Tag Archives: millennials

Zipcar finds more Millennials would rather give up cars rather than cell phones, computers

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A recent Zipcar survey asked this question: “In your daily routine, losing which piece of technology would have the greatest negative impact on you?” Here are the results with the possible answers of TV, mobile phone, computer, or car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are some clear differences by generation: cars become more highly regarded as age increases. TV is not rated that highly in this group of technology across all groups though it is clear these days that TV doesn’t really operate primarily through a big screen on top of a piece of furniture. And by quite a bit, mobile phones are most valuable to Millennials compared to the other technologies.

Now what exactly this means for what Millennials will do in the future is unclear. Would they chose a smartphone over a car when they need a better job and it is only accessible by car? Will they really change where they live over their lifetime because they value cars less?

It would be nice to have more information about Zipcar’s web survey. Is it a representative sample? If they don’t say anything about it, it makes me nervous…

Younger American adults looking for “print-like” news on their tablets and mobile devices

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Derek Thompson discusses new data from Pew that suggests young adult Americans are looking for “print-like” experiences when reading online news:

But a new report from the Pew Research Center (pdf) suggests that, when it comes to reading the news on mobile devices, young people aren’t so different. First, they use their tablets and smartphones to read the news at nearly identical rates to 30- and 40-somethings. According to Pew, between 30 and 50 percent of practically every demographic, except seniors, uses mobile phones and tablets to read news — whether it’s men or women, college-educated or not, making less than $30,000 per year or more than $75,000. All told: Thirtysomethings and fortysomethings are just as likely as teens and twentysomethings to use their smartphones and tablets for news…

Here’s another surprise. Young mobile readers don’t want apps and mobile browsers that look like the future. They want apps that look like the past: 58% of those under 50, and 60% of Millennials, prefer a “print-like experience” over tech features like audio, video, and complex graphics. That preference toward plain text “tends to hold up across age, gender and other groups.” Pew reports: “Those under 40 prefer the print-like experience to the same degree as those 40 and over.”

While this report suggests different age groups consume news in similar ways, even with differences in video watching and how much news they share, I wonder if they get the same things out of their reading. Are they reading different kinds of stories? On different websites? Are they reading the same volume of news stories? Physically reading the screen in the same way? Reading the news with the same purposes? Retaining the same information? Wanting to read “print-like” news with similar devices means something but I suspect there could still be some major differences between these groups.

Generation gap: younger Americans don’t want Baby Boomer’s heirlooms/stuff

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The Chicago Tribune profiles an interesting generation gap: Baby Boomers are worried their children and young adults in general aren’t interested in their family heirlooms and acquired stuff:

Passing down heirlooms from one generation to the next has long been tradition. But Copeland and many other baby boomers fear that their children and grandchildren will end up tossing the family treasures like a worn-out pair of gym shoes.

“A lot of young people are so transient; they don’t stay anywhere very long. They rent apartments and don’t own anything,” said Copeland, whose sons live at home. “They don’t want to be tied down to family heirlooms that don’t mean anything to them.”

Julie Hall, a North Carolina liquidation appraiser known as The Estate Lady, said this has become a dilemma for a growing number of middle-age people who are trying to come to terms with a harsh reality: Often what they consider to be jewels, their children and grandchildren see as junk.

“Though they have the best intentions, boomers have a tendency to keep too much stuff for subsequent generations, though the kids have already told them they don’t want anything,” said Hall, author of the book “The Boomer Burden: Dealing With Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff.”

There are several social factors at work here which are noted in the article:

1. There are generational shifts at work from those who were alive during the Great Depression to Baby Boomers to Millennials. This affects things like consumption patterns, family patterns, and where people live.

2. We now live in a more disposable, cheaper culture. For example, the story talks about Millennials preferring IKEA furniture. Such goods are relatively cheap, come in a limited set of colors that match a number of things, and can be traded, discarded, given away, or sold fairly easily.

3. It sounds like Millennials are looking to have less stuff in general. While Baby Boomers might consider these things heirlooms, Millennials see it as clutter that must be stored somewhere and moved again in the future. Certain items may have value to a family but what good is it if it just sits there without being used much? The article suggests this may be due to younger Americans living in smaller spaces (while Baby Boomers have plenty of room in their larger homes) but it could also be tied to Millennials placing a higher value on electronics like laptops and smartphones. It has been argued Millennials are more interested in these personal electronic devices than cars and houses, traditional American consumer goods. Also, Millennials would be more interested in debating how someone’s digital files get passed down.

4. The article doesn’t mention this at all but I wonder if this reflects changing family structures. Heirlooms matter not because they are objectively valuable but because they hold sentimental value. Perhaps Millennials have less sentimental interest in objects? A positive spin on this would be that Millennials value personal relationships more but a darker interpretation could be that they simply haven’t had the same kind of deep relationships that would give objectives meaning. Plus, more Americans are living alone and this could make it harder to endow certain objects with enough meaning for a family member to feel the same way.

5. Another thing the article doesn’t suggest: perhaps Baby Boomers had too much stuff to start with. Is this the sort of problem that only arises in a culture that revolves around consumption and materialism?

Real estate firm survey: younger Americans still want to own a home

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Even though a number of commentators have suggested younger Americans are not as interested in homeownership, a recent survey conducted by “Better Homes & Garden real estate brand” suggests this may not be the case:

Nearly all of them said they were willing to adjust their lifestyles to save for a home. Sixty-two percent said they’d eat out less. Forty percent said they’d work a second job. And 23 percent said they’d move back home with their parents to save money — they’re being strategic about saving money to own a home.

They also said that all of the media coverage of the housing crisis has taught them the importance of doing their research and planning, and they think they’re more knowledgeable about the process than their parents were at their age. But they want to be ready to own — 69 percent said that someone is ready to buy if they can maintain their lifestyle (while owning), and 61 percent agreed that the “readiness indicator” is if they have a secure job.

And even if these younger adults do want to own a home, the real estate industry has to be ready to appeal to this group:

Well, as an industry and certainly as a brand, we’d have to step up our campaign to show young buyers the importance of real estate as a long-term investment and lifestyle.

On a related note, something else also drove us to do this survey: the big disconnect in the average age of a first-time buyer (36), versus the average age of a real estate agent (56). This younger generation of buyers’ habits are different — they’re comfortable using technology, especially mobile devices, to buy and track everything, and agents need to learn this.

Several things are interesting here. First, it appears a good number of younger Americans do want a home but they are also more aware of what it will take to make it happen. If homeownership is such a big investment, younger Americans want to do their homework to know what they are getting into. This could mean that fewer people in this group will buy a home until they find a more “perfect” situation which might decrease the homeownership rate but it could also mean that those who buy a home are more committed.

Second, it is suggested that the real estate industry needs to stay relevant in the era of the Internet. Traditionally, real estate agents are necessary people in the middle who have expertise that the average homeowner would not have. But, potential homebuyers have much more information at their fingertips and if more people are selling their own homes, the real estate industry needs to continually show what extra value it offers. Also, this article hints at the aging of real estate agents: is this a desirable job for young people to pursue? If you look at a table of occupational prestige in the United States, real estate agent is at the bottom.

I wonder if the story for younger Americans and homeownership will be a bifurcated one based on socioeconomic status. Those with higher education and good jobs will continue to buy homes. Those who don’t have college degrees and/or struggle to find a good job may not have the option to do so.

How will American culture change since Millennials want to buy the newest smartphones rather than cars and houses?

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Here is part of a fascinating article about what Millennials want to purchase and how this differs from the consumption of previous generations:

Needless to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline. But it’s highly possible that a perfect storm of economic and demographic factors—from high gas prices, to re-­urbanization, to stagnating wages, to new technologies enabling a different kind of consumption—has fundamentally changed the game for Millennials. The largest generation in American history might never spend as lavishly as its parents did—nor on the same things. Since the end of World War II, new cars and suburban houses have powered the world’s largest economy and propelled our most impressive recoveries. Millennials may have lost interest in both…Subaru’s publicist Doug O’Reilly told us, “The Millennial wants to tell people not just ‘I’ve made it,’ but also ‘I’m a tech person.’?” Smartphones compete against cars for young people’s big-ticket dollars, since the cost of a good phone and data plan can exceed $1,000 a year. But they also provide some of the same psychic benefits—opening new vistas and carrying us far from the physical space in which we reside. “You no longer need to feel connected to your friends with a car when you have this technology that’s so ubiquitous, it transcends time and space,” Connelly said.

In other words, mobile technology has empowered more than just car-sharing. It has empowered friendships that can be maintained from a distance. The upshot could be a continuing shift from automobiles to mobile technology, and a big reduction in spending…

In some respects, Millennials’ residential aspirations appear to be changing just as significantly as their driving habits—indeed, the two may be related. The old cul-de-sacs of Revolutionary Road and Desperate Housewives have fallen out of favor with Generation Y. Rising instead are both city centers and what some developers call “urban light”—denser suburbs that revolve around a walkable town center. “People are very eager to create a life that blends the best features of the American suburb—schools still being the primary, although not the only, draw—and urbanity,” says Adam Ducker, a managing director at the real-estate consultancy RCLCO. These are places like Culver City, California, and Evanston, Illinois, where residents can stroll among shops and restaurants or hop on public transportation. Such small cities and town centers lend themselves to tighter, smaller housing developments, whether apartments in the middle of town, or small houses a five-minute drive away. An RCLCO survey from 2007 found that 43 percent of Gen?Yers would prefer to live in a close-in suburb, where both the houses and the need for a car are smaller.

This article is primarily about the economic impacts of these shifting patterns but I think there is another important side to this: how does this affect American culture? A few ideas…

1. What makes up the American Dream will likely shift. We have gone almost 100 years with this combination: a house of one’s own and a car (or multiple cars in recent decades). The content of this dream will change and the pace to which people pursue it. Newest additions to the Dream: can I get a smartphone with an unthrottled data plan? How about a living arrangement that is exciting in terms of having nearby cultural and social opportunities but doesn’t tie one down financially?

2. As fewer teenagers see getting a driver’s license as the same sort of initiation into adulthood and freedom as previous generations, perhaps we have a new marker of adulthood: getting the first smartphone (with at least texting capabilities and perhaps also data).

3. As I’ve discussed before, the possible new kinds of suburbia we might see in the coming decades would be a remarkable shift away from completely auto-dependent developments. This will lead to some interesting consequences for housing. New Urbanism may just explode in popularity (as long as such developments are reasonably priced).

4. The car is no longer an important status symbol but rather more like a tool that is used to get from Point A to Point B. Tools may have some fun features but the number one concern is that that they function consistently. In contrast, the phone (and what one can do with it) becomes a status symbol.

5. As we’ve seen in recent years, announcements of new technologies and smartphones will garner increasing levels of attention. Just look at what happens when we get close to an Apple announcement for the newer iPhone (or iPad). Cars and houses will have to fight even harder for your attention. How this changes the ratio and content of commercials will be interesting to watch.

6. When are we going to see television shows and movies that truly reflect plugged in and online worlds? We have plenty of examples where characters use these devices but precious few that show what it is like to consistently operate in the online and offline worlds. The movie Catfish comes to mind. While most online users won’t go to the lengths the characters do in this movie, at least it depicts people living out real relationships in the online sphere.

7. A growing push for cheaper, faster, perhaps even free Internet access everywhere. To be disconnected will be viewed as more and more undesirable.

8. Revamping existing housing stock will require some imagination and creativity in marketing, construction, and financing.

9. Building off Richard Florida’s ideas about the creative class, what happens when this group becomes too big and unwieldy and is no longer “select,” there are not enough places that meet their requirements (not everywhere can be Austin), and not enough jobs for people with their education and interests? Obviously, shifts can take place but these won’t necessarily be easy.

Reasons young Americans are not buying houses at the same rate as prior younger generations

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Derek Thompson shows that younger Americans are not buying homes at the same rates as previous younger generations:

When older generations wonder what’s the matter with Millennials, they often judge their younger cohorts against such financial and social benchmarks as finding a job, getting married, and buying a home. These observations often come wrapped in weak science — “blame Facebook for their indolence” — or dripping with judgment — “blame their parents for making them weak.” The science is weak, but the observations are true. Fewer young people are finding jobs. Fewer young people are getting married. Fewer young people are buying homes.

Between 1980 and 2000, the share of late-twenty-somethings owning homes had declined from 43% to 38%. The share of early-thirty-something home owners slipped from 61% to 55% in that time. After the boom and bust were over, both rates kept falling. The rate of young people getting their first mortgage between 2009 and 2011 was chopped in half from just 10 years ago, according to a recent study from the Federal Reserve.

The reasons Thompson gives for this decline: rising student debt, lower (delayed?) rates of marriage, limited wages, and housing prices have increased.

Two things that I like about this:

1. Generational talk and “common sense” about the differences is indeed “weak science.” Many people provide anecdotal evidence (my children or students do this, etc.) tied to individual traits (they don’t have the same work ethic, etc.).

2. Because of this “weak science,” we do need to examine how structural forces affect generational behavior. Thompson suggests that broad factors in economics and society have pushed this generation of younger Americans into different actions.

One thing I think is missing here: there seems to be an assumption here that if the economics and social factors were right or similar to the past, this younger generation would buy houses at similar rates. What about the cultural component, the idea that a younger generation of American doesn’t buy into the traditional American Dream in the same way as previous generations? Of course, these structural factors can influence this rejection or adoption of the American Dream: if it is simply more difficult to buy a home at a younger age today, then people might pursue a different vision.

But I think there is growing evidence (see here and here as examples) that this younger generation genuinely values different goals than previous generations and owning a house is just not the same priority. Perhaps they have different values like wanting to be in culturally exciting areas (the creative class thesis). Attaining this and owning a home are not mutually exclusive but most suburbs would not fit this bill. Perhaps they do not desire long-term debt (the common 30 year mortgage) in a rapidly changing world or they want more freedom to be able to move and respond to changes in job markets and cultural and relational shifts. Perhaps they don’t want to have to maintain a home and would rather spend their time elsewhere. Perhaps they explicitly reject the materialistic or consumeristic approach they see in previous generations and instead prize friendships and fulfilling careers. If they do want homes, they want different kinds than in the past (see here and here) and perhaps don’t think many homes reflect their desires.

This is worth paying attention to: will the idea of the American Dream and the need to own a home change dramatically in the years to come because of both structural and cultural shifts?

Downward trend: 51% of American adults are married

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In the continuation of a sizable demographic shift over the last few decades, fewer adult Americans than ever before are married:

Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.

In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are. If current trends continue, the share of adults who are currently married will drop to below half within a few years. Other adult living arrangements—including cohabitation, single-person households and single parenthood—have all grown more prevalent in recent decades.

The Pew Research analysis also finds that the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by 5% between 2009 and 2010, a sharp one-year drop that may or may not be related to the sour economy…

It is beyond the scope of this analysis to explain why marriage has declined, except to note that it has declined far less for adults with college educations than among the less educated. Some of the increase in the median age at first marriage over the long term can be explained by the rising share of young adults enrolled in college, who have tended to marry later in life; recently, there are indications that adults who are not college graduates also are marrying later. Fallout from the Great Recession may be a factor in the recent decrease in newlyweds, although the linkage between marriage rates and economic hard times is not entirely clear.

There are a number of charts here regarding more specific bits of information. The most interesting statistic here, in my opinion: marriage is affected by educational status.

What the article doesn’t talk about is what the alternative to marriage is or is becoming. Single-parenthood? Cohabitation? Fewer long-term relationships? This seems like a particularly interesting issue for millennials – what will their future families and relationships look like?

I would be interested to hear what the younger generations say most influences their decisions in this area. Parents? Friends? Public role models or media figures? Changing narratives about what to expect in marriage?

This is another reminder that marriage and family patterns change over time.

Stanford student bristles at question: “What are you going to do with a sociology degree?”

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A Stanford student writes about having to answer a question common to sociology majors:

What annoys me, however, is when people ask “So what are you going to do with a Sociology degree?” Within the phrasing and intonation of this question are often a number of subtle assumptions and judgments. The first is the implication that I’ve chosen a useless degree because it doesn’t give me a clear path or job field to enter after college. The second is the assumption that my undergraduate degree determines my next steps; that because I am getting a B.A. in Sociology, I will pursue work in this field. The ultimate frustration I have with this question, one that often comes out during the course of the conversation, is the need for the person asking me the question to fit my answer and future plans into a discrete career label such as teacher, lawyer or lobbyist. In reality, none of these is true. My degree is not useless. Nor am I required to pursue things related to sociology. In fact, my job will probably not have any sort of neat label at all.

I find these issues crop up when talking to Stanford students as well, and I often feel looked down upon for not having chosen a more pre-professional path. I’ve had numerous conversations with techie students in which it is clear that they look down upon fuzzy majors. The culture among Stanford students lauds techie degrees as practical, which ends up framing fuzzy majors as useless. Although it is true that a Stanford engineering degree offers higher salaries and a guaranteed job right out of Stanford, a liberal arts degree is not a death knell. Liberal arts degrees have tremendous value even though they don’t shepherd the student into an obvious career trajectory and throw money at them.

My degree opens up a world of possibilities to me. Although the skills I’ve gained are less quantifiable than those from techie majors, my time at Stanford has vastly improved my writing, my critical thinking skills, my research skills and my ability to put together a coherent and convincing argument. All of these are qualities that employers look for and make me a valuable commodity on the job market. Every company that employs those high-paid CS majors also needs people to do marketing, HR, management and public relations. Any and all of these options are available to me with my liberal arts degree from Stanford.

People forget that many Americans have jobs have little to nothing to do with their undergraduate department, so it’s of little concern to me that my job be related to sociology. Some of my relatives get this and some don’t, but as our conversations continue they struggle to find a job label for the future me; do I want to be a consultant? A social worker? I should be a teacher! It’s like they’re grasping at straws for a name that they know and understand, failing to realize that jobs don’t always fall into these labels. Like most adults, I will probably have a job that has a title that you’ve never heard of and that doesn’t fall cleanly into any category. What’s important to me is that I find a job that accomplishes something that I believe is a valuable use of my time; the end goal is what’s important, not the name.

Some of this argument sounds very common to the perspective of millennials  such as a career needs to be “a valuable use of my time.” But she is also making a common defense of the liberal arts and the need for these skills in the workplace.

I don’t know that I would tell students that they could do anything “with my liberal arts degree from Stanford” (is the Stanford part here much more important than the liberal arts component?) or that it should be “of little concern to me that my job be related to sociology.” I think there is plenty to sell about sociology which she hints at: a way of looking at the world that is difficult to find in other majors. The broad overview and theoretical approach sociology offers that gets at the complex patterns present in society through a set of data collection and analysis skills is very valuable. Of course, this can be packaged and used in a number of different fields but sociology is simply not just a “fuzzy major” or just another major option. In a globalized society marked by increasing levels of complexity and dynamic change, we need more sociology majors.

Frustration of Millennials in personal anecdotes and experiences; need sociological perspective

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Reading through these stories of Millennials regarding the tough economic times they face, I came to a realization: this is almost exclusively based on personal anecdotes and experiences. The comments are not much better were Millennials and Baby Boomers engage in unhelpful discourse about which generation did the worst things.

In these particular situations, a sociological perspective would be quite helpful. Yes, the economy is bad and Millennials face unique challenges. But, every generation has faced its own crises and challenges. Citing one’s own personal experience and perhaps those of friends and relatives can only go so far in illuminating the bigger picture. We need a broader, less emotional view of the whole situation: Millennials aren’t the only ones feeling the effects of a weak economy or a society that is adjusting to new globalized realities. Looking back, I suspect we will see this period as a fairly important moment in the United States and the world as economies, governments, and societies change their course.

It is interesting to read that some Millennials suggest that “society” suggested one path would be open (generally, the quick realization of the American Dream) but in reality, this path was much harder to walk or is impossible to even start on. This disconnect between expectations and outcomes is intriguing in itself.

One other thought: while there are just a few stories here, I see little mention of where Millennials turn in these times of difficulty. To families? To friends? To religion? Is a job/career really all there is?

Bonus coverage on the theme of generational conflict: a higher percentage of Baby Boomers than one might think plan to leave their children no inheritance.

The continued rise of the American suburbs

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A short piece in the New York Times discusses the continued trend toward the suburbs:

Still, for all the buzzy talk of knowledge industry synergy and urban appeal, census figures show that UBS’s return would be bucking the demographic trends rather than reflecting them and that the suburbs, however unloved by tastemakers and academics, remain where the growth is.

Joel Kotkin , a writer who specializes in demographic issues, says that the 2010 census figures show that during the past decade just 8.6 percent of the population growth in metropolitan areas with more than a million people took place in city cores. The rest took place in the suburbs, which are home to more than 6 in 10 Americans.

The 8.6 percent is even lower than in the 1990s when the figure was 15.1 percent. New York City did better than the national average, getting 29 percent of the growth in the metropolitan area, but that was down from 46 percent in the 1990s. Of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, only three — Boston, Providence, and Oklahoma City — saw their core cities grow faster than their suburbs. And the growth is hardly the mono-dimensional suburbia of hoary stereotype.

In 1970 nearly 95 percent of suburbanites were white, Mr. Kotkin writes. Now minorities constitute over 27 percent of the nation’s suburbanites.

Several questions could be raised:

1. Kotkin’s figures show the rise of suburbs. Others have suggested Kotkin’s figures disguise the real divide between inner-ring and outer-ring suburbs. These inner-ring areas are suburban but also are more city like with higher densities and city issues (infrastructure, crime, aging housing, etc.).

2. Sociologist Herbert Gans, author of the classic The Levittowners, is cited saying that people are still moving to the suburbs because they are cheaper. This seems a bit simplistic: some suburban homes may be cheaper, particularly on the edge of suburban development, but homeowners end up paying more in transportation costs, commuting, and governmental bodies subsidize sprawl by paying for highways (and giving less to mass transit). The real question is what would happen if the costs of urban and suburban living were similar and people knew this – would they still choose the suburbs? I think they would, particularly for cultural reasons such as chasing the American Dream and looking for safe, well-educated neighborhoods for their kids.

3. The article cites data that says Millennials are more interested in living in the suburbs than their parents. This may be the case though what exactly these suburbs look like is unclear: exurbs full of McMansions or denser, walkable suburban communities?