Blog Marco

I was reading an article recently that discussed the hopes and aspirations of the next generation that is coming to prime. The premise is a scary reality check in the direction our generation is moving.

Generation X can be loosely defined as those individuals born between 1965 and 1975. Generation Y can be loosely defined as the 4.5 million Australian people born between 1978 and 1994 - the age group on which the Australian survey results was based upon. The author of the study was Catherine Heath, a senior strategist at the ad agency George Patterson Y&R, who immersed herself in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Gen Ys for the qualitative survey with focus groups containing up to 10 participants.

"I think there's going to be a huge problem in the future. They really believe they are all going to make it … but many of them are not going to be able to realise that dream," says Heath.

The dream that most Generation Y's have in common is to have it all - now. The universal theme among interviewees was money and a desire to make lots of it. All expressed their intention to run their own business and anything less than being a millionaire was not good enough.

Some interviewees as young as 15 are already making 10-year plans and scanning the money advice columns of the newspapers to determine the best credit card deals and loans.

They showed little or no fear of the prospect of taking out a large loan to finance their dreams because, says Heath, they believe they are going to make so much money in the future paying it back is never going to be a serious problem.

Their heroes hail from the business world - Trump, the Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, the trio behind the fashion brand Tsubi and the billionaire pair behind Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Eminem is admired for the way he took his trademark white trash rapper persona into a multimillion-dollar clothing empire. "Generation X said artists were selling out if they went into merchandising or started up a clothes line. Gen Y on the other hand gives them brownie points for being a good businessman," Heath notes.

The market research company Youth Scan recently surveyed 1000 people aged 10 to 17. It found just 63 per cent of Generation X were optimistic about the future compared with 94 per cent of Gen Y. Given the strong economy, can Gen Y be forgiven their big ambitions?

At 25, Peter Sheahan sits at the older end of Gen Y. An entrepreneur from a young age, he now advises large companies how to recruit, and keep, Gen Y staff.

"No matter how idealistic you were as a Gen Xer you were pretty quickly cut down to size," he says. But now with full employment and a skills shortage in many areas Gen Ys can take their pick.

"I say [to clients] that if a Gen Xer came into a job with a Gen Y attitude they'd been slapped down, told to shut up and do what they are told or go and work for somewhere else."

Bram Williams, the strategy director at the ad agency Euro RSCG, has just released a research paper on Gen Y. His research suggests Gen Y does not expect to do menial work, and will swap jobs and change career paths annually. He believes Gen Y know the chips are stacked in its favour.

"How do they get away with this? Simply put because they're all doing it. They know that the population is ageing. They know that they're needed in the workforce. They know that traditional structures are being flattened. They know they have choices. And so long as they all keep moving about they always have somewhere to go next - namely the position just vacated by their unseen comrade," writes Williams in his paper, Marketing to Generation Y. As Heath puts it: "They see themselves as a brand. I have loyalty only to myself."

Sheahan says this "unrealistic expectation of life" will undoubtedly lead to a reckoning of sorts. And Sheahan knows who is partly to blame; their baby-boomer parents, who indulge their offspring, allow them to continue living at home well into their 20s and, in the case of some, shower them with incentives. Sheahan says he often hears tales of sons being offered a Holden Monaro sports car if they get in to study medicine.

One young lawyer he knows is earning $75,000 a year and still lives with his parents in Birchgrove. "Part of me thought 'smart, you're saving up', the other said 'get a life', especially when I asked him what else other than bed and board he relied upon from his parents. He replied, 'only the necessities, you know, car and insurance'."

Heath concurs, saying the high-spending baby boomers have raised the bar when it comes to consumerism in the home; little wonder she says that many of her interviewees talked about "starting off with a Peugeot or a BMW" as their first car.

Is Gen Y equipped emotionally to deal with the disappointment that might come with the realisation that the pinnacle of its achievements is a job as a middle-ranking accountant, a Toyota Camry and a semi the wrong side of the Parramatta Road? The World Health Organisation predicts that by 2020 - when the oldest Gen Y will be 41 and the youngest 26 - depression will be the most significant illness globally.

Stephanie Dowrick, author of Choosing Happiness: Life and Soul Essentials, says her experience of Gen Y (she has children within this age group) is not nearly as bleak as the commentators suggest. She says many are sophisticated enough to recognise that happiness is about attitude, not money.

"But difficulties with 'enough' and with tolerating disappointment and frustration are, perhaps, an increasing problem. This may reflect the way that generation has been parented. Perhaps giving our children 'everything' and protecting ourselves from ever disappointing them was not such a great idea," she says.

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