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New here? Employee Evolution is dedicated to helping the Millennial generation answer the hard-hitting questions that come with the biggest transition of our lives. Be sure to visit our about section for the full story. Since you're here, check out our best articles in the archives. We've also put together a list of some Millennial-friendly employers on our jobs page. Any questions? Feel free to contact us.
A question was broached here at Employee Evolution by one of the readers, who asked just how politically active Millennials are. While Ryan and I knew our own personal answers, neither felt confident enough to answer on behalf of our whole generation without some more data. Now that I’ve looked at the trends myself, I’ve found that what was superficially a simple question has a bit more of a nuanced answer than I expected.
Before I begin, I would also like to state that this is only in regards to America. While other countries may have similar circumstances, it would be beyond presumptuous and into the realm of arrogant to even begin to offer a global primer on such an issue.
Do not Compare us to Baby Boomers via the Vietnam Protests.
In short, it depends on what your definition of “is” is. If you attempt to compare our generation to that of the Baby Boomers (as Thomas Friedman does in his article Generation Q), then what you would naturally come up with is a picture of apathy. In the midst of a war that is extremely unpopular by the public at large, and with presidential approval ratings some of the lowest in modern history, you would expect us to march out of our classes and jobs and into the streets. Riots should be happening, and hippies abundant.
While the latter may be true on some campuses, the former hasn’t happened because of one key difference between Vietnam and the War on Terror: A draft. While you can argue that the less privileged of our generation have to utilize the military as an economic decision and that makes it a hidden draft, because this would be an indirect culling, it doesn’t elicit as much of a public reaction. And without larger numbers of our generation in war, there is simply not enough of a personal outrage to go from working within the system to breaking the system down entirely.
Looking at political activism among the Baby Boomers, you’ll see that it is entirely absent in regards to various genocides and other acts of atrocity (The Khmer Rouge regime comes to mind). I am certain that if forced conscription were to occur again, you would not only see riots, but riots organized ten times as effectively than in the past due to social networking online.
Socially Conscious Consumerism
On the environmental front, bamboo and hemp clothing lines are expanding. The LEED standard, while maybe not being used literally, is still being used as a yardstick for an amazing amount of new buildings. Meanwhile, boycotts of products grown with forced or child labor are growing. According to studies done by Cone, Inc. and AMP Insights, our generation is one of the most socially conscious yet. Just in 2006, under a third of us have boycotted certain products from companies we disagreed with ethically, while 70 percent consider a company’s social and environmental commitment when purchasing products.
While it is easy to characterize and diminish us by our seemingly “idealistic naivety” about how the real world works, we are growing into a generation that is using not only our personal time, but our own money to reinforce positive business models. As we continue to rise in income, and thus in contribution to the overall GDP, this effect will only grow larger.
We Tend not to Vote, Unless it Matters
While the percentage of voters in the 18-29 age demographic has increased over the past two elections, our votes relative to the older generations are still abysmal. Because of this, politicians have less incentive to appeal to our interests, which in turn makes us even less inclined to vote. Not to mention the issues that we feel most are most important (the war, education, the environment, and social equality) are by no means easy to solve in five-second sound bytes.
Another issue that drives down our voting, at least if questionnaires are any indication, is the rampant cynicism and hollowness of campaigning today. Young people have grown up with the Internet. Whereas the TV was a one-way interaction, the Internet allows for a much greater contributory culture. Because of this, we value compromise and negotiation over hard ideological stances; we’re looking for results. This leads into the last factor that influences voting, structural limitations.
The one area we see young voters really participating is when they go to college or their parents live in a swing state. Often, the students will register in whichever state is more balanced politically, so that they feel their vote has more of a difference. However, local registrars in heavy college towns ultimately decide on whether many of these voters can vote, due to ambiguities in the legal term of domicile. While some places are deeply appreciative of the young voting effort, others have cracked down for various reasons. Ultimately, if districts were drawn to be more bipartisan instead of gerrymandered, you would see voter increases in all demographics, but especially in the young voter category.
So What Does it all Mean?
While I worry about how our fantastic volunteerism rates fall (heavily in upper-income households and among the college-educated), I’m not yet ready to call out that this is a class divide, nor that it is simply resume padding. Regardless of that possibility, our dedication to volunteering and single-issue campaigns is having an impact. Looking at the data, what I see is that we Millennials have a variety of opinions and causes, but we are driven in whatever they may be. We don’t harbor illusions about the political system, so where it works, we use it, and where it doesn’t, we substitute our own solutions. I spoke earlier about the lack of activism regarding the Khmer Rouge regime, and their nigh-genocide of a full third of Cambodia. A parallel can be drawn to the failure of governmental action in Darfur. However, if you look at the number of high school and college organizations sending aid, and the level of awareness, there is mounting pressure on the U.N. and A.U. to start to produce a measurable level of success in the region.
We may not hold a significant amount of power yet, but in the meantime, we aren’t simply waiting our turn for the reins. In our own ways, we are already making a difference. Politics ultimately comes down to the people, and how we live together on Earth. To me, incorporating civic engagement and policy desires into a person’s everyday lifestyle is far more inspiring than any one-time demonstration. I’m glad to see that among my generation, I’m not the only person that feels such.
Popularity: 9%
Regarding action against genocide, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between generations.
We know better than anyone before that genocides happen but we don’t do much because a) we are poorly informed as to the particulars, b) there doesn’t seem to be anything dramatic we can do and c) we have no skin in the game.
Young people don’t vote? We had an election in the province of Ontario two weeks ago and only half the electorate turned out. Is it a big problem? Not to me. It wasn’t on Access Hollywood so only 50% of the population knew what was going on. So, they are the only ones who should be voting. Did more people vote in the past? If so, I find it hard to believe that it was because they knew more than we do.
Ethical buying is catching on more than I would have thought. Perhaps because there are more educated people around. It might work as long as we don’t have to pay too high a premium for it. (eg Fair Trade coffee). I suspect that if the price is right the purchase will take place regardless of the generation.
Somewhat unrelated, but I think the Josh Jennings video is hilarious.
And I do agree that Millenials are more involved politically than vote counts suggest. I know lots of young people who create companies or work within their company to improve a variety of social issues like homelessness, health issues, and disaster relief.
Plus, look at how many people join Facebook groups for political issues.
Presh:
I haven’t seen the Josh Jennings campaign commercials in forever. For a brief moment, the calculating, cynical, iron core that powers this machination of a body was warmed with delight. However, that has passed, and I’m back to my heartless ways.
In regards to Facebook, I’m still undecided on it in relation to political effect. There is obviously a greater amount of information flowing at a cheaper rate through the population due to the Facebook groups. Furthermore, some groups are able to raise large sums of money, like one that took donations for an aid organization for Honduras that I joined long ago. However, these are definitely anecdotal evidence, and not indicative of the group effect at large. An advocacy group I worked with also utilized Facebook as a piece of our GOTV operation, but upon analysis, saw that it did very little. Convincing people to IM all their friends and create a chain IM/text message on election day had a much larger result. Basically, I want more objective studies before I say anything more.
Recruiting Animal:
I agree with all three points you make regarding genocide, but disagree that this supports your conclusion. Using the examples I wrote above, the U.S. actively supported the Khmer Rouge government against the USSR, whereas you definitely don’t see that happening with Sudan. Furthermore, while there is not specialized knowledge among the populace as to what to do, I doubt that will ever be the case. I mean, IR scholars have no real idea of what to do; how can you expect Joe Anybody to know? You’ve got to find a way to solve it without breaking a nation’s sovereignty and simultaneously not give them incentives, or else you may find other nations committing the same atrocities in order to use it as leverage. In other words, it is a pickle. However, that isn’t stopping private organizations from taking donations raised by groups across the U.S. (of which the younger generation constitutes a significant bloc) and using it to provide supplies to those in danger, as well as help evacuate some.
In regards to voting, I don’t see why we can’t have a larger amount of voters and have them be more educated. The problem with the scenario you suggest is that when you continue that trend, you’ll end up with someone who is deeply engaged in politics voting, and in effect also casting a vote for those 50 people that chose not to. I doubt that one person has a better idea of what all 51 people together want from their lives than each one individually. I’d put Bill O’Reilly (or pretty much anyone from DailyKos) in the category of the engaged voter, but that doesn’t mean I believe they represent me or the electorate at large. It is very common for those in politics to become extreme, and that is who you see come primaries. These are also the majority of voters. Both extremes do not equal the moderate middle ground that comprises America. It equals the stagnation and pandering you see in D.C. today.
Also since you asked, over the past forty years turnout has dropped a little over 10%. While this may seem minor, since many competitive elections are decided within percentage points, it means a lot.
With ethical buying, of course more people will do it regardless of generation when you make it cost competitive. The important thing is that you see our generation doing it even when it doesn’t make strict economic sense. While the GDP may not include degradation of the environment in its calculations, it seems we at least are making a more holistic economic decision at the stores.
Joe, I doubt that your generation is willing to be more ethical in its purchasing than any other when there is a real financial cost in doing so. I’d like to think it true. Not because it’s your generation. But because every generation is the beneficiary of the additional knowledge gained in the last generation and taught to them. But people are driven mostly by self-interest which can only be over-ridden by very strong cultural training.
Re the US government supporting the Khmer Rouge and not Sudan. This isn’t a generational issue. It’s a matter of motives. Moreover, we’re talking about people under 30 and the government is not yet run by Gen Y. So it’s irrelevant. And it wasn’t run by young people in the mid-70s either.
Which is a significant thing. The Ryans and The Gen Y Princess talk as if they created anything good and decent in the world just yesterday. At least your essay suggests that Gen Y is simply continuing the expansion of cultural trends (for instance, buying practices) that we already in place before they grew up. Likewise, the baby boomers did not create the emblematic music of their age. They were its recipients. All of the big stars of the fifties were born in the 1930s and the titans of the sixties were born before the end of WW2.
I remember how shocked I was to see that Allen Ginsburg, the famous beatnik, was born in 1928. But that’s how it is with popular culture. The audience might be young but the movers and shakers aren’t. Again, look back at the 60s. Abbie” Hoffman was very popular. He was born in 1936 and Jerry Rubin in 1938. They weren’t Boomers. The Boomers were their fans. You know who the Boomers were? Patty Smith. The Ramones. The young adults of the 70s.
Regarding elections. I saw a discussion about Ontario’s election just the other day. One young guy, a professor, said that he’d been part of a group studying the effects of small voter turnouts. They wanted to know if elections would have gone another way if the turnout had been larger. Their hypothesis was that the lower income people and young people who are most inclined not to vote would have turned things in another direction. Their conclusion was that they were wrong. All sectors of society are well represented in the group that does vote.
I think there are some serious problems when it comes to politics for Generation Y. I just got out of college and had one hell of a time with what I consider a freedom of speech problem. College professors are so Liberal it makes me nervous. I watched a friend of mine who was soft spoken in high school go on through the last 2 years of college as an extreme feminist activist. I had a math professor preaching about how horrible President Bush is. I walked in on a class that was leaving only to hear a student ask his professor “what is the homework assignment on again?” only to be answered with, “Write about why it is wrong that we are in this war.” I immediately shot back at the professor, whom wasn’t even mine, “Don’t you mean “Do you think it is wrong that we are in the Iraq war?, why or why not”.” I ran into so much Liberal hypocrisy in my Social Welfare class it was unbelievable. One week she was saying that we need Universal Healthcare and the next was saying we have to lower taxes. I looked around to see if anyone would object but I just saw bobbing heads in response, like it all made sense. It didn’t occur to these students, nor was it brought up by the professor that if we get Universal Healthcare, our sales taxes would jump by nearly 350%, here in PA from 6% to 17 or 18%! Then we had protests last year by students sitting in the entrance to a college building that built and tested armor for soldiers and vehicles. They were protesting a war to save soldiers by protesting against the very thing that protects our soldiers! As long as rich mommy and daddy pay their tuition I guess they have nothing better to do. I guess they forgot that the only reason they are even allowed to protest against such wars is because of previous wars we have fought that gave them that freedom!
The point I am trying to make here is that colleges are pumping out students that are preached to from one side. Professors should be forced to walk a middle ground representing both sides fairly to give the students an opportunity to choose for themselves. This is in fact a situation where we send our young adults to be “free thinkers”, as of right now our country’s professors are pumping out cookie cutter reflections of their own beliefs. Is this what our parents paid for? I thought this country was founded on pioneers and free thinkers that turned the United States into something great. With the way things are going, we might as well turn to communism and dictatorship with the way these students blindly follow their teachers.
There is no unifying factor for our generation politically as of yet. While I’m comfortable saying that a large majority of us are against the war, the rest of the issues are pretty divided. It’s too early to make any judgments about how we’re going to operate but I can see some trends taking shape that are inspiring and some others that are troubling.
By and large, we grew up on mass communication and the internet. This will make for a much more conciliatory tone if and when our interests are represented in Washington. I think that we’ll have much less partisan rhetoric and a greater cooperation to work for what’s best for the country. This will be the most socially conscious generation in history once we come of age and more of us start paying attention.
However, I think that we will be misguided. Because we grew up with everything at our fingertips, Millennials will by and large support a free market system. This is where our ideology will be done in by our devotion to trade. A generation that grew up on Gap commercials and Ipods is going to blindly support free trade at every turn, which will hurt poorer people all over the world. There are some young, if naive communists out there who won’t go along with it, but the great majority of us will support completely rampant free trade, without realizing the toll that comes with it.