Getting to the bottom of the Millennial issue…
The solution to the Millennial enigma may well lie in work published several decades before they were born. In 1928, in his book The Problem of Generations, Hungarian sociologist Karl Mannheim reviewed a number of existing and contradictory theories on generations, and put forth a new theory, which may help in understanding the apparent gap between the Millennial stereotype and the millions of individuals to whom it is meant to refer.
According to Mannheim, there is first a “generation location” that groups together individuals by “similarity of location,” belonging to a same age group and having experienced the same historical events, without necessarily having perceived or experienced them in the same way. For Mannheim, however, “a generation in the sense of a location phenomenon falls short of encompassing the generation phenomenon in its full actuality” and is made up of actual generations marked by “participation in the common destiny of this historical and social unit.” These actual generations involve the creation of ties between their members though “experiential, intellectual, and emotional data.” More specifically, the generation as an actuality is made up of generation units whose members understand and react to experiences in the same way. “Youth experiencing the same concrete historical problems may be said to be part of the same actual generation; while those groups within the same actual generation which work up the material of their common experiences in different specific ways, constitute separate generation units,” Mannheim explains.
Coming back to this frame of reference sheds new light on the issue of defining the concept of Millennials. Does the way that Millennials are described — urban, connected, mobile — not make them a “generation as an actuality”? If youth “is just a word,” then the Millennial offered as a representation of all 18- to 35-year-olds in the world is hardly more than an urban legend. The characteristics readily associated with Millennials could, in truth, be those of a highly educated “generation in actuality,” with a high standard of living, on which media attention is focused to the detriment of a silent majority whose living conditions and lifestyles strongly resemble those of their elders.
What better way to rid oneself of the image of the spoiled, ultra-connected Millennial than to remember the following statistics: 13.5 million young Americans currently live in poverty (compared to 8.4 million in 1980), under the yoke of student debt now totaling $1.3 trillion, while the European Union estimates that 29% of its citizens aged 15 to 29 face the risk of sinking into poverty or exclusion.
How was the Millennial stereotype able to flourish? Without getting into the massive economic stakes tied to the creation of this concept, an urban legend is a metaphor for society’s hopes and fears at a given time. The study of Millennials and their supposed habits therefore reveals more about our societies as a whole and our reactions to the transformations they are undergoing, than about our young people themselves.
In fact, regardless of the urban habit or evolution at hand, the generational framework systematically proves less pertinent than other prisms, such as income level or education. Not to mention one major oversight: affiliation to a generation denotes above all belonging to a certain age group. Are the character traits attributed to Millennials not, above all, those of youth? Is it possible that the age effect is being incorrectly interpreted as a generation effect? It is this confusion that Dowell Myers is pointing to when he states: “It may be that planners and policymakers are not interested in Millennials, per se, but rather are really just interested in young adults ages 25–34.”
An attraction to city life, a dependence on new technologies requiring connectivity, an interest in less car-centric mobility, difficulty accessing housing… all these phenomena are closely related to the economic circumstances and technological and societal changes of our era; they represent aspirations held and obstacles encountered by the young and not-so-young alike. It is therefore up to us to relegate the term “Millennial” to the marketing lexicon, where it has been so brilliantly used, and to permanently distance it from all attempts to analyze urban habits. It is time to rebuild the conditions for rigorous analysis of the relationship between young people and the city, an essential step if we really are to foster the emergence of inclusive and sustainable metropolises.
This article is part of our installment “Factcheck: Millennials, an Urban Legend?”, in which La Fabrique de la Cité deconstructs the Millennial stereotype and analyzes this generation’s rapport to the city. Read the integral version of this Factcheck on our website.
