Older Americans Are More Millennial Than Millennials
To understand both changes to the workforce and changing attitudes toward work, don’t watch young people. Watch their parents (and uncles, aunts, and grandparents).
Spoiler Alert:
One should always be careful not to oversell generations, which are, by definition, extremely broad swaths of tens of millions of people with diverse wealth, education, and living conditions. Still, when economists and marketers want to understand changing attitudes toward work and life, they often focus on Millennials. It’s tantalizing to say that, because something new is happening, the newest cohort must be responsible for the change. But many of the trends ascribed to Millennials are actually better fits for their parents.
Young people are the supposed vanguards of a new economic age. Unlike their parents, young people are said to value happiness over money . They prefer gigs over jobs . They prefer flexibility and meaning rather than status and hours at work. Rather than attach themselves to a single company, they are ushering in an economy of coffee-shop “creatives,” hot-desking between WeWork-style shared work spaces in pursuit of their individualistic dreams.
But there is another generation of U.S. workers with those non-monetary values and gig-style jobs. It’s not America’s youngest workers, but rather America’s oldest.
There is little question that an aging workforce—and an aging country—is one of the most important features of the modern economy. By 2024, one quarter of the workforce will be 55 and over—more than twice what the share was in 1994. And as they extend their working years, sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity, it’s older Americans who are quietly adopting Millennial stereotypes, far more than actual Millennials are. . .
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