If there is a bumper sticker that fits today`s twentysomethings, it would read: ”Earn the max for the minimum.”
If the greed ethic fueled the Me Generation in the `80s, today`s generation of young adults in their 20s is fueled by the ”less work” ethic. They want big salaries, but they don`t want to sacrifice for the job. Careers just don`t mean that much to them. They see high unemployment. They see the problems two careers caused their parents. They see the kings of Wall Street going to jail. They`ll work, but not that hard.
There are more than 40 million young adults ages 20 to 29 in this country, according to the Bureau of the Census. More than one-third of the young men ages 25 to 29 and 15 percent of the young women in that same age group earn more than $25,000. According to a recent survey at Michigan State University, students who graduated from college in 1991 earn an average starting salary of $27,000.
They are called spoiled: Both parents usually worked, and they were given what they wanted. At twentysomething, they don`t want the good deal to end.
”Our expectations come from more successful parents and them giving us more money,” says Maura Fenningham, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend. Ind.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
Dream on, young twentysomethings . . .
The alarm goes off
”They woke up in a tremendously disappointing moment,” says Faith Popcorn, chairman of BrainReserve, a New York-based marketing and consulting firm. ”This is the bad dream part. They can`t achieve what their parents have achieved and it is a very crushing disappointment.”
That disappointment has translated into a sense of ennui, described by some employers as a lack of willingness to pay dues. Others say the twentysomethings come from an attitude of entitlement, that they are owed what they desire. Still others say they are putting work in the proper perspective. ”I`ve had frustration as a recruiter because they feel they have an education and the job will come to them,” says Karen Bloom, partner in Bloom, Gross & Associates, a Chicago head-hunting firm. ”They have a hesitancy to rethink or relocate. They believe in entitlement.”
Bloom adds, ”People who are in hiring positions feel exasperated about younger folks because they feel they are not realistic about the economy and what they want to make and where they want to go.”
These days, though, the economy is calling the shots-and it`s unloaded quite a round on young America.
Gloom and doom
Employer recruitment on college campuses has dropped an estimated 20 to 35 percent . And at many leading graduate and law schools an estimated one-half to two-thirds of the Class of 1992 have no jobs in store for them after graduation.
For those 20- to 24-year-olds already in the work force, 11 percent were jobless in November 1991, compared to the national average of 6.8 percent in that same month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. For 25- to 34-year-olds, unemployment was 7.1 percent in November 1991, up from 5.9 percent for the same month in 1990.
”When the recession starts, you see the opportunities diminish earlier in these age groups than for everyone else,” says Jay Meisenheimer, economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C. ”Even when the economy is going well, they still have the highest unemployment rate because they have less experience and less education.”
What twentysomethings do have more of is a defeatist attitude.
”Pessimism is a problem,” explains Clifford Brickman, psychologist and clinical social worker for Family Stress Clinic, Chicago. Historically, Brickman says, ”Most people in their 20s may have felt the same things, but they didn`t hear society echo the same (doom and gloom). There was more hope.”
Wanting more for less
”I saw a lot of them who want the thirtysomething lifestyle and expect the same salaries,” says Peggy Dassatti, regional sales manager for Day Runner, Inc., a Fullerton, Calif.-based company that sells daily planners.
A 36-year-old Barrington resident, Dassatti says that for the eight years she was national accounts manager for Rubbermaid, Inc., based in Wooster, Ohio., more than 50 salespeople and representatives reported to her, many in their 20s. And some of what she saw surprised her.
”They were real, real aggressive about reviews and raises,” says Dassatti. ”I had one woman who after two years had gotten a 30 percent increase (in salary), then got another promotion and asked for another 10 percent raise. They expect to get paid like they are working 60 hours, while working a 40-hour week.
”They see what people in their 30s are getting and they expect that. But I give them credit; they won`t allow themselves to burn out like we did.
”I think they`re approaching life a little more intelligently and won`t make the same mistakes.”
The job is not everything
Julie Dore Sampson is a 26-year-old senior internal control analyst for Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg. She has traveled internationally on corporate audits to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and all throughout Europe. She says she does well, but her job is not her life.
”I make pretty good money for my age,” Sampson says, ”but being happy is more important.”
When she and her husband, Phil, start a family, Sampson doesn`t want to struggle balancing both full-time career and full-time motherhood. She will likely choose to stay home: ”I don`t want kids and to work full-time unless I have to. I don`t want someone else raising my kids.”
The greed of the `80s and the deification of the Wall Street Masters of the Universe are anathema for this generation of twentysomethings who, like Sampson, refuse to give their all to their work. Work just isn`t that important. The job is not everything.
”The `80s generation was so gung ho about making money and this generation is questioning that,” says Irma Zandl, president of Xtreme, Inc., a New York-based consulting and research firm specializing in the attitudes and habits of consumers 8 to 24 years old.
”They are the generation paying for the excesses preceding it, so they are downsizing their expectations,” says Zandl. ”They still want to be rich, but they are not willing to work the 20-hour days. They have more emphasis on home.
”What we`re seeing is a tremendous interest on the girls` part to stay home and raise children,” she continues. ”They are the first generation of latchkey children and they`ve given it a resounding thumbs down.”
Like father, unlike son
”We developed a generation of borderline personalities,” says psychologist Brickman. ”Both parents were out working and these children feel empty.”
And now, as adults themselves, twentysomethings refuse to fill that emptiness with work, according to Brickman. ”They are not as invested into the system and are freeing up from feeling tied to a company,” he says.
Even their parents` strong company ties are being broken these days-broken by a recessionary economy and the prolific layoffs that have followed.
What twentysomethings don`t want to do is repeat the lifestyle of their parents. The majority of them came home from school to an empty house. Their parents are most likely divorced. And though two incomes may have afforded them material things, they believe in marriage and staying home to raise their kids.
Not all bad
”We are on the brink of an evolutionary jump,” says psychologist Brickman. ”Things can`t get much worse in terms of finance, so they`re looking at other, deeper levels of living.
”They are looking for deeper answers and are putting work into perspective,” he continues. ”They are looking for more than work in their lives and are not trusting that all their needs will be answered by the powers that be. Because they see that the powers that be are being laid off, too.”
Says Bloom: ”They feel their parents lives were too stressful and they want to do it differently.”
That may not be such a bad thing. –
