HOW MANY MILLENNIALS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE AN

AVOCADO?

WHY WE NEED TO MOVE BEYOND GENERATIONAL

THEORYTRISTRAM HOOLEY

THE GENERATIONS

Generation When were they

born?

The silent generation/ The

wartime generation

1928-1945

Baby boomers/ The post-war

generation

1946-1964

Generation X 1965-1980

Generation Y/ The millennials /

The dot.com generation

1981-1996

Generation Z/ The zillennials /

iGen

1997-Present

MILLENNIALS ARE….

MILLENNIALS

TIM GURNER

When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each. We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. We are coming into a new reality where … a lot of people won’t own a house in their lifetime. That is just the reality.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/burned-millennials-seeking-alternative-work-lifestyles-career-living/story?id=61938694

MILLENIALS INC

• We have created an industry around understanding and stereotyping millennials.

• This is tightly bound up with work, employment and career.

BUT…

• They are just people!

STEREOTYPING

When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each. We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. We are coming into a new reality where … a lot of people won’t own a house in their lifetime. That is just the reality.

How would you feel if we replaced “younger people” or “millennials” with “black people” or “women”

SO WHAT CAN GENERATION EXPLAIN?

• There is as much/more diversity within generations as there is between generations.

• At most generational differences should be viewed as another facet that influences the make up of people.

• At present it is unclear how important generation is in this mix.

THERE ARE SOME DIFFERENCES

Millennials are more likely to live with their parents for longer (in the UK at least)

They are buying houses later

They are staying in jobs longer

They are more likely to be LGBTQ+

They may value leisure more (but this is a long term social trend)

They are using devices more and television less.

BUT THESE DIFFERENCES ARE MAGNIFIED BY OUR GENERATIONAL POSITION

• We go through similar things every generation (work, learning and life).

• But, we do them at different times.

• They look different looking back and looking forwards.

MILLENNIALS ARE NOT

• more lazy

• less loyal

• less trusting of institutions

• they are no more ethically motivated

• nor health conscious than previous generations

• their social attitudes are remarkably similar to Xers

• nor do they have shorter attention spans than previous generations.

NOR ARE THEY ‘DIGITAL NATIVES’

• Digital technologies are many things not one thing.

• Using any digital tech requires a range of specific skills and knowledge.

• These are learned in the same way as any other skills and can be learned in adulthood as well as childhood.

• No one can divide their attention.

FOCUSING ON GENERATION MAKES A CRUDE BASIS FOR CAREER LEARNING

• Lots of well meaning people have sought to adjust education in general and career education in particular to fit millennials.

• Much of what is proposed simply falls into the category of ‘good teaching and learning’ and so doesn’t do any harm.

• But some runs the risk of either basing interventions on weak evidence or stereotyping and othering learners in ways that can be both offensive and counter-productive.

INTERSECTIONALITY

• Demographic factors like generation, ethnicity, gender, background, nationality all lead to patterns in behaviour and experience.

• What is more the way that these factors interact with each other means that we should be careful about reducing individuals to any single factor.

• So I’m an Xer, but I’m also white, British, from the suburbs of London (originally), university educated and so on. So none of these factors explains all of me (but together they explain quite a lot of me).

GENERATIONAL THEORIES: PULSE THEORIES• Howe & Strauss argue

that there is multi-generation pattern to history with a major social shift happening every four generations.

• So they believe that the interaction between the generations drives history.

GENERATIONAL THEORIES: IMPRINT THEORIES• Wilhelm Dilthey originated the

‘imprint hypothesis’.

• Individuals are formed by key ideas and experiences in early life.

• Because many people share similar experiences this creates a level of homogeneity amongst those who grow up in a similar period.

GENERATIONAL THEORIES: CONTEXTUAL THEORIES

• Thinking about imprinting in early life is not enough.

• Millennials have come into the workforce during a recession.

• The opportunity structure is different.

• This is at least as important as ideas about the formation of early personality.

OCCAM’S RAZOR

• Millennials might be more likely to live at home because they live in a period of rising house prices and stagnant wages.

• They might be using more technology, because there is more technology around.

BEWARE GRAND NARRATIVES

• Whig history – we move ever more to democracy and liberal values.

• Marxism – economic systems will ultimately deconstruct themselves and move towards communism.

• TINA - We are at the end of history and there is no alternative to capitalism

• Technological determinism – technology drives society towards more leisure or robot take over.

• Boundaryless career – organisations are dissolving and the individual is becoming more and more important.

The idea of generational differences is very useful to all of these grand narratives.

It provides a mechanism through which inevitable change can take place.

But, we should be sceptical of the idea that things can only get better, or worse, or stay the same.

Human beings are actually driving the bus.

SO WHAT IS THE ROLE FOR CAREER GUIDANCE?

1.Build critical consciousness

• Help clients to understand the context of their lives and their generation.

• Encourage critical thinking about generational myths.

• Listen to their story and help them to understand how it links to wider social and political structures.

1.Name oppression

• Help them to see where they are being stereotyped or discriminated against because of their age or generation.

1.Question what is normal

• The values of the past and of the powerful need to be challenged as well as conformed to.

• Encourage clients to think about in whose interest is it that things work in this way?

1.Encourage people to work together

• Helping millennials to recognise that they have interests in common that they can address together as well as alone.

• Encouraging inter-generational solidarity rather than us against them.

1.Work at a range of levels.

• Career is at once personal and political, and our work with clients needs to acknowledge this.

• Millennials need to argue for intergenerational justice.

• But they also need to find less precarious jobs and access the good life.

REFERENCES

• Arthur, M. B. & Rousseau, D.M. (1996) (Eds.). The boundaryless career: A new principle for a new organisational era. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Drago, J.P. & Cunningham, G.K. (2017). Generational theory: Implication for recruiting the millennials. Carlisle, PA: US Army.

• Duffy, B., Shrimpton, H. & Clemence, M. (2017). Millenial myths and realities. London: Ipsos Mori.

• Jaeger, H. (1985). Generations in history: Reflections on a controversial concept. History and Theory, 24(3), 273-292. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2505170.

• Gallegos, B., Grondin, K., Allgood, T., Duarte, M., & Rostad, A. (2008). Let the Games Begin! Changing Our Instruction to Reach Millenials!. In Valko, T. & Sietz, B. (Eds.) Moving targets: Understanding our changing landscape(s): LOEX conference proceedings 2006. Ypsilanti, MI: Eastern Michigan University.

• Howe, N. & Strauss, W. (2009). Millennials rising: The next great generation. New York: Vintage.

• Intergenerational Commission. (2018). A new generational contract. London: The Resolution Foundation.

• Levin, S. (2017). Millionaire tells millennials: if you want a house, stop buying avocado toast. The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/australian-millionaire-millennials-avocado-toast-house.

• Strauss, W. & Howe, N. (1997). The fourth turning. An American prophecy. New York: Three Rivers Press.

• Twenge, J. M. (2006). Generation me: Why today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled—and more miserable than ever before. NY: Free Press.

• Twenge, J. M., Campbell, S. M., Hoffman, B. J., & Lance, C. E. (2010). Generational differences in work values: Leisure and extrinsic values increasing, social and intrinsic values decreasing. Journal of Management, 36(5), 1117-1142.

• Wilson, M. & Gerber, L.E. (2008). How generational theory can improve teaching: Strategies for Working with the ‘Millennials’. Currents in Teaching and Learning, 1(1), 29-44.

• Zemke, R., Raines, C., & Filipczak, B. (2000). Generations at work: Managing the clash of veterans, boomers, Xers, and nexters in your workplace. New York: American Management Association.

IN SUMMARY

• Generation is important to career. We need to think about it and to help people to understand why their experiences are similar to and different from those who came before.

• Generational theory does not provide a particularly helpful way of doing this.

• We need to recognise the complexity of people’s experience and consider intersectionality.

• We need to resist simple explanations based on generation and be careful about stereotyping people.

• Ultimately careers work is about helping people to understand themselves in society and think about what room for agency they have.