INTRODUCTION

Millennials are a generation that has been discussed at length by everyone from marketing professionals to academic researchers. With much to set them apart from past generations, such as generation X or the baby boomers, millennials are a complex group of people coming into their own as a powerful force to be reckoned with. But who are the millennials, and what does it mean to categorize or attempt to understand an entire generation of people?

The term millennial refers to those born between roughly 1980 and 2000, although the exact range is debated by researchers. According to the Pew Research Center, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, which means there is an estimated 75.3 million millennials in the United States. This makes them the largest living generation, edging out baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) by about 400,000. The millennial generation is also growing thanks to immigration, with Pew estimating that by 2036 there will be 81.1 million millennials in the United States.¹

Millennials grew up during a time of immense change, which means there are many differences between members of this generation. The oldest millennials were already in college before the internet became a common feature of everyday life, while the youngest millennials can’t remember a time without it. The digital age has shaped our culture quickly. Millennials are the first generation of digital natives and who are able to recall what life was like before the internet. Events like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the September 11 attacks reshaped the world as the millennials were growing up, and many millennials were entering college or the workforce when the 2008 financial crisis threatened the global economy. All of these factors make millennials a unique generation, faced with challenges and given advantages that the generations that came before struggle to fully comprehend.

This lack of comprehension can be seen in how millennials are discussed by researchers, the media, and average citizens. Often painted as lazy or entitled, millennials have been given a bad rap by many— sometimes even those in their own generation. But this doesn’t take into account the research that shows millennials to be hardworking, innovative, and often times struggling with economic uncertainty. Nearly half of all millennials have student debt according to a study by Harvard University, and studies have found that the average student debt burden on millennials is around $40,000.² At the same time, job gains since the recession have not benefited millennials, who have lower incomes and less job mobility than past generations. Millennials are believed to be the first generation in United States history that won’t do better economically than their parents, due in part to having to play catch-up because of debt and low wages.

But millennials also have a lot of advantages. They are resourceful and well educated—in fact, they are the most educated generation in US history. Millennials are changing the traditional career path in order to make it work for them, largely by embracing multiple jobs and casual work in what has become known as the “gig economy.” They also care about social justice issues and are more socially liberal than past generations, with Pew finding that 57 percent of millennials see themselves as such.³

In this book, we’ll look at research, opinion pieces, political speeches, and polls to get a sense of how millennials are shaping the world they live in and how the world sees them. We’ll hear from presidents, business leaders, advocates, and journalists, all of whom have a unique take on what makes millennials who they are and what that means for the future. We’ll also be asking questions about what we read, to help you decide for yourself what the United States’s largest generation has to offer and overcome.