Aimless. Unfocused. Co-dependent. Stuck in a temp job. Do any of these ring true for anyone you know? Well, this is how The New York Times described America’s current 20-something Generation Y’ers. Harsh? If you think so, you wouldn’t be alone.
The up-and-coming generation has moved into the workforce slower than most and are waiting much longer to get married and start a family. Not to mention it’s also taking them much longer to become financially independent from their parents. They also show more reckless behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse, as well as the tendency to embark on personal journeys of “self-discovery.”
Robin Marantz Henig, who authored the article, has grim predictions for what will happen when this entire group continues to “forestall the beginning of adult life.” She goes even further, suggesting that 20-somethings will derail society unless they quit playing Peter Pan and start growing up. Ouch.
The cold, hard facts of the matter are that 40 percent of people in their 20’s will move back in with their parents at least once in their lives, and the average 20-something will have seven different jobs by the time they hit the big 3-0. These are not good odds, however, I have trouble believing that this group of people is any different from the equally wild teenagers before them. Think of the hippies, who were crusaders in the art of challenging societal norms.
There are two important parts of the discussion on this delay in transitioning to adulthood. First, a terrible economy and unemployment rates just below 10 percent make the job market tough for anyone to break into. To make matters worse, higher education has become quite the popular thing to have. The U.S. National Center for Education Statistics found that college enrollment has gone up nearly 30 percent in the past 10 years. So we’re left with more graduates competing for fewer jobs. It is no wonder that 20-somethings have trouble settling down and buying a house and starting a family – there aren’t enough good jobs out there to sustain the would-be families of all these graduates.
Second, the human lifespan has gone up due to medical advancement. Way, way back in the 16th century, to be 16 years old and unmarried was highly unfortunate; at the same time, people living at that time were lucky to see their 50th birthday. Kids today just don’t have that same incentive to get started early. For instance, when the baby boomers were married in the 1970s, their average age was 22 years old, but their life expectancy was about 15 years less than the Generation Y’ers. Today, the average person is 27 when he or she marries.
If history is any indication of the future, we will continue to procrastinate the onset of adulthood for as long as possible. If the hippies could get their act together enough to create 20-somethings in the first place, our generation should have no problem.
Send job offers to this 20-something student at swhitmir@asu.edu
