A new study has found that millennials are the hardest working generation
An American organisation called Monitoring the Future surveyed 50,000 school kids in the American equivalent of Year 9, Year 11 and sixth form every year since 1975.
They asked the groups how wiling they thought 18-year-olds would be to work overtime, and the results are somewhat surprising.
They found that the percentage of young people willing to work longer hours was declining until 2009-10, when it began increasing markedly.
From 2020 and 2022, though, the number of those willing to work overtime dropped from 54 percent to 36 percent.
This pattern was also seen in questions such as whether work is a central part of your life, and whether you would work even if you didn’t need the money.
“There is some truth to the idea that, when they were young at least, millennials were more work-orientated compared to those who came before and after,” Dr Jean Twenge, who analysed the data, said.
“Gen Z has benefited from strong job market and labour shortages, so they’ve been able to ask for better work/life balance,” she added.
“It has to do with the psychology of that generation as well – they’re not afraid to speak up about things that are important to them.”
Twenge continued: “There are big cultural shifts – all generations are part of that. The idea that it’s one generation’s fault doesn’t move things forward.
“That goes both ways. It’s counterproductive to blame millennials for what they’re buying or not buying, marrying later and having children later – that’s part of a bigger cultural trend. And it’s also counterproductive for millennials to say it’s boomers’ fault and that’s why everything’s terrible.
“The idea that baby boomers rigged the economy, that they’re all rich and climbed the ladder and pulled it up behind them, isn’t accurate.”
