The Millennials by Thom and Jess Rainer examined the traits of America’s largest generation, those born between 1980 and 2000. The book will filled with data and analysis of careful research by Thom and his millennial son, Jess Ranier.
Below are three helpful conclusions that I found from their research on millennials:
1. Millennials value getting along with others and avoiding conflict more than pointing out differences with others. It seems millennials believe that there is only one behavior that they can’t tolerate and that is when someone doesn’t tolerate everything! This is a symptom of “your truth is Ok, my truth is OK” found in postmodern thought.
2. Millennials want their lives to make a difference in the world; 96% believe that they can do something great. While, it is impossible for everyone to be “above average”, millennials actively want to serve those in need. When given a choice between a life of impacting people or climbing a corporate ladder, a millennial will pursue impacting people every time.
3. Millennials highly value relationships. When given the choice of a raise at work or a few extra vacation days to spend time with friends and family, they are more likely to take the vacation days. Because many millinnials use Facebook, the claim was that their generation is more relational. However, I wish the authors explored this line of thought further; I wonder if instead of concluding that the increased use of social media causes millennials to have more healthy relationships, that the opposite is true instead: they feel more lonely in the midst of many surface relationships.
Other interesting observations from the book and my comments:
- Millennials are getting college degrees at a higher rate than any group in the past. The authors regarded this as “more educated” but I think they are perhaps confusing the idea of earning degrees with getting education.
- 75% of millennials claim to be spiritual, but not religious. While this may be a different word for the same thing, it is more likely an indicator of millennials’ distaste for institutional structures.
- Millennials are getting married about five years later than the previous generation. Related to this reality, 65% of millennials cohabit before marriage compared to 10% of the same age group in 1970.
Millennials is a helpful book to get started on understanding the next generation. I wish the authors would have done more to compare the research of millennials with young people of earlier generations so that readers could get a better understanding of differences and trends. For example, the authors seemed surprised that as high as 60% of millennials claim to want active parental involvement in their lives. However, because the authors did not include information on how 20-30 year olds would have answered the same question a generation or two ago, we don’t know whether 60% is a high or low number.
Finally, though identifying the characteristics of a particular age group is helpful, the idea of selecting the beginning and end of a generation is hopelessly arbitrary. This should give us caution when considering the usefulness of conclusions drawn from generational identification and classification.