Does Generation Y Really Exist?
4 June 2012
Read by 2290 persons
They are the subject of studies, conferences, and entire books are dedicated to them. The blogosphere is overflowing with comments about them; they make the headlines of magazines, and are invited on television. Generation Y is the label given to 20-30 year-olds who grew up with new technologies.
Y because it succeeds Generation X, the children of baby boomers; Y in reference to the earphone wires across their chests; Y pronounced in English ("why"), because it is supposedly the generation that constantly questions. There are about 13 million of them, more than 20% of the population, born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. And they are now presented as a real societal phenomenon.
Generation Y, a marketing concept or a sociological reality? Can we really categorize a generation as a whole, putting a young graduate from a prestigious school and another with low qualifications in the same box? The validity of the concept, propagated by consulting firms who believe that there is typical behavior of this generation at work, is debated.
ULTRA-CONNECTED GENERATION
Certainly, they are ultra-connected, they handle technological tools and surf social networks with disconcerting ease. This is the first generation that has skills that previous generations do not possess, including their superiors in companies.
Another characteristic unites them, less positive this time, job insecurity: 25% of young people under 25 are unemployed. They chain together temporary contracts and internships - the "Generation Precarious" movement estimates the number of interns between 1.2 and 1.5 million. They were 600,000 in 2006. The average age of the first permanent contract is around 30 years old.
Consequence: they are presented as disillusioned, not very involved at work, difficult to retain, individualistic, and resistant to authority. They would lack loyalty to their employers, would have no attachment to their company.
Another cliché is that they show little respect for hierarchy: only the real competence of their elders would count. Alexandra de Felice, a consultant at Moore Stephens, estimates that a young Y will change employers 29 times during their career!
"The reality is more trivial, the job market is so tense that I don't know anyone, even graduates from the best business schools, who could afford to say to their employer, "you bore me, I'm leaving,"" tempers Jean Pralong, professor of human resources management at Rouen Business School.
Following the departure of a young management controller he had recruited less than a year earlier, Laurent Giraud, himself on a temporary contract at the time, wanted to understand this decision. Was it because of his age? Was it because he supposedly belonged to Generation Y? Today, Laurent Giraud, 28, a graduate of two master's degrees in management, is certain. "Generational affiliation does not influence the level of employee loyalty to the company, whether you are from Generation Y, X, or baby boomers. No scientific journal worthy of the name has published an article establishing this link." This is the subject of his thesis, which he will defend in a few weeks.
IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH THE AGE EFFECT FROM THE ECONOMIC PERIOD EFFECT
In 1985, Denis Kessler, then an economist, and André Masson had already shown in their book "Life Cycle and Generations" (Presses de l'Université du Québec) that it is very difficult, even impossible, to distinguish the age effect from the economic period effect on attitudes at work.
After conducting a study on the image of work according to Generation Y, Jean Pralong came to a definitive conclusion: Generation Y does not exist. "It's a marketing concept created by consultants," explains the professor of human resources management. "If we ask the different generations about their expectations at work, how they see their career, the role of the company, or how they behave at work, we don't see any differences appearing."
With humor, in their book "Generation Y in their own words" (François Bourin Editeur), Myriam Levain and Julia Tissier, journalists, settle their accounts with these clichés. "Yes, we move from one experience to another. Yes, we do many activities. Yes, we have trouble staying in a company for more than two years. But for what reason? Simply because we don't know what tomorrow will bring. The job market has always been like an impregnable fortress," they write.
The context of the difficulty of young people accessing work partly justifies them. Gilles Babinet, a 45-year-old multi-entrepreneur, defends them: "This generation has been deprived of all capacity for autonomy. Baby boomers carried out a moral, intellectual, and economic heist. The societal model that has been imposed on Y, by its very structure, is not very attractive and if I were their age, I wouldn't behave much differently."
But this precariousness also has its advantages. It would push Generation Y to take charge by creating their own companies. "Fifteen years ago, at HEC for example, no student took the plunge; today, between 6% and 7% do so within two years. This is a significant evolution," says Gilles Babinet.
Nathalie Brafman
Lemonde.fr
Published May 24, 2012.
Posted online June 4, 2012.
Y because it succeeds Generation X, the children of baby boomers; Y in reference to the earphone wires across their chests; Y pronounced in English ("why"), because it is supposedly the generation that constantly questions. There are about 13 million of them, more than 20% of the population, born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. And they are now presented as a real societal phenomenon.
Generation Y, a marketing concept or a sociological reality? Can we really categorize a generation as a whole, putting a young graduate from a prestigious school and another with low qualifications in the same box? The validity of the concept, propagated by consulting firms who believe that there is typical behavior of this generation at work, is debated.
ULTRA-CONNECTED GENERATION
Certainly, they are ultra-connected, they handle technological tools and surf social networks with disconcerting ease. This is the first generation that has skills that previous generations do not possess, including their superiors in companies.
Another characteristic unites them, less positive this time, job insecurity: 25% of young people under 25 are unemployed. They chain together temporary contracts and internships - the "Generation Precarious" movement estimates the number of interns between 1.2 and 1.5 million. They were 600,000 in 2006. The average age of the first permanent contract is around 30 years old.
Consequence: they are presented as disillusioned, not very involved at work, difficult to retain, individualistic, and resistant to authority. They would lack loyalty to their employers, would have no attachment to their company.
Another cliché is that they show little respect for hierarchy: only the real competence of their elders would count. Alexandra de Felice, a consultant at Moore Stephens, estimates that a young Y will change employers 29 times during their career!
"The reality is more trivial, the job market is so tense that I don't know anyone, even graduates from the best business schools, who could afford to say to their employer, "you bore me, I'm leaving,"" tempers Jean Pralong, professor of human resources management at Rouen Business School.
Following the departure of a young management controller he had recruited less than a year earlier, Laurent Giraud, himself on a temporary contract at the time, wanted to understand this decision. Was it because of his age? Was it because he supposedly belonged to Generation Y? Today, Laurent Giraud, 28, a graduate of two master's degrees in management, is certain. "Generational affiliation does not influence the level of employee loyalty to the company, whether you are from Generation Y, X, or baby boomers. No scientific journal worthy of the name has published an article establishing this link." This is the subject of his thesis, which he will defend in a few weeks.
IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH THE AGE EFFECT FROM THE ECONOMIC PERIOD EFFECT
In 1985, Denis Kessler, then an economist, and André Masson had already shown in their book "Life Cycle and Generations" (Presses de l'Université du Québec) that it is very difficult, even impossible, to distinguish the age effect from the economic period effect on attitudes at work.
After conducting a study on the image of work according to Generation Y, Jean Pralong came to a definitive conclusion: Generation Y does not exist. "It's a marketing concept created by consultants," explains the professor of human resources management. "If we ask the different generations about their expectations at work, how they see their career, the role of the company, or how they behave at work, we don't see any differences appearing."
With humor, in their book "Generation Y in their own words" (François Bourin Editeur), Myriam Levain and Julia Tissier, journalists, settle their accounts with these clichés. "Yes, we move from one experience to another. Yes, we do many activities. Yes, we have trouble staying in a company for more than two years. But for what reason? Simply because we don't know what tomorrow will bring. The job market has always been like an impregnable fortress," they write.
The context of the difficulty of young people accessing work partly justifies them. Gilles Babinet, a 45-year-old multi-entrepreneur, defends them: "This generation has been deprived of all capacity for autonomy. Baby boomers carried out a moral, intellectual, and economic heist. The societal model that has been imposed on Y, by its very structure, is not very attractive and if I were their age, I wouldn't behave much differently."
But this precariousness also has its advantages. It would push Generation Y to take charge by creating their own companies. "Fifteen years ago, at HEC for example, no student took the plunge; today, between 6% and 7% do so within two years. This is a significant evolution," says Gilles Babinet.
Nathalie Brafman
Lemonde.fr
Published May 24, 2012.
Posted online June 4, 2012.
