Generation Y
What's so different about Gen Y?
We change jobs often
According to an Australian report released by McCrindle Research in 2006, Gen Y change jobs frequently, prioritise work-life balance and place a lot of importance on our workplace culture. We also prefer positions that involve variety and we understand the importance of on going training and development.
We’ll buy our first homes later in life
Researchers from Southern Cross University revealed in a 2013 report that our expectations regarding our first home outweigh our earning capacity. However, we are also more willing than our parents to delay buying a home until we can afford something better.
We get married and have kids later
According to ABS data the average age at first marriage is rising. In 1990 the medianage at first marriage for a woman was 24.3, while in 2010 it sat at 27.9. The age at which women have their first child has also increased from 27.5 years to 28.9.
We're optimistic
Rebecca Huntley points out in her 2006 book World According to Y that study afterstudy finds that Generation Y is optimistic about our own futures and the world’s future. While we understand that uncertainty and insecurity are realities, Huntley believes we have refashioned these negatives in our worldview to mean ‘flexibility’and ‘freedom’.
Do these findings mirror your Gen Y experiences? Are you an optimistic tenant that changes jobs every few years and plans to marry, breed and buy a home later in life?
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At my grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary recently, I was cornered by an elderly relative named Frank, or Bob, or… something. He was clutching a glass of whisky, waving his arm about and bemoaning the youth of today.
“Young people today think of nothing but themselves. They think they know everything.” While I attempted to dodge flying whisky he continued, “as for the girls,they are forward, immodest and unladylike!”
Okay, you got me. Great Uncle Frank didn’t say that. Or if he did, I wasn’t there to hear it because I’m a young person who doesn’t think of anything but myself. And I didn’t actually go to my grandparent’s fiftieth anniversary. That particular quote is adapted from a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in 1274.
My point is that bitching about ‘today’s youth’ has been a favourite pastime for a thousand years, so there’s no way Gen Y are getting through our youth without a few harsh words. This Sydney Morning Herald article from a few years ago offers a great summary of the insults thrown at the generations born in the last 65 years.
Besides, once Generation Z (they already sound stupid) enters the workforce we’ll all be shaking our heads and sighing at the intern with the Google car that drives itself.
For now, however, Gen Y will continue to cop our share of the insults. While I’m inclined to believe that many of the criticisms of our generation are exaggerated, it is fair to assume that the different economic, social and political conditions we grew up in create some generational difference. Gen Y are used to hearing that we’re lazy, fickle and spoilt. However we’re also probably the most analysed generation inhistory, as a recent article in The Age suggested. This means that we don’t have to rely on Great Uncle Frank’s testimony to understand what makes us different, because people that are way less lazy and fickle than we are have thrown time and money into figuring it out.