Posted on 03/10/2014 11:45:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The portrait painted of Millennial Americans by the Pew Research Center in its new report Millennials in Adulthood is not rosy. Sure, compared with earlier generations, Millennials (now aged 18 to 33) are exceptionally tolerant, optimistic about their economic future, and connected to friends, family, and colleagues on the “new platforms of the digital era” — from Facebook to Twitter. But this report makes clear that Millennial ties to the core human institutions that have sustained the American experiment — work, marriage, and civil society — are worryingly weak.
Take work. About 80 percent of young adults aged 25 to 29 are currently working, and Gallup estimates that only about 44 percent of young adults aged 18 to 29 are employed full-time. In fact, full-time employment for young men remains at or near record lows. This matters because full-time work remains the best way to avoid poverty and to chart a path into the middle class for ordinary Americans. Work also affords most Americans an important sense of dignity and meaning — the psychological boost provided by what American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks calls a sense of “earned success.”
Take marriage. Only 26 percent of Millennials are married, a record low for their age group. By contrast, back in 1980, when they were the age that Millennials are now, 48 percent of Baby Boomers were married. The Millennial retreat from marriage is particularly worrisome because it hasn’t stopped many of them from having children. In 2012, 47 percent of births to Millennial women took place outside marriage, a troubling trend because such children are much more likely to end up in single-parent families that put them at higher risk of educational failure, poverty, and emotional distress.
Take civil society — measured here by religion. Today, fully 29 percent of Millennials consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, a record postwar high. They are also much less likely to describe themselves as “religious” compared with earlier generations of Americans, as the figure below indicates.
Why does this matter? Historically, these core institutions have furnished meaning, money, and social support to generation after generation of Americans. Even today, data from the 2006–2012 General Social Survey suggest that, taken together, these institutions remain strongly linked to a sense of happiness among today’s Millennials. For instance, 58 percent of Millennial men who were married, employed full-time, and regular religious attendees reported that they are very happy in life; by contrast, only 25 percent of Millennial men who were unmarried, not working full-time, and religiously disengaged reported that they are very happy in life.
Perhaps more worrisome, however, is the erosion of trust documented among the Millennial generation in the new Pew report. Only 19 percent of Millennials say that “most people can be trusted” — a response rate that marks them as much less trusting of their fellow citizens than were earlier generations of Americans, as the figure below shows.
If today’s events in Europe, not to mention of the last century, tell us anything, it is that a generation of young adults “unmoored” from the institutions of work, family, and civil society, and distrustful of their fellow citizens, can end up succumbing to the siren song of demagogues, especially if the economy dips into a depression. It’s for that reason, among others, that policymakers, civic leaders, and business executives, not to mention young adults themselves, need to redouble their efforts to revive the American economy and better integrate today’s Millennials into the nation’s economic, familial, and civic fabric.
— W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, directs the Home Economics Project at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies." />
Well thankfully, Obama gave them free healthcare.....
Generally speaking this generation has its head up its derriere.
Jobs.
Men don’t propose when they can’t support a spouse.
And jobs can be seriously hurting self-esteem. People often won’t go to church when they don’t feel good about themselves. Which of course is the very time they need church the most.
But look at the prohibition era. Church attendance hit an all time high during that period.
I think joblessness is causing a negative impact on church attendance.
Jobs.
Men don’t propose when they can’t support a spouse.
And jobs can be seriously hurting self-esteem. People often won’t go to church when they don’t feel good about themselves. Which of course is the very time they need church the most.
But look at the prohibition era. Church attendance hit an all time high during that period.
I think joblessness is causing a negative impact on church attendance.
I’m 34 and associate more with GenX than Millenials. I can say, from what I’ve seen, Millenials seek more personal aggrandizement than any previous generation. The drive for “15 minutes of fame” is enormous and seems to speak to Maslow’s Hierarchy of “needs” more than reality wherein self-fulfillment is driven by meeting needs above the most basic (i.e. shelter, food, sex, etc.).
As a GenXer, I find myself relating more to my boomer parents and even moreso to my grandparents who valued hard work, worthwhile education, and common sense over the modern equivalents of soul-searching, self-fulfilling prophecies, and social welfare (respectively).
Kids today are materialistic, self-important, and socially awkward. Prior social mores can be applied less generally but more specifically in communities where middle-America still reigns as a social force over the more Godless, spiritually vacuous urban parts of the country.
Thank you Dr. Spock, NEA, DEA, APA and milquetoast churches.
Why would they be religious? All of their lives they have been feed a series of pedophile preists on TV and in their newspapers.
Why would they trust anyone? They have been told all their lives that everyone is equal, and that life is fair. They were not even allowed to win or lose at soccer games until middle school.
Why would they feel betrayed? The went to school and then college—just like they were told to. Now they cannot get a job and they owe tens of thousands in debt.
Why would they get married? Their parents and just about everyone else they know has gotten divorced. Living together is fine. Sex is pretty much free.
Once the finally realize how screwed they are, they are going to be mad.
We should probably get ourselves into a big war. They will make great conscripts.
Funny-—I am on the other end of the X’ers. I would, in some circles, be considered a Boomer. But I have always found myself agreeing with Xers and identifying with them more.
The millennial are getting screwed bad. I would not be surprised to see them lead the next revolution.
I hope they dont start it until my Social Security is fully funded! Ha Ha..
Quite a contrast to the old days. I was reading a book about a farm kid from Mississippi (Oscar Ladner) who was drafted during WWII and went from basic to England to the front in France with Patton's infantry. His first day on the job he shot two German snipers.
It matters because they essentially have no lives. And you know the old saying about idle hands...
I’m in the awkward position of having enjoyed the excesses of 90s as a teenager in high school and the wave of us graduating from college in the early millennium to coast into great jobs. I’ve been making great money as an undergrad and graduate school graduate and have been giving away a lot of my yearly excess to causes such as the NRA and FR, but I’m seeing those just a few years my junior growing in frustration as they try to find even menial jobs and getting denied in lieu of foreign workers with no credentials.
It’s very sad.
It lists the Xer’s as more trusting that the Millennial's.
I don't know to many people who are “Trusting” in my generation. I know many Mill's who are.
There are a lot of young people the world over with no life, no hope, and a lot of expectations.
That leads to some rather interesting history. Look at the generations leading up to WWII.
Riddled with absurd contradictions.
Optimistic about the future of the economy? WHY???
Far less trusting than prior generations? Yet willing to trust the government to do absolutely EVERYTHING for them?
The Feral Generation...
[ I’m 34 and associate more with GenX than Millenials. I can say, from what I’ve seen, Millenials seek more personal aggrandizement than any previous generation. The drive for “15 minutes of fame” is enormous and seems to speak to Maslow’s Hierarchy of “needs” more than reality wherein self-fulfillment is driven by meeting needs above the most basic (i.e. shelter, food, sex, etc.).
As a GenXer, I find myself relating more to my boomer parents and even moreso to my grandparents who valued hard work, worthwhile education, and common sense over the modern equivalents of soul-searching, self-fulfilling prophecies, and social welfare (respectively).
Kids today are materialistic, self-important, and socially awkward. Prior social mores can be applied less generally but more specifically in communities where middle-America still reigns as a social force over the more Godless, spiritually vacuous urban parts of the country. ]
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
Taxation. In the very old days one would see ten percent of their earnings taken, which was tolerable. A family of eight could get by on one bread-winner. In the near-future, the millennials will be lucky to keep ten percent of their earnings. Hidden taxes are everywhere, and growing.
The picture that goes with the article says it all, doesn’t it? The one with the four grown adults.
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