Millennials on the Cusp of Middle Age Missed
Their Boom
Too many economic forces were against them when they
came of age.
By Noah
Smith
12 November
2019, 15:30 CET
Noah Smith
is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at
Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.
The great
irony of the ironic "Ok boomer" trope being enthusiastically used by
millennials is that they themselves are the older generation to which the term
increasingly applies.
The
millennial generation -- generally defined as those born in the 1980s and the
first half of the 1990s -- is approaching middle age. In less than two months,
the oldest of this group will turn 40. The generation so recently depicted as
rebellious youth intent on reshaping American culture will become eligible for
protection under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The youngest
millennials will be 23, meaning that college campuses will be almost entirely
ceded to the next population cohort, Generation Z.
But
millennials, whose numbers surpass those of the baby boom, don’t have many of
the trappings of a generation approaching middle age. As economist Gray
Kimbrough has documented, a large number of people in their 20s and early 30s
live with their parents, while correspondingly fewer own their own homes.
They’re also significantly less likely to be married than past generations:
These
trends are among the reasons millennials are having fewer children. And those
who do are having them later.
Why have so
many millennials experienced failure to launch? Part of it might simply be the
result of changing culture; dating apps and a liberalization of sexual mores,
as well as the rise of roommate living, may have made some millennials reluctant
to give up the urban bohemian lifestyle. But this probably isn't a major
reason. Surveys show that the average number of children women want has
remained steady at about 2.5 since 1970 and may have even risen slightly.
Meanwhile, the decline in marriage is much more pronounced among less educated
and lower-income Americans.
Instead of culture, millennials’ lifestyles are best
explained by education and economics.
In the days
of unions and manufacturing it was often possible to get a good middle-class
job with only a high school degree. Those days are long gone. Since the early
1970s, weekly earnings for men without a college degree have declined while
those for women have barely budged. The only men with rising earnings are those
with post-college education. That implies that even a bachelor’s degree is no
longer enough to reach the middle class. Professional degrees, master’s degrees
and various forms of postgraduate certification are becoming the norm.
The rising
importance of higher education means that a young person who could start a
career at 22 or even 18 a few decades ago now has to wait until their late 20s
or even later. That means that even educated millennials begin saving money
much later in life, delaying the day when they’ll be able to buy a house.
It also may
mean they earn less money over the course of their careers. Traditionally,
earnings tend to plateau when people reach their mid- to late-30s. As education
increases, this plateau might be pushed forward a bit, but research shows that
older workers simply tend to be less productive on average; more education
means a shorter window of prime working years and a shorter window in which to
accumulate the wealth necessary to raise kids.
On top of
that, millennials have had to fight against strong economic headwinds. A
substantial percentage graduated during the Great Recession of 2008-9 or the
years of slow growth that followed. Studies show that graduating into a
recession reduces lifetime earnings. The housing bubble, meanwhile, dealt an
unprecedented blow to the wealth of those in the middle of the distribution and
lower:
And on top
of all that, inequality has risen substantially. Although educated millennials
must delay saving for houses and kids, their less-educated peers are often
never even able to start.
So for many aging millennials, the lifestyle of
extended adolescence -- living with parents or roommates, finding dates on
Tinder, starting relationships and breaking up again -- is probably beginning
to seem less like a never-ending party than a trap. Even modern workout
regimens and diets can’t eternally postpone the day when skin begins to sag,
joints begin to creak and mental acuity begins to dull.
Maybe it’s
no great surprise, therefore, that millennials are turning to socialism,
clamoring for student-debt forgiveness and embracing presidential candidates
who promise bold schemes of wealth redistribution. So this generation should be
thought of not as youthful rebels infused with the vigor of naive
idealism, but as embittered adults heading toward middle age before their
finances are in order.
More to the point, millennials are a lot like boomers who just never got a
chance to boom.
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