Millennials

Let’s move on to the Millennials, also known as Generation Y. Born from the early 1980s until before the turn of the century, they are achievers. They’re networked. They’re team-oriented.

Yet the Millennials also live in a world that has moved even further away from the stability available to the generations before them.

Millennials have grown up with over-supportive parents. This is not helped by the fact that a fair proportion of Millennials are still living in the family home. Often they have to rely on additional financial support from their parents just to gain independence or even get onto the first rung of the housing ladder.

Millennials continue to feel pressured to achieve. Yet also, paradoxically, their helicopter parents may have sheltered them too much from the harsh realities of life, meaning they often have an unreadiness for the world around them too.

The Millennial generation has been propelled into the world with the message that they can do anything. That the whole world is their oyster. They’re also the first generation where more of them than ever before have gone to college or university.

But after graduation, and despite all of their parents’ rhetoric to the contrary, they find out the truth. The truth is that there may not be the good jobs out there that they were promised. There are certainly a lot fewer stable traditional jobs than were there for their parents. Often the world is not as shiny and nice and full of promise as they were led to believe. Even if they have their 2:1 degree in history.

Millennials have debt. They have student loans around their necks. They’ve grown up in a time of economic uncertainty. They’re often too qualified for the jobs they’ve got. Because they’re not able to do what they’ve been trained to do, it can make finding an identity difficult. Their way in the world is unsure.

In the past, people could say with some certainty what they were or what they were going to be. But it’s difficult for Millennials to label themselves with an identity or a traditional role. There’s an uncertainty in their life. A lack of vocation. Often with this, a lack of direction too.

The Baby Boomers may well be reaping the rewards of their retirement. Generation X are working even harder in the hope of doing the same. Whilst the Millennials are looking at an uncertain future where there may not be the regular work to provide a pension to see them into their retirement and into a time where possibly the current healthcare and welfare systems have already failed.

Millennials find it hard to believe the rhetoric from the generations before them. They can be guilty of a hedonistic attitude, because when the promise of a good tomorrow is less certain, why not spend your time enjoying yourself today instead? To some degree this is fine. But for some, it’s a slippery slope towards narcissism, selfishness, and an excessive interest in one’s own appearance.

Millennials may not be employed in the traditional way. Instead, more and more of them provide a service. But with this type of employment comes the underlying worry that their jobs can be taken away at any time. Again, there’s this feeling of uncertainty in their lives, made worse by the lack of a safety net that the older generations have.

Millennials are more likely to be self-employed or contractors. Their employment is often sessional. Their working life is fragmented.

What Millennials want to have, though, is choice. They do things differently. They understand technology. They’ve embraced globalization. They would rather be in a hip startup business than wear a shirt and tie for the next 30 years like their dad did.

The trouble is, things can go wrong. There’s anxiety coupled with uncertainty. There’s frustration coupled to a lack of direction. There’s a need to prove their worthiness to others that can easily derail their own self-worth.

They are connected 24/7 but without the ability to unplug themselves from the anxiety of the world around them. Burdened with guilt, debt, and an uncertain future built on the unstable gig economy, you can see why they’re anxious. Add in the worries of zero-hour contracts, the prospect of no pension, no home of their own, nor affordable healthcare in the future, and you can see where all of their uncertainty comes from.

Let me tell you what this looks like in my surgery.

There’s the 32-year-old with a master’s degree working three part-time jobs. None of them use her qualifications. None of them pay enough to live independently. She’s back living with her parents, saving for a deposit on a flat she’ll probably never be able to afford. She comes in with anxiety and depression. I’m not surprised.

There’s the 28-year-old software developer earning decent money but spending 50% of his income on rent for a shared flat. He wants to settle down, have kids, buy a house. But the math doesn’t work. It never works. He’s earning more than his parents did at his age. But his purchasing power is a fraction of theirs.

There’s the 35-year-old who’s finally achieved some career success. She’s got the job title, the responsibility, the respect. But she’s still on a short-term contract. No job security. No benefits. No path to the stability her parents took for granted. She lies awake at night worrying about what happens when this contract ends. When the next one will come. If it will come at all.

This is the Millennial experience. Promises broken. Expectations shattered. Dreams deferred indefinitely.

You were told you could be anything. But nobody mentioned that “anything” would require independent wealth, exceptional luck, or both. You were told education was the path to success. But nobody mentioned that everyone else got the same memo, flooding the market with qualified candidates and driving wages down.

You were told to follow your passion. But nobody mentioned that passion doesn’t pay rent. You were told the world was your oyster. But nobody mentioned that oysters are expensive and you can’t afford seafood on your gig economy wages.

Here’s what really defines the Millennial generation. You’re the first generation in modern history that’s worse off than your parents. Not because you’re lazy. Not because you’re entitled. But because the economic conditions that created prosperity for previous generations have fundamentally changed.

Your grandparents could buy a house on a single income with a high school education. Your parents needed two incomes and college degrees. You need two incomes, advanced degrees, side hustles, and probably help from the Bank of Mum and Dad. And even then, homeownership might be impossible.

The social contract is broken. The rules have changed. But somehow, you’re still being judged by the old standards. Boomers call you lazy because you’re not buying houses. But they bought their houses when homes cost a fraction of what they cost now, relative to income.

Generation X calls you entitled because you expect work-life balance. But they’re working themselves to death and resenting you for refusing to do the same. They don’t understand that you’re not rejecting their values. You’re adapting to a reality where loyalty to employers isn’t rewarded and job security doesn’t exist.

Millennials are often portrayed as the avocado toast generation. The participation trophy generation. The generation that needs safe spaces and trigger warnings. This misses the point entirely.

You’re the generation that graduated into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The generation burdened with unprecedented student debt. The generation priced out of homeownership. The generation watching the planet burn while politicians do nothing.

You’re anxious because you have legitimate reasons to be anxious. You’re uncertain because the future genuinely is uncertain. You’re frustrated because you’ve done everything you were told to do and it still isn’t enough.

But here’s the thing about Millennials. You’re also the most educated generation in history. The most diverse. The most socially conscious. The most technologically literate. You understand systems in ways previous generations never did. You see through bullshit faster. You adapt more quickly.

You’re not buying houses, but you’re building companies. You’re not climbing corporate ladders, but you’re creating new ways of working. You’re not following the traditional path, because you recognize that path is closed to you anyway.

Millennials invented the gig economy out of necessity. You pioneered remote work before COVID made it mainstream. You created entirely new industries, new business models, new ways of organizing society. Not because you wanted to be revolutionary, but because the old ways weren’t working for you.

You’re the generation that’s questioning everything. Marriage. Homeownership. Children. Traditional careers. You’re asking whether these things are actually desirable or just what you were told you should want. And increasingly, you’re deciding that many traditional markers of success are either impossible to achieve or not worth the sacrifice.

This drives older generations crazy. They see you rejecting the life they worked so hard to build. They don’t understand that you’re not rejecting their values. You’re recognizing that their path to security and prosperity no longer exists.

The anxiety that defines the Millennial experience isn’t weakness. It’s adaptation. You’re the first generation to truly understand that the future is fundamentally uncertain. That the institutions previous generations relied on might not be there for you. That you need to be more flexible, more adaptable, more resilient than any generation before.

You’re connected 24/7 not because you’re addicted to your phones, but because that’s where your social life, your work, your opportunities, and your community exist. You don’t have the luxury of unplugging. In a gig economy, the next opportunity might come through a notification you miss.

The mental health strain among Millennials isn’t individual failure. It’s a collective response to collective stress. You’ve lived through multiple economic crises, a pandemic, climate change acceleration, political polarization, and the slow-motion collapse of the social contract. No wonder you’re anxious.

But here’s what older generations miss about Millennials. Despite all of this, you keep going. You adapt. You innovate. You create. You build communities online when geographic communities fail. You find meaning in work that matters, even if it doesn’t pay well. You prioritize experiences over possessions, not because you’re frivolous, but because possessions are unattainable anyway.

You’re the generation that’s redefining success. Not because traditional success is beneath you, but because it’s beyond you. So you’re creating new metrics. New goals. New ways of measuring a life well-lived.

This terrifies the older generations. Because if you succeed in redefining success, their sacrifices might have been for nothing. If homeownership isn’t the goal, why did they work themselves to death for mortgages? If career stability isn’t the priority, why did they stay in jobs they hated for decades?

So what does this mean for you? If you’re a Millennial, you need to understand that your struggles aren’t personal failures. You’re navigating an economy deliberately designed to extract value from you while providing minimal security in return. Your anxiety is a rational response to irrational circumstances.

If you’re from another generation, you need to understand that Millennials aren’t lazy or entitled. They’re exhausted from running faster and faster just to stay in place. They’re not rejecting your values. They’re adapting to a world where those values no longer lead to the outcomes they used to.

The Millennial generation is reshaping society. Not by choice, but by necessity. The traditional path is closed. The old rules don’t work. The promises were broken.

So Millennials are writing new rules. Building new paths. Creating new possibilities. Not because they want to be disruptive, but because disruption is the only option left.

Understanding Millennials means understanding adaptation under pressure. Innovation born from necessity. Resilience in the face of broken promises.

That understanding might help bridge the generational divide. Or at least explain why Millennials are the way they are. Anxious but adaptive. Uncertain but innovative. Burdened but building something new.

The question isn’t whether Millennials can succeed by the old standards. It’s whether they can create new standards that actually work for the world they’re inheriting.

And based on everything they’ve already survived, I’d bet on them figuring it out. Eventually. Anxiously. With significant therapy bills along the way.

But they’ll figure it out. Because they don’t have any other choice.

Further reading

• Pew Research Center. (2014). Millennials in Adulthood: Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends. Pew Research Center.
• Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy. Atria Books.
• Case, A., & Deaton, A. (2020). Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Princeton University Press.
• Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury.
• Thompson, D. (2016). ‘Why Are So Many Millennials Renters?’ The Atlantic.