Millennials: Finances, Investing, and Retirement

And they can often suggest technological solutions in the workplace to increase productivity and output. As an employer or manager, listening to your employees and implementing their most helpful ideas can go a long way toward building trust, retaining your talent, and improving your bottom line. They went through the entire period of technological evolution and the rise and development of the media, as well as enjoying stability in terms of both work and family and being active both physically and mentally.

Millennial Issa Rae loosely adapted her YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (2011–13) into the hit HBO show Insecure (2016–21), which follows two Black women living in Los Angeles. After education, Generation Y are heading into an unpredictable jobs market. The employment rate is good, but many are in part-time work or self-employed, and they have faced the largest falls in real average earning in the wake of the 2008 recession. Many in the baby boomer generation equate work to self-worth and long-term financial and job security.

• However, for more complicated banking tasks, even the younger generations prefer the added assistance of a human representative.
• They also experienced the landing of a man on the Moon (1969), the soccer players Pelé and Maradona at their best and the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.
• Generally, however, there does seem to be more of an emphasis on the self than in previous generations, one reason why this group has been called Generation Me.
• By 2000 these figures were 30.5 and 28.6 respectively; in 2016 they were 33.9 and 32.2.
• Let’s explore some of the nuances and distinctions among different generations in today’s workforce.

Attending college in the United States, however, often requires students to take out loans, thus compounding the difficult economic situation many graduates faced during the recession. According to the Pew Research Center, millennials have a greater share of outstanding student debt and owe more than previous generations. The number of young adult households with student debt doubled between 1998, when Gen Xers were between the ages of 18 and 33, and 2016, when millennials were between 20 and 35 years old. Moreover, the median amount of outstanding student debt was greater for millennials ($19,000) than Gen Xers ($12,800). Despite being highly educated in relation to previous generations, members of Generation Y encountered significant economic challenges as they began their careers. For many, their careers got off to a slow start as they graduated from high school or college during a serious economic recession and its aftereffects.

or GenY, Gen-Y

Furthermore, anyone, from youngest to older workers, might be concerned about generational stereotypes or covert age discrimination if they feel misunderstood. You might be wondering who will come after Gen Z in future workforces. Next up is Generation Alpha, currently considered to be those born around 2010 and later.

The other fact to remember is that new technology is typically first adopted by the youngest generation and then is gradually adopted by the older generations. As an example, 96% of Americans have a smartphone, but Gen Z (the youngest generation) is the highest user. A flurry of potential labels has also appeared, including Gen Tech, post-Millennials, iGeneration, Gen Y-Fi, and Zoomers. It’s easy to see why there is so much confusion about generational cohorts. Currently, the age of the members of generation Y is between 25 to 40 years while the ages of the Z generation members lie between 9 and 24 years. The main difference between generation Y and Z is that generation Y refers to the generation of Millennials born between 1981 and 1996, while generation Z is the generation born between 1997 and 2012.

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The term Millennials generally refers to the generation of people born between the early 1980s and 1990s, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It was consequently called ‘Generation Me.’ Members of this generation are considered image-driven and marked by shorter attention spans than previous generations due to constant engagement with technology. There is a great deal of variation from one individual to another within any generational cohort.

However, for more complicated banking tasks, even the younger generations prefer the added assistance of a human representative. Although Baby Boomers may trail Gen X and Millennials on native technology usage, the rate at which Boomers expand their use of technology is accelerated. But the generation that followed the Boomers didn’t have a blatant cultural identifier. In fact, that’s the anecdotal origin of the term Gen X — illustrating the undetermined characteristics they would come to be known by. Depending on whom you ask, it was either sociologists, a novelist, or Billy Idol who cemented this phrase in our vocabulary. And coming up last but not least is Generation Alpha, the name given by social analyst Mark McCrindle to the youngest children on the planet.

Generation Z

Many in Gen X grew up with a lot of alone time because both of their parents worked. This meant that they got themselves home from school, made their own afterschool snacks, and entertained themselves. Because of this, Gen Xers are happy to work independently with minimal supervision. They’re often credited with introducing the idea of work-life balance into the workforce.

Her areas of interests include Arts and Literature, Language and Education, Nature and Animals, Cultures and Civilizations, Food, and Fashion. These broad trends are instructive in their own way, but at the end of the day everyone has their own gen y meaning unique experience. BBC Scotland will be covering the lives of Generation Y in Scotland all this week. When millennials do get married, its less likely to be in a church; Generation Y is also less religious than those which came before it.

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Again, it’s important to emphasize that referring to a cohort only by the age range gets complicated quickly. Ten years from now, the priorities of Millennials will have changed — and marketing tactics must adjust instep. There are also other categories of cohorts you can use to better understand consumers going beyond age or generation. Millennial, also called Generation Y or Gen Y, term used to describe a person born between 1981 and 1996, though different sources can vary by a year or two.

They are generally regarded as being more open-minded, and more supportive of gay rights and equal rights for minorities. Other positives adjectives to describe them include confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living. On the negative side, they’ve been described as lazy, narcissistic and prone to jump from job to job. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word ‘Gen Y.’ Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only.

In the late 1990s, authors William Strauss and Neil Howe coined the term “Millennials” to describe the generation coming of age at the beginning of the 21st century. It gained popularity with journalists and media in the early 2000s, and since then, both terms have been used to describe this generation. From boomers to Gen Z, people of all ages collaborate within teams and on projects.

Sixty-one percent of millennials approved of robo-advisors for investing their money. Approximately 21% of millennials do not have a job that provides an employer-sponsored retirement plan, according to a 2021 Transamerica study. You would think retirement planning would be a no-brainer for this young group, which has watched parents and grandparents struggle so much with recessions, saving money, and real estate booms and busts.

Thereafter the figure falls back, with those aged 50 to 59 earning a median £470 per week. Some people like the flexibility offered by a zero-hours contract, under which workers are not obliged to actually accept any work offered. But others see them as being exploitative and lacking in job and income security. Starting from early life, Generation Y are more likely to stay on in full-time or further education than those who went before; the number of graduates more than doubled between 1984 and 2013. The Pew Research Trust lists the birth date range as being from 1981 to 1996. William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors who coined the term “Millennials,” list the birth date range as being between 1982 and 2004.

It was first used in the book Generations (1991) by William Strauss and Neil Howe, who felt it was an appropriate name for the first generation to reach adulthood in the new millennium. Millennials are the cohort between Generation X (Gen X; defined as those born between 1965 and 1980) and Generation Z (Gen Z; defined as those born from about 1997 to the early 2010s). There has also been a slight increase in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who are still living with their parents – this is the case for 14% of millennials UK-wide.

The publication Ad Age was one of the first to coin the term “Generation Y,” in an editorial in August 1993. But the term didn’t age well, and “Millennials” has largely overtaken it. They are independent and demanding consumers and will have jobs that do not exist in today’s world. The firm provides Solari the ability to create his schedule to give him a work/life balance, which is most important because he observed his parents being strapped to their companies.

The eldest of that group are still teens, but it won’t be long until they’re looking for their 1st jobs. Let’s explore some of the nuances and distinctions among different generations in today’s workforce. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Millennials are also more likely to use public libraries than other generations, according to the Pew Research Center. The Millennial Generation is also known as Generation Y, because it comes after Generation X — those people between the early 1960s and the 1980s.