Millenium (generation Y, generation "next"): age, main features

For the first time the term "generation Y" appeared in Western sociology, where the theory of generations is very popular. According to this hypothesis, developed by the Americans Neil Hove and William Strauss in 1991, the whole history of mankind can be divided into several regularly recurring cycles. They correspond to a period of about 20 years.

The origins of the term

The new generation of the Millennium, or "Y", are people born in 1981-2000. This gradation may fluctuate depending on which country and what kind of society it is about. Western sociologists try on this model primarily on the US. There is a generation of the Millennium in Russia. Its borders are defined approximately in the framework of 1985-2000.

In detail about the phenomenon of "igruk" Hove and Strauss wrote in his book "The Ascent of the Generation of the Millennium: The Next Great Generation." It was published in 2000. At that time, the senior representatives of this rising generation had just celebrated their adulthood and graduated from high school. The authors predicted that in the coming years the new youth had to radically change the concept of youth.

Children of a new era

The appearance of the generation Y is associated with several reasons. The main one is a demographic explosion in the early 1980s, when the birth rate in the USA rose sharply. It is also called "echo boom", because of what the representatives of this generation are also known as "echo boomers".

Demographic fluctuations periodically occurred throughout the history of mankind. Therefore, much more important feature of Millenium people was their upbringing during the birth and rapid development of modern means of communication. We are talking about e-mail, mobile phones, SMS, the Internet, social networks. All these attributes of modern life today already seem ordinary, but only twenty years ago they were all in their infancy and were not available to everyone, even in the US.

Generation Y is lucky to be the first to become the owner of new technologies, through which you can freely communicate with a person on the other side of the world. All modern institutions: states, nations, cities, families, churches, corporations, etc. - are constantly changing and adapting to new conditions. Young people have this skill to change and become accustomed to change. It is elevated to the absolute. Generation Y already in his youth had a unique experience, which was not the case with previous generations.

Ability to handle information

Today everyone can publish their work without any obstacles and express their views. There are in this particular modern era and minus. The flow of information has become so great that it already costs considerable effort to filter it. At the same time, what we know today, tomorrow may become hopelessly outdated. Technologies and projects, which yesterday seemed fiction inventors, managed to become a reality. This pace of change continues to gain momentum. In a world where nothing is permanent, only the fastest reaction becomes truly important. The older the person, the more difficult it is for him to accept similar principles of existence in the information age. But people of the new generation have understood these rules from an early age and can orient themselves in the modern world without any problems.

Why do young people live in such conditions without difficulty? Because she did not know what could be different. Constant variability has always been the medium of their existence, and the growing globalization allows us to feel ourselves as citizens of the world, whereas in the older generation it causes a feeling of unaccustomedness and even rejection in some places. Born in the middle of the twentieth century, not without effort, they try to keep pace with the accelerating technological boom, while young people take what is happening for granted.

With the help of the Internet, young people can quickly and simply emphasize their individuality. They have a habit of absorbing an ever-growing flow of food for their minds: texts, pictures, sounds - today there is no release from the information formats. The number of reasons to learn something new is also growing. This can be study, self-education, news, entertainment, health, life planning, life, searching for spiritual foundations, etc. If their parents had to go to the library and spend a few days finding the right book, then these young people can find the one they need A source of information in minutes. By itself, the limit of knowledge that one person can absorb is growing. This happens naturally. People of generation Y can represent the most unexpected confusion of views, theories and ideas.

Habit for change

In the modern world, the authorities and the powers that be can change literally before our very eyes. But even such changes do not frighten the generation of Y. It is used to the heroes of one day and considers such a state of affairs the norm. Even the rapid information flow does not confuse the youth. If the older generation is lost in it, the representatives of the Millennium generation are able to grasp the agenda on the fly and feel expert in all matters.

Researchers note that the new youth has grown in an environment of universal attention, when children were taught the habit of being self-confident. Perhaps in this pattern lies the reason for the tranquility with which the generation Y looks to an unknown future. It is not crushed by the situation of total control, in which the previous children of X. grew.

Interests and priorities

According to UN estimates, today the Millennium generation accounts for about a quarter of the world's total population (1.8 billion people). Now these people are from 18 to 35 years old. Researchers note that modern youth are not interested in religion - at least a third of the young population considers themselves to be atheism. Another half of the "game" is indifferent to politics, does not support any party and does not go to the polls. In addition, these young people do not want to associate their lives with the same work.

According to sociological surveys, two-thirds of American students want to be millionaires. Because of this and for many other reasons, the generation "next" is accused of capriciousness and narcissism. The desire to earn money from young people is really great. According to the same American statistics, 47% want to retire before the age of sixty at the expense of their own condition, and about 30% believe they will become millionaires before the age of forty. All these traits of generation Y are valid not only in relation to the United States. The fruits of capitalism are noticeable in Europe, and in Russia, and in other developed countries-Japan, Korea, Canada, etc.

Education

Young and active representatives of generation Y belong to the most racially diverse stratum of the world community. There are other fundamental features. They clearly distinguish the generation "nekst" from previous generations - X (with the age of 35-49 years) and baby boomers (with the age of 50-70 years). Education for modern youth is more important than creating a family. So, only a quarter of Americans at the age of 18-32 years have already managed to bind themselves by marriage. At the same time, the dynamics are such that the proportion of married people continues to fall consistently.

The delay in the creation of a family is most often associated with the desire to learn to live and provide for oneself. Regardless of the reasons, it can be confidently stated that admission to adulthood for modern youth is much more difficult than for their older relatives. At all thus generation "igrok" has faced a serious problem in employment. 25% of French youth live without work, in Italy this figure is 40%, in Greece and Spain - almost 50%, in Russia - 23%. Many earn unofficially.

Attitude towards work

What does the millennium generation mean for employers? A lot of research has been devoted to this issue. Modern youth for the most part wants everything at once, it does not want to put up with uninteresting, routine work and does not want to tear it away from its own creative self-realization. All the characteristics of the Y generation indicate that it is idealistic and even childishly infantile. This means that young people are not happy with the fact that today one must endure hardships so that everything will be fine in the unknown future.

"Ygreki" take little care of the formal component of their work (rank and position). Much more they are interested in physical and spiritual comfort. According to their ideal, work should like and cause a sense of their own growth and development. The lack of a personal movement greatly disturbs those who are referred to the Millennium generation. The need for physical comfort is expressed in the need to spend money, travel and live worthily. "Ygrekov" can be called an idealist of the past era with the needs of a generous XXI century.

Getting to a new place of work, the new youth are not looking for a way to adapt to it, it, on the contrary, adapts the work "for themselves." Increasingly, young employees refuse to believe that the corporation will rescue them in a difficult situation and therefore are not ready to make big sacrifices for the sake of another vacancy. The modern career of a young man is a combination of many small transactions with different employers, where all parties get what they want from each other. Such professional relationships are built exclusively on the principle of mutual benefit. Generation Y often expresses disagreement with decisions of superiors, the more inert the previous generation X. Young people tend to ignore the usual hierarchy of power in corporations. At the same time, she has much more respect for decent and comfortable working conditions.

Positive generation

For all the spoiledness and individualism of the generation of "igrok" its representatives can easily be rebuilt when they fall into entirely new, unfamiliar conditions. Researchers note that modern youth have much in common with young people at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Europe was going through its "magnificent age" and the technogenic revolution, while not knowing the horrors of world wars.

At the same time, the "igrets" have a noticeable break with their parents, grandfathers and grandmothers. Especially this abyss is noticeable in our country. The Millennium generation in Russia does not know and does not remember the turbulence of the 1980s and 1990s, when the Soviet Union and then Russia found themselves in a difficult political, economic and social situation. Hence the cynicism of the elders who came with experience, and the belief in the bright future of the young.

Egoists or individualists?

In Russia, the egocentrism of modern youth is often condemned. The Millennium is a generation that has become a mirror image to the previous generation, who grew up in the Soviet Union and strongly depended on what the surrounding society thought about him. Some sociologists suggest that the "game" is not selfish, but rather self-oriented. Several previous generations lived within the framework of the official ideology, when it was extremely difficult to realize their own project condemned by the society. People who fought off the "general line" became marginalized. Today, when such a rigid framework no longer exists, young people have more scope for self-realization.

The new capitalist economy, together with the culture of consumption, naturally leads to a craving for everything individual. As a consequence, representatives of the generation Y are much more likely to think about themselves and listen to themselves. They believe that collective interests should not infringe on their own individual interests. Such egocentrism is not destructive - it just denies the total adjustment.

Youth and money

Because of the general desire to receive education, generation Y is burdened with much greater debts than their parents at the same age. Therefore, today's young people face serious economic challenges. Studies show that about 85% of Millenium representatives have already learned how to save money each month. At the same time, only a third have a specific long-term plan for managing their own funds. Today's youth only save, whereas their parents and grandparents sought to invest. 75% of American students believe that they are not able to make financial decisions on their own.

In the rich countries of the first world, there is a pattern to reduce their spending on financing social support programs for young people and their education (instead, the infusion of funds into pension programs is increasing). Therefore, people of generation Y increasingly need to rely on themselves and their abilities or support of the family. So, in the US, older citizens receive 2.5 times more money from the state than young people. These patterns are explained by the democratic structure of developed countries. Politicians are chosen precisely by old people, and the state course is oriented first of all to the needs of its voters.

The future of "igrukov"

Already today, sociologists are trying to understand what the world will be like, when the definitively grown generation "next" will occupy a key place in it. Globalization and simplification of communication in different parts of the world should lead to a more tolerant attitude of different cultures to each other. The same goes for race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender. The younger generation has fewer prejudices than their parents. They are much more mobile and productive. First of all, this breakthrough is connected with the technical revolution, which radically changed the nature of human life in the last twenty years. The amount of innovation during this period is equal to the progress that people have made in decades and centuries. The generation of "gambling" that is familiar to changes and future changes will be much less painful than their predecessors from the X-generation did.

Mobility of youth faces many problems. Some of them create political authorities. The openness of the world is hindered by the propiska - about 60% of the states are blocking the internal migration of their population. The conflict of "fathers and children" is expressed not only in this. At the same time, the whole history of mankind shows that in the confrontation of generations, sooner or later, young people win, which comes to replace the old people.