And yet, it was only ten years ago that Time magazine put millennials on its front page under the headline “The Me, Me, Me Generation.” “Millennials are lazy, spoiled narcissists who still live with their parents,” read the front-page headline, about a generation that largely spent its childhood in an environment of prosperity and stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Stuck” with fame and lazy, they prefer to be the personal assistant of a celebrity than the CEO of a big company and avoid jobs with big responsibilities. Instead, they are interested in “selling” themselves for followers and likes on social media, Time wrote at the time. “People inflate themselves like balloons on Facebook,” argued W. Keith Campbell, a University of Georgia psychology professor known for his research on narcissism.<\/p>\n\n\n
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But the millennial bubble burst with a bang. This generation will go down in history as the first to live no better than their parents. In the US, The Emerging Wealth Gap survey, published in 2019, shows that those born between 1981 and 1996 earn 20% less than baby boomers did when they were their age. But also in relation to the immediately preceding generation, the comparisons are equally disheartening: American millennials appear 18% poorer than Generation X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the general rule established by the American National Bureau of Economic Research, a professional achieves 70% of the increase in his earnings within the first decade of his career. If this period is marked by a downturn in the economy, then his earnings are reduced by 9% in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today’s 40-year-olds cannot quantify it, but they know that the financial crisis has set them back. “If I had spent the same amount of time working in any other country, I would be at a significantly better level,” believe most who will turn 40 in a few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Living with parents is an obstacle to adulthood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, their financial situation cannot help but play an important role in the decision of many millennials to delay starting their own family. It doesn’t help, of course, that many of them during the previous years focused all their attention on their professional careers, where they had many difficulties to overcome, leaving their personal lives in the background. And certainly, the fact that at least some of them still live with their parents, does not facilitate their substantial – beyond numerical – adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, their financial situation cannot help but play an important role in the decision of many millennials to delay starting their own family. It doesn’t help, of course, that many of them during the previous years focused all their attention on their professional careers, where they had many difficulties to overcome, leaving their personal lives in the background. And certainly, the fact that at least some of them still live with their parents, does not facilitate their substantial – beyond numerical – adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even after the recent property rally, which sent rents skyrocketing and made buying a home an elusive dream for most young people, today’s 40-somethings are less likely to own their own home than previous generations when they were in the same age group. age. This is also the main reason why the arrival of the fourth age of their life finds one in six under the same roof as their parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all these reasons, and many more, for this generation, middle age is nothing like what, say, the baby boomers experienced. They, in their 40s, had already come full circle in career and family and were ready for their personal revolution: Divorce or affair with a younger woman, sports car, tattoos, hair transplants, all the “clich\u00e9s” of the midlife crisis were drawn from life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all, the midlife crisis has been scientifically recognized since 1965, when the then 48-year-old psychologist Elliott Jaques published his study “Death and the Midlife Crisis”. This research showed that creative people, such as composers and artists, showed a sharp decline or even visible changes from the age of 35 onwards. At this point in his life, according to Jaques, man begins to look at the passing time no longer optimistically, but pessimistically: Instead of counting the years since his birth, he now counts the years until his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But today’s 40-somethings don’t have the luxury of a midlife crisis. Certainly not in the traditional sense. Many have never even married and if they have, they probably still have the excitement \u2013 and obligations \u2013 of a new family and very young children, so divorce is not an option for them. They won’t buy a sports car \u2013 more likely they’ll become obsessed with a healthy lifestyle and get a bike. As for tattoos, they don’t wait for the mid-life crisis to “hit” them.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is 40 the ‘new 30’?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So it is clear that today’s 40-year-olds are breaking the rules and norms of age. After all, is 40 the “new 30”? Today it is common to be single and not have had children at this age. Artificial insemination methods also help with this. Now it is common to see gray haired men pushing baby carriages. As we later do things we would have done at younger ages, we can say that 40 is the new 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today’s 40-somethings are a narcissistic generation. They are used to having what they want, they do not tolerate being oppressed, they prioritize their hobbies, themselves and their appearance. They are not committed to projects, whether they are professional or personal, and this delays their maturation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As employees, millennials place more importance on financial rewards and work-life balance than other generations. And this is because they feel squeezed between their work and obligations \u2013 professional or family \u2013 on the one hand, and their desire to travel and enjoy life experiences, on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fast pace of life, the endless stimuli and the need to respond to them fill today’s 40-year-olds with anxiety. We live in an era of technological developments at a geometric rate. As much as the goal of these developments is to improve and facilitate our lives, it is not that simple, because on the other hand, other problems are created. Globally, there is a significant increase in rates of stress, addictions, anxiety and depression. One reason we have more stress is that individuals cannot mentally adapt to such large and rapid changes brought about by technology. Today, we may be much more connected, through high-speed internet and mobile phones, but at the same time, studies show that people’s loneliness, isolation and alienation have increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, today’s 40-year-olds are not immune to the crisis. But it is not a mid-life crisis, but an existential crisis. As they no longer have such clear commitments and don’t fit into molds, they question their place in life. Greater freedom and the shift to individualism give rise to questions such as \u201cAm I doing well in my life? am i doing well Where am I going;””. The narcissism of the 40s also has a dark side, as it is accompanied by a depression. They are faced with a lack of meaning and loneliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stress of survival as a result of successive crises and responding to modern needs affects the psychosomatic state of 40-year-olds. Many today feel that they are not happy with the life they lead, which is full of obligations with little time for recreational activities. And when they exist, they don’t fill them as much as they should because they know they are short breaks. Combined these are not easy to metabolise mentally. So people are emotionally strained, find it difficult to understand and express what is happening to them (after all, they have not learned that it is good to express themselves) and gradually enter a crisis of meaning. Apparently, the generation of 40-year-olds will not avoid another crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This generation will go down in history as the first to live no better than their parents. They are, in fact, the third generation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4493],"tags":[3528,4874,1062],"class_list":["post-16088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-special-reports","tag-economic-crisis","tag-millenials","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16092,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16088\/revisions\/16092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/image-10.png\")
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