A couple of days ago Vox published a trend piece about how young Gen Z folks "have created an abundance of memes and pithy commentary about their generational disillusionment toward work. The jokes, which correspond with the rise of anti-work ideology online, range from shallow and shameless (“Rich housewife is the goal”) to candid and pessimistic."
This piece is based mostly on a bunch of anecdata, and over at National Review Kyle Smith has been suckered by it. "Gen Z Types Do Not Want to Work for a Living," says his headline, but let's check that out with real data. Here is the labor force participation rate for 20-24 year-olds compared with the participation rate for prime age workers:
The leading edge of Gen X turned 20 in 1985. During the period in which Gen Xers turned 20 years old, they drove down their participation rate compared to prime age workers by about 4 points. Anti work!
For Millennials, it was about 3.5 points. Anti work!
For Gen Z it's been zero points. Pro work!
Gen Z inherited a low participation rate from Gen X and Millennials, but they kept things steady when it was their turn to enter the workforce. By this metric, young Gen Zers are more dedicated to work than the youngsters of both the preceding generations.
Remember: always trust real data. Anecdata is fun, but it's rarely very useful.
"Wants to work" and "has to work" are not the same thing at all. I'm a boomer, and I would have been delighted to live my life as an idle rich person. Unfortunately, economic reality had different ideas.
Most people want money; there are some people who work because they like to work, but there are a whole lot more people who just work for money and would retire in a millisecond if they won the lottery or otherwise found themselves in a position where they had enough money that they didn't have to work.
Did Gen Z turn 20 in 2015? So the start was 1995? So weird, I always assumed I was a millennial. I guess I’m Gen Z according to Kev
I draw the cutoff in relation to the iPhone. If you’re old enough to remember them coming out, you’re a millennial. If they’ve been around as long as you can remember, you’re Gen Z
1997
Assume whatever you want, it's all silly marketing-journalistic fiction with essentially no socio-economic analytical validity at all. (some modest cultural grouping analytical validity, although socio-cultural class is sans doute rather more meaningful).
Interesting! I've often thought it makes sense to break things down in terms of folks who remember before there was an internet* and folks who are too young to. I like your addition of the iPhone.
_____
*obviously not any sort of internet, but the colloquial sense of it more-or-less coextensive with hyptertext pages and whatnot.
Ongoing reminder that the American obsession with the pseudo category "Generation" is complete bollocks.
Also ongoing reminder that almost all journalists are innumerates with the data analytical capacity of a 10 year old.
I wonder if participation would correlate with the median inheritance (real dollars of course!) of each generation?
Excluding recessions, isn't this just measuring the percent of 20-somethings who go to college? That percentage rose steadily from 1980 to 2010, then plateaued. (The plateauing may be appropriate, if we have reached the point where every person who is capable of and would benefit from college level education is receiving it.)
If it's hard to find work out of high school, or you get laid off, you go back to school--if you can.
More and more jobs require college degrees--even if they don't make use of a college education. It's mainly a screening tool, though I don't know if there is a way to look a percentage of jobs requiring college degrees.
AFAIK it didn't really plateau in 2010. It jumped due to the Great Recession, but the upward trend continued after that. The wage premium for college grads is still pretty high, but flat.
And we have a winner!
https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
I'd like these to be something like "by fraction of 18..25 yr olds" but even without that, it's clear there was a huge jump from 1970 to 2010, which I'm guessing probably explains both the Millenial and X "drops", with the Z flatness primarily reflecting flatness in college enrollment.
In other words no significant change in "willingness to work" (at least as measured by labor force participation rate) over the past 50 years.
Of course there is still the matter of correctly interpreting said data…
I think most of this generational stuff is silly, since I've been seeing a steady stream of "The kids are entitled" articles going back 30 years, and likely farther.
But this is dubious:
"Gen Z inherited a low participation rate from Gen X and Millennials, but they kept things steady when it was their turn to enter the workforce."
They inherited it? How does that work? These aren't raw numbers, you're comparing the new generation's participation rate vs previous ones. True, the difference is no longer getting any worse, but it's still bigger than the gap when Gen X was 20. I don't see why "lower but steady" is better than "higher but falling" in this circumstance.
I don't think any of it has to do with how "anti-work" any of these generations are, but your chart doesn't show anything to indicate Gen Z are more "pro-work".
Gen Z is incrementally better educated than millennials. That should keep up the downward pressure on that graph. But it doesn't. I'm thinking the gig economy made working during school more convenient.
If Gen Z were "pro-work", the labor participation force of 20-24 compared to 25-54 would have reversed direction.
Also, it aligns w/ college enrollment: https://bityl.co/ByXs
This is just viral marketing for the 4k special edition dvd rerelease of Reality Bites, after the success of Ben Stiller with Severance.
I was wondering about that knee of the curve at around 1980. Was that the start of the Reagan Revolution????
This is a case where the value of the thing being measured is the right thing to focus on, rather than the direction it's moving over time. The graph does show that the average Gen Z person has been less likely to work in their early twenties than preceding generations were. It wasn't a sudden new phenomenon with Gen Z, but the effect has been at its greatest within this generation.
The actual story is about how Zoomers are uninterested in defining themselves by their job or willing to take economic risk for non-economic fulfillment.
None of that is about working less, it's about work life balance.
Two important changes since millennials came of age:
1) more and more people are going to college and grad school. That explains the decreasing trend for millennials. Gen Z continue to go to college at a growing rate, but...
2) the gig economy provides more flexible work opportunities. This might explain why the trend for Gen Z is flat.
Lol, the total population growth in the labor market grew rapidly from the late 70's to 1989. Then leveled off and declined in the 00's and 10's. Not hard to understand.
It is a very simple explanation
# of positions EXCEEDS the number of available bodies in MOST cities. In rural areas its a break even situation.
Overall it's a reduction of working aged population and having a very good economy. This will be affected by the 50 basis points increase the FED is proposing (with more to come). Lowered housing starts will = less construction employment which will also result in lowered need for appliances, and other things that go into a new house. Future stimulus plans will be addressed to correct housing whereas the pandemic stimulus went to EVERYONE regardless of home ownership.
This is like clock work.