January 6, 2011 Maria Kefalas’ “Generation R”
I’ve always been told I was part of Generation Y, or the Millennial Generation. Apparently now my generation is being re-dubbed Generation R – The Recession generation.
En route to work this morning, I heard a short interview with NPR’s Jeremy Hobson and St. Joseph’s University Sociology Professor Maria Kefalas. She has been researching those born between 1980-1990, the generation that has recently found itself entering the workforce. Her statements are about a generation of people trying to enter the workforce during a recession and the struggles they face financially- both due to the difficulty of finding good work and the challenge of paying for a college education. Being born in 1985, I find myself smack in the middle of this group and completely understand where she’s coming from.
The American idea has always been that if you go to college, you can get a better job, and everything will be swell. Most past generations have shown children ending up one socioeconomic tier above their parents. But with this recession, people are finding all this to be less and less true, and don’t have as positive an outlook for the future.
During the interview, Kefalas said “Working class kids said to us, “Listen, we’re going to be the first generation of Americans to do worse than our parents.” One young woman said, “I just feel burned. My friends who didn’t go to college, they don’t have debt and they’re making more an hour than I am.””
In my experience, this is true. I could think of dozens of former college classmates who don’t have jobs any better than ones they could have landed without college. In fact, aside from a few pharmaceutical, engineering or medical exceptions, I can think of very few who have a relevant job at all. The majority are struggling. And nearly everyone I know who didn’t go to college, or instead went to a far less expensive tech or trade school, makes considerably more than those of us who did. They started into the workforce earlier, put in time, and by the time we finished college with all out debt and zero experience, they had 4-5 years of real world experience beneath them and were moving on to promotions.
Between my wife and myself, we graduated college with around $100,000 of debt – 80% of it being hers. Are we making up that difference now through our jobs? Did our degrees help us get better jobs? No. We both work full-time just to practically break even every month. I don’t expect to ever earn the difference I paid for college to have justified the cost. I feel I basically paid $100k for a wife, having met her during her freshman year. Worth every penny, sure, but not the point.
All this makes the value of things like graduate school really come into question. Sure, Bachelor’s degrees are becoming so common they are almost worthless – but would doubling my debt to get an advanced degree have ended up paying off? It’s a risk I personally never wanted to take. I work with several older people who have Master’s that make the same as me, and say they haven’t made this much money in years. Perhaps my generation will be able to refocus people on the value of individual skill sets and unique human intelligences instead of putting so much emphasis on the pieces of paper people carry.
Hobson went on to ask Kefalas “Generation R knows what it’s like to be in terrible economic times, but they probably also remember the great times of the ’90s or at least the early and mid-2000s, economically. What do they think of the difference?”
Her reply: “I think they look at the pop culture icons like Paris Hilton and they’re sort of cringing in embarrassment… conspicuous consumption they say has gone out of fashion. And they don’t want to be seen as throwing money around when their families are eating into their resources to keep them afloat.”
Another true fact. My parents have tapped out a lot of their savings for my education and to sustain me through multiple layoffs and job changes since finishing college. They even used their line of credit to purchase my car and house while I worked towards taking over the payments, and I’m finally coming up on being able to do that. I graduated in December 2007 and am on my 7th job since then – the first one with real promise to last a while. My parents have been forced to help a lot in those few years.
The point of Kefalas’ examining our age group specifically is that it’s not just about a recession for us. It’s our lives. The economy and poor job market has impacted millions of people and is not unique to any demographic, but we are the first group tackling this sort of situation without any foundation, straight out of school. We are coming out of a social climate where costly education and massive debt straight are a requirement and are thrown into a poor market that isn’t doing anything to help.
What all this will lead to, I don’t know. Economists project that by the time my own kids go to college, it’ll cost as much as $300,000 for an average-tier education. The median household income in the United States better be able to take a real steep hike by then. Based on current numbers, that’s every dollar made by the average American family for over half a decade. That’s just not reasonable. Especially when it impacts us right now – my generation isn’t currently blessed with the opportunity to start saving for our kids.
The Generation R Project has its own website. It greets visitors with a statement – “As one young woman told a reporter recently, “our parents raised us to believe we could do anything, and now we’re finding out that’s not true.””
Though I can’t speak for an entire generation, I will say for myself, my wife, and the future, that we’ll do the best we can.
Your thoughts are, as always, welcome.
- 2 comments
- Posted under General Moosings
Permalink #
Jennie
said
Great post, Jeff.
“…our parents raised us to believe we could do anything, and now we’re finding out that’s not true.”
Maybe instead of doing that ‘anything’ thing ourselves, we’ll figure out a way to make sure OUR kids can do anything, for real.
Keep on keeping on.
Permalink #
Adelle
said
Very interesting and thought provoking post.
I can see it being hard for ‘Generation R’, ‘Generation Y’ and even the next generation (which sadly my daughter more-or-less falls into) in the future. This recession has hit hard, and though on the face of it doesnt seem so bad; people are still buying a little, trades and businesses are still selling a little, but it is no where near to what it was 2-3 years ago, and how the economy was back then. But even so, I believe the economy back then was inflated. It was the bubble that burst, caused by financial over-calculations, gambleing and basically lies from the financial sector. So people thought things were good back then, way better than they actually were, and then that bubble burst.
When that bubble starts to form again people in every sector are going to be cautious (the great recession of the 1920′s took a long time to recover). People are going to be very shrewd with their personal and business money. As is right now, and I an experiencing first hand.
Though I am in work, it is struggling. We have plenty of work on, but jobs keep being postponed, so whilst the money is there, cashflow isn’t, and cashflow is king in business, and that is the reason so many small businesses have gone bust. But that isn’t my point.
My point is that ‘Generation R’ are going to struggle. It doesn’t matter whether they ahve a diploma or not. These days it’s all about can you do the work. Experience counts for everything now, not what you know, or what you can work out, it’s what you can do. This is likely to last a long time, and thoughout the past few years employers have been veering towards do’ers as opposed to know’ers. I know this firsthand form the various places I have worked at. And even been involved in decision making for new employees, testing them in teh interview process and deciding if they cut the mustard when it comes to a position.
To me, cutting the mustard always meant and always will mean, can they do the job? I don’t care if they have a degree in quantum physics, or a diploma in micro-bacterial organisms, I want to know if they can do the job. Do they have experience? Can I throw them right into the deep end without having to spend thousands of pounds on training? And that is the way things are. As you point out Jeff, many many people that have endured college and university are on lesser paying jobs than those that didn’t. Experience counts for everything.
So, what If you are not experienced? Well, it’s quite easy really. Two people apply for a job. One has a university degree, one hasn’t. Applicant #1 is 25 years old, and been unemployed for the past year and only worked as a shop assistant, kitchen porter, or Mc Donnalds, but has a degree in mathematics. Applicant #2 is 17 years old, just basic qualifications from school and no work experience. Who is more likely to get the job? The employer can pay less for the 2nd applicant and mould them to ‘their way’. The 1st applicant may not even apply for the position if the salary it too low, but the 2nd might. The employer is more likely to choose the 2nd applicant as the employer has less to loose. Also, the 2nd applicant is less likely to want pay rises and all the other benefits the 1st applicant might, because he feels his worth from the fact he has a degree.
I personally am one of those people that couldnt afford college or university. Infact I didn’t even do so well with my school exams. But I’m intelligent. I chose to go for a youth training scheme (English thing, not sure if they ahve them in the US) where I actually became a qualified micro electronic engineer. That was through experience. It was a job where I worked towards qualifications, and was paid a wage, though be it very small, so small It just about covered my bus fares to and from work and lunches for the week. But this was 100% experience, with knowledge. After that I walked into a full time job, simply because I could do it. I could do 100% what the employer wanted. They didn’t even care what I had on paper, it was what I could do. Every job since has been on experience. In every interview I have had, I have told them that I can do this job, and the reasons I can do it is because I know how to, and have had experience in x, y and z. That counts for everything, though as I said, doesnt count for a business that struggling as I mentioned earlier.
So, I’m sure you see my point that people dont want what is written on paper now, and haven’t wanted for a while. They need people that can do. Do’ers, not thinkers, and that is what makes the businesses work faster and keeps them afloat.
It’s sad. There should be room for thinkers too as they are probably great assets for businesses, but it takes too long for them to become said asset for the business. Now its about cashflow, and without that a business can not stay running. Thinkers cost money, do’ers make money.
I do wish things were different and that everyone could have a job. I will stay hopeful that things do change and that people that deserve jobs, whether do’ers or thinkers get them.