8 things millennials want—and don’t want—show how different they are from their parents

By Zachary A. Goldfarb February 28

Goldman Sachs released a fascinating series of charts this week about Millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000. A group totaling 92 million Americans, Millennials differ from Generation Xers and Baby Boomers in many ways — including when they plan to get married, their financial situation and how they consume media. It's worth reading through the entire series of graphics — it's long — but here we select eight highlights: the things Millennials want and the things they don't want. You'll see that Millennials are a little less interested in the material things that represented the good life for many Boomers.

WANT: Cheap stuff

The Millennial generation cares more about price than quality, at least compared to prior generations. Yes, quality is still important, but given that they have lower incomes and more debt, cost is an especially big consideration for many Millennials.

DON'T WANT: A house

Yes, many Millennials will still want to own a home of their own one day. But for a majority, it's just not that important. Indeed, 30 percent of Millennials say they don't feel strongly about it, and another 30 percent say they either never plan to buy one or don't plan to do so in the near future.

WANT: To be healthy

Perhaps because they've seen how obesity has caused so many problems for Gen X and the Baby Boomers, Millennials put a premium on eating right and overall health. If Millennials age more healthfully, it would be a big boon to the country.

DON'T WANT: A television

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that only three in 20 Millennials think it's really important to own a television. Millennials have grown accustomed to consuming media on their laptop screens, tablets and smartphones. Millennials may still love cable TV and movies, but they want to watch it on the small(er) screen.

WANT: Athletic gear

Millennials tend to be cash-strapped and carrying a little bit more debt, but that doesn't mean they don't splurge anywhere. And one place they do tend to spend is on athletic apparel and footwear. It makes sense, given the emphasis that Millennials put on health and nutrition.

DON'T WANT: A car

Nearly a third of Millennials say they do not plan to buy a car, a pretty remarkable statistic when you think about it. But it makes sense. Millennials are gravitating toward cities, where they can use public transit, car-sharing services, Uber, taxis, bicycles and their feet to get around. Helps with the health kick, too.

WANT: Social media

Everybody knows that Millennials are the Facebook generation. But it's not just about staying connected with friends. Millennials look to social media to make decisions about brands they want to buy. That's a wake-up call for companies still searching for strategies to reach people between the ages of 15 and 35.

DON'T WANT: A luxury bag

Obviously.

Zachary A. Goldfarb is policy editor at The Washington Post.

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Dagan Crofter

6:00 PM EST [Edited]

Best wishes to the Millennials!

But let's do them the favor of seeing them as individuals, rather than a group of clones, goose-stepping in formation (as, perhaps, they stare at their little screens). Like any cohort, they might indeed share some characteristics, but to see them as uniform is an over-simplification at best.

Further, it might make more sense to see them as currently making a passage through a particular phase of life--wherein idealism is strong, income is typically low, conformity is more important, and fitness (and the resulting attractiveness) is a higher priority. People change throughout life. Maybe some of the same hallmarks would've shown up for the other generational cohorts around the same time in life.

Is any of it better, or is any of it worse than what came before? No; they're just humans at a stage of life. They might imagine they're somewhat special and bright. Every generation probably thinks that during their youth. And older folks often feel a wave of envy and regret when they gaze at that same youth. That's typical too.

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reformed_druid

5:10 PM EST

Both my kids fall into this age range and the article doesn't ring true for a lot of what they claim. TV's are big, the bigger the better, but they use them differently, they play games on them and stream stuff through them from the web. No main stream TV at all. Also, they are really trying to eat healthier, but also eat out more than previous generations have. They do less cooking at home. They are weirdly attached to their shoe collections, even the guys and are much more likely to buy things that are directly marketed to them. Trendy is everything in the way of clothes, that's why they need cheaper stuff. They aren't going to be wearing it long enough to worry about quality, except for some classic pieces like jackets that never really go out of style. Pea coats, military jackets and jean jackets, stuff like that. They aren't big on jewelry, they are very aware of the cars they drive and do prefer to use public transportation when and where available. Personal experience, they really hate yard work.

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Tinian

4:55 PM EST [Edited]

The response options in the survey are biased and appear to have been chosen to support the conclusion.

The questions also mislead. Instead of "how important is it for you to own the following..." how about "in your primary residence, do you or another household member have a..."

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FutureView

1:58 PM EST

The media revolution is the biggest influence. As a boomer, I grew up with neighborhood buddies that became lifelong friends. My kids have grown up with a 1,000 Facebook "friends" that they have never met. Their values are largely formulated by anonymous bloggers and media consultants as they they spend less time on human contact and more time looking at screens.

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Weiwen Ng

12:46 PM EST

Oy veh. So many problems. There's the ecological fallacy: Millennials are not homogeneous. And neither were the previous generations. There's so much variability between people. You can't just rely on averages.

But more specifically, some of the charts don't compare Millennials to, say, Gen X or the Boomers (how important it is for you to own a car, TV habits). Beyond that, the charts don't compare Millennials to people of prior generations who were in the Millennials' age range. That's especially the case for the first chart. I bet Boomers, when they were young, were also cheap. (Also the chart does not show margin of error related to the sample size, so arguably, it does not even show that Millennials are cheaper than non-Millennials.)

Worst: the chart on fitness claims to show that Millennials are more fitness focused than the previous generations. But it is showing TOTAL sales growth for the apparel industry as a whole, and then the athletic clothes industry, and the data do NOT show who actually buys that stuff.

Bottom line, there is probably an average difference between the generations. But a lot of people in different generations are going to be more similar to one another. And these charts are ... flawed.

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Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Millenials Don't Want What Their Parents Wanted- At Least, Not Always- Washington Post

8 things millennials want—and don’t want—show how different they are from their parents

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