedgeye: Last time we discussed four big criticisms levied against Millennials. Let’s move on to other perceived shortcomings. What about the charge that Millennials who live with their parents suffer from “failure to launch” syndrome?
NH: Well, it is true that Millennials are living at home more. Per the Census Bureau, between 2007 and 2014, the share of Millennials (ages 25 to 29) who are living with family or friends increased from 38% to 48%—a whopping 10 percentage points. (I discussed this theme in a previous interview: “Millennials: Are We There Yet?”) And according to another Census series, 40% of Millennials (ages 18 to 34) lived with their parents and other family members in 2015—the largest share since 1940.
In part, this is a byproduct of the economic duress that hit young people during the Great Recession. But that’s clearly not the whole story, because the share of Millennials living with their parents is still rising eight years later. And economic hardship doesn’t always push young people back home. During the serious early ‘80s recession, young Boomers—who had record-low rates of multigenerational living—showed little inclination to move back in with parents who they really didn’t want to be around.
The bigger change is that Millennials are emotionally much closer to their Boomer parents than those Boomers ever were to their own parents. They watch the same movies, buy the same brand-name clothing, and share what’s going on their personal lives. According to a survey we conducted in 2015, 85% of Millennials (ages 18 to 32) said that they talked to their parents several times a week—compared to 69% of Xers and 58% of Boomers who said they did the same when they were their children’s age.
Hedgeye: Fine, but isn’t emotional closeness with parents a sign of immaturity? Isn’t it best to leave the nest early? According to former Psychology Today editor Hara Marano, Americans are raising “a nation of wimps.”
NH: Immaturity? For most of human history, a close bond with parents was a sign of maturity. People lived in extended family units and relied on each other for everyday needs. Today, Boomers and Xers see this as a problem precisely because so many of them tried hard to move away from their parents—not move closer. Boomers and Xers made a spectacle of leaving the nest and made “up-yours-Dad” independence a marker of maturity. But this makes Boomers and Xers the historical outliers, not the norm.
Back in 1940, a larger share of young adults lived with parents than today. They later went on to conquer half the world in World War II. No one ever called them a “nation of wimps.”
Looking ahead, Millennial comfort with multigenerational living could help solve one of America’s biggest political-economic challenges: the rising fiscal burden of senior entitlements. Imagine if the vast cost of third-party payments from young to old could be alleviated through greater nonmarket burden-sharing within families. This generation’s so-called “failure to launch” could help close the “generation gap” (something young Boomers triggered, around the same time their parents all joined AARP) and thereby restore solvency to our national future.
Hedgeye: I never thought of it that way. Thus far you’ve talked about Millennials being more dependent on their peers and having closer relationships to their parents. What does this say about their attitude toward government?
NH: It all fits together. Because they feel a greater sense of connection to their community, their families, and their peers, Millennials see the government as an instrument to reinforce the importance of teamwork. Though trust in government as measured by Pew Research has recently fallen among all age brackets, it has fallen most among the oldest brackets—which today makes Millennials far more comfortable trusting government institutions than their elders.
We also came across this finding in our own survey. When asked whether the government should reinforce “the principle of self-reliance” or “the principle of community,” respondents showed a marked generational gap: While Boomers were split 50-50 on this question, Millennials were divided 71-29 in favor of “community.” This same 40-point gap showed up no matter how we subdivided Millennials by political party—Democratic, Republican, or independent.
The desire to have government reinforce the principle of community is the single biggest reason why Millennials tend to vote for the Democratic Party. This was also true, by the way, of the G.I. Generation (born 1) which came of age with FDR's New Deal.
Hedgeye: So I guess Millennials aren’t really upset that they aren’t on their own. This brings up another issue: People often say that Millennials are all downbeat about the future.
NH: Totally wrong. Virtually every survey shows that Millennials have a more positive outlook on their own future—and the future of America—than their elders. Conference Board data show that, even after the Great Recession, Millennials’ consumer confidence has continued to soar above their elders—with a widening gap between the under-35 and over-55 age brackets.
Hedgeye: But couldn’t it be that young people are always more optimistic than older people?
NH: Also not true. Take a look at Boomers. Not only are they more pessimistic about the future than younger or older generations today, they were (according to Pew Research) always more pessimistic than other generations—even when they were young adults.
While their parents came of age with “Accentuate the Positive,” Boomers came of age with “Bad Moon Rising.” Back in the day, Meathead was famous for telling Archie Bunker why the world his generation built was going to hell. Today, most Millennial kids are trying to get their dads to cheer up.
Hedgeye: Fair enough. But let’s now turn to Millennials’ emotional health. Simon Sinek says that “depression” is more prevalent among Millennials—for example, with more committing suicide.
NH: Evaluating the emotional health of any generation is tricky. It’s important to distinguish between subjective and objective indicators. Because Millennials generally trust credentialed adults—and because Millennials have been taught not to tolerate emotional abuse—they do have more contact than earlier youth generations with emotional health specialists. “Seeing the counselor”—which was a punishment to be avoided for young Gen Xers—is regarded as a more welcome opportunity for Millennials. So doctor visits and therapy sessions are definitely up—and colleges and parents make sure that serving these needs is a priority.
Yet all this is subjective evidence. Once we turn to objective indicators of mental illness, the rates are generally lower for young Millennials than they were for young Gen Xers. From 1991 to 2015, for example, CDC data show a significant decline in the rate of high school students who seriously consider suicide, have made a suicide plan, or attempt suicide. As for rates of actual suicide, these have recently been rising for all age brackets (and most dramatically for midlife age brackets—recall our earlier discussion of Boomers). Even so, the youth suicide rate is still well below where it was in the 1990s.
Young Gen Xers may have been a hardscrabble crop of youth, as emotionally resilient as the “teacup” Millennials are emotional fragile. But don’t assume it didn’t cost Gen Xers. It did, even if no one at the time bothered to draw much attention to it.
Hedgeye: So now that we know about Millennials' positive attitude toward the future, this brings us to another complaint: impatience. Sinek in particular says that deferred gratification is unknown to Millennials.
NH: Evidence, please? In our own survey, we directly asked Americans of all ages whether “the idea of long-term planning is important to me.” Interestingly, 80% of Millennials agreed, putting them on par with Xers (80%) and above Boomers (76%). We then asked older generations whether long-term planning was important when they were in their 20s. Only 48% of Xers and 39% of Boomers agreed.
And if you don’t believe what they say, look at their actions. According to a Young Invincibles report from January, approximately 40% of 25- to 34-year-olds are saving for retirement—compared to only 16% who were saving in 1989. And among 31-year-olds, according to the New York Fed, every form of per-capita consumer borrowing (houses, cars, credit cards) decreased between 2003 and 2015. The only increase, of course, was in college borrowing, which Millennials regard as an investment.
Millennials are coming of age into a debt-plagued world run by Boomers who long ago found their inner child. As the ad line for Mass Mutual Life Insurance puts it, Millennials are trying hard to “find their inner adult.” And that usually means saving a bit more for tomorrow and living a bit less today.
Hedgeye: I thought that Millennials liked taking shortcuts to get ahead. Aren’t they all trying to be the next Mark Zuckerberg?
NH: The Millennial entrepreneur is one of the most persistent myths in the media landscape. In fact, rates of business formation by Americans of all ages have been declining over the past quarter-century. And the rate has been declining most among young adults. Ditto for rates of geographic mobility—that is, moving to another county or state. (See: “Where Have All the New Businesses Gone?”)
Hedgeye: Why is this happening?
NH: Any explanation goes back to risk aversion. They perceive the risk of starting a business as just too high. Besides, Millennials have a very conventional (read as: slow and steady) understanding of how to get ahead in life. An Economic Innovation Group/Ernst & Young report found that 44% of Millennials believe that the best way to start their career is to climb the corporate ladder—versus only 22% who believe starting their own business is the best path.
The notion that Millennials are entrepreneurs is tied to the impression that Millennials are job-hoppers, which is also not true. Of course Millennials change jobs more than older people, but that’s because they’re young and still trying to find the right career fit. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median job tenure among 20-somethings is just about the same as it was three decades ago. And the percent of 22- to 29-year-olds who change jobs each month is actually down from the mid-‘90s. (See: “Did You Know? Don’t Fall for the Job-Hopping Hype.”)
Part three of this interview will deal with other common criticisms levied against Millennials—and why so few of them bother to fight back.
