2. Literature Review
2.3 Defining Generations
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Guanxi is a network of connections and relationships that help a person obtain items above and beyond the masses can. “Loosing face”, or loosing respect in another person’s eyes, is an important way to lose guanxi. Gaining face, or building one’s status, is important in building a guanxi network, and is done by gaining respect and having others indebted to you (Stanat, 2006).
Section 2.2 reviewed the literature explaining connections between values, geographic origin and education, which has served as a solid ground to sustain the hypothesis posed in this research. Section 2.3 tackles generational analysis theories and further conclude the literature review describing the singular features of the Millennial Generation.
2.3 Defining Generations
According to Howe and Strauss (2000) a generation can be defined as “a society-wide peer group, born over a period roughly the same length as the passage from youth to adulthood, who collectively possess a common persona” (p. 40).
A generational common persona has three attributes: perceived membership, common beliefs and behavior; and a common location in history. In this vein, Mannheim (1952) points out that a generation is a “social phenomenon” in which biological data constitute the most basic stratum of factors determining the generation phenomena.
Moreover, individuals belonging to the same generation must share a “common location” in the historical dimension of social progress, which in turn represents a kind of “identity of location”. This is to say, that age-related groups are considered to belong to the same generation in so far as they share the same intellectual, social and cultural trends that naturally arise from the process of human development. As Pilcher (1994) shows, “generation” is a temporal unit in history and it replaces “external units” of time such as decade, years and month.
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Generational analysis is the process that involves tracking age-related cohort of people on a range of issues, behaviors and characteristics. In order to conduct a generational analysis, one first must define the bounds of that generation.
This is not an easy process since generational boundaries are flexible and they depend on its coming-of-age experiences and the impact of short-term forces throughout history (Mannheim, 1952; Pilcher, 1994; Howe and Strauss, 2000). In reviewing the generational analysis literature, one can evidence that the lines that define a generation differ among scholars and researchers; Howe and Strauss (2000), for example, hold out that the average length of a generation is around twenty or twenty-one years; whereas the Pew Research Center (2015) considers that a generation typically refers to groups of people born over a fifteen or twenty-year span.
Just as the limits that define generations are not standards among scholars, demographers and researchers; generation labels also have been through a longstanding discussion. Aware of this lack of solid consensus in locating a generation, to carry out the subsequent comparative analysis, this research has drawn on Pews Research Center’s generational dividing line. Pews Research Center (2015) uses an approach based on Age-Period-Cohort analysis —which considers the three separate effects that can produce differences in attitudes between age groups: life cycle effects (sometimes called age effects); period effects (lasting wars like WWI, the Great Depression), and cohort effects (the change concentrated among a particular generation).
Consequently, according to Pew Research Center, generations have been defined chronologically as shown in Table 2-1:
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Table 2-1: Defining Generations
There is a vast intergenerational research and academic literature that describe the distinguishing traits of each of the aforementioned generations; for example, Howe and Strauss (2000); Greenberg and Weber (2008); Twenge (2006); Stanat (2006); and Pew Research Center (2015). This research is focused on the Millennial cohort, which are the last link in the generational chain.
Label Demographic Boundaries
The Greatest Generation Born before 1928 Age in 2017: 90 - 100 The Silent Generation Born: 1928 to 1945
Age in 2017: 72 to 89
The Baby Boom Generation Born: 1946 to 1964 Age in 2017: 53 to 71
Generation X Born: 1965 to 1980
Age in 2017: 37 to 52
The Millennial Generation Older Millennials (b. 1981-1989) Younger Millennials (b. 1990-1997)
Born: After 1980 to 1997
Age of adults in 2017: 20 to 36*
*The youngest Millennials are in their teens. No chronological end point has been set for this group.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau population projections for 2015.
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2.3.1 Millennial Generation
Many labels have been used by researchers, scholars, and demographers to represent those individuals born after 1980; mainly “Generation Me”, “Generation We”,
“Generation Y”, and “Echo Boomers”. Millennial Generation accounts for the first generation to come of age in the new millennium, and is largely made up of the offspring of the Baby Boom generation. The demography boundaries defined by Pew Research Center establish a first wave of Millennials born from 1981 to 1989 and a second wave born from 1990 to 1997.
Millennials are the best-educated generation in history, furthermore they experience a growing sense of urgency about what they have to do to achieve their personal and group goals. Howe and Strauss (2000) point out that this pressure explains the “intensity of today’s competition to get good grades, to get into college, and to please employers” (p. 184). Past generations have provided Millennials with technology. Technology has allowed Millennials to learn differently from past generations as Donohue (2012) mentioned, they crave for interactions and simulations rather than the traditional lecture style of education. The fast internet connectivity gave shape to Millennial Generation’s sense of immediacy. With the development of internet and digital infrastructure, Millennials read and write texts, emails, tweets, and blogs.
Global Millennials are the offspring of a world in which fertility rate have generally been on decline, especially in the developing world. Nonetheless, as one can see in Figure 1, the number of young people around the world who are currently under the age of 34 is still huge, close to the half of the world’s population. According to the World Population Prospects (United Nations, 2015), in 2015 the median age of the world’s population was 29.6 years.
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According to the international database released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Millennials from China (26%) and those from the United States (23.4%) have surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation (See Figure 1 and 2).
Figure 1. Distribution of the world population by age and sex, 2015
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision. New York: United Nations.
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Source: Author tabulation of U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base (2016)
Figure 2. Millennials from East Asian Countries, 2017
Source: Author tabulation of U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base (2016)
Figure 3. Millennials from Western Countries, 2017
26% 22% 18% 24% 25%
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Millennial Generation shows a marked orientation toward the self. They were told by their parents that they could have everything in life, to follow their dreams and to pursue happiness above else. According to Twenge (2006) “since we were small children, we were taught to put ourselves first” (p. 49). Furthermore, Millennials have a determined believe that they are important, they take for granted that they should all feel good about themselves, that they are all special, and that they all deserve to follow their dreams.
Millennials social trend could be resumed to do what makes you happy, and do not worry about what other people think. This trend is driven by individual social needs and desires which according to Twenge (2006) “is not necessarily self-absorbed or isolationist; instead is a way of moving through the world beholden to few social rules and with the unshakable believe that you are important”.
Financially Millennials are worse off than the generation before. According to a recent study carried out by Young Invincibles (2017) based on data from the U.S.
Federal Reserve. Millennials—15 to 34-year-olds in 2013—were worth roughly half as much as the Boomer Generation and are earning about 20% less in comparison to young adults in 1989. While Millennials earned $40,581 on average in 2013, members of the Boomer Generation earned $50,910 annually in 1989. Meanwhile, young adults with debt and a degree in 2013 earned roughly the same as those who had no degree at all in 1989: $50,000. The study also found that educational attainment still an individual’s best pathway to financial security.
Regarding to European Millennials, just like American Millennials, they have lived through an economic crisis since 2008. According to the European Union demographic data (2013) Millennials accounted for 24% of the adult population in the 28-member European Union in 2013, the last year for which there is comparable and comprehensive data. Economic stagnation has exacted a heavy toll on public sentiment.
According to Pew Research Center (2014) survey, barely a fifth (22%) of Europeans are satisfied with the way things are going in their countries.
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And Europeans Millennials are no exception especially those from Greece — where 6% of Millennials are satisfied— and Spain —where 7% of Millennials are satisfied— in both countries the economic crisis still shows little signs of ending. Other remarkable fact is that regardless the economic stagnation most European Millennials are satisfied with their own lives. Young Germans (66%), living in the strongest economy in Europe, are the most satisfied; young Greeks (45%), the least happy.
Nevertheless, European Millennials have a notably negative outlook about prospects for the next generation. When asked whether they thought children in their country would be better off financially than their parents once they grow up, only 38% of young British, 37% of young Germans and 15% of young French were optimistic.
Meanwhile, Asian Millennials are considered to be “the new big spenders in the global consumer market”. According to AsiaToday (2016), Millennials in emerging markets such as China and India are seeing their average wage increase and their buying power will increase further in the coming years.
China’s recent developments in the marketplace laid the foundations for its current position and is having a huge effect on the prosperity of Millennial Generation and the growth of the Chinese middle class. Accordingly, whereas the American middle class is pressed for money as a result of rising expenditures —from the grocery bill and housing all the way to college education— Chinese middle class flourishes.
Furthermore, China has the largest labor market in the world and domestic consumption is increasing. China’s Millennial Generation has inherited an optimistic future with its economy. Although it faces many problems, the economy is rapidly improving and growing. China’s youth will take their economy to the next level, enlarging it to the world’s greatest. This generation will not only inherit large sums of money from their grandparents and parent, but also a rapidly changing burgeoning marketplace (Stanat, 2006).
Overall as a consumption trend and as a result of soaring properties prices, young Millennials are no longer focused on buying houses and cars. Millennials are
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According to CBRE Global Millennial Survey (2016), 74% of Millennials are forced to live with their parents because wedges are not keeping up with property prices;
64% of Millennials are renting due to their cost/financial circumstances. In addition, Asian Millennials are more likely to live with parents than the global average of 49%.
Living with parents means their spending power could be higher than North American and European counterparts with cultural norms of moving out.
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