The Millennials

Thom S. Rainer, Jess Rainer

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781433673252
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

At more than78 million strong, the Millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000—have surpassed the Boomers as the larger and more influential generation in America. Now, as its members begin to reach adulthood, where the traits of a generation really take shape, best-selling research author Thom Rainer (Simple Church) and his son Jess (a Millennial born in 1985) present the first major investigative work on Millennials from a Christian worldview perspective.

Sure to interest even the secularists who study this group, The Millennials is based on 1200 interviews with its namesakes that aim to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually. Chapters report intriguing how-and-why findings on family matters (they are closer-knit than previous generations), their desire for diversity (consider the wave of mixed race and ethnic adoptions), Millennials and the new workplace, their attitude toward money, the media, the environment, and perhaps most tellingly, religion.

The authors close with a thoughtful response to how the church can engage and minister to what is now in fact the largest generation in America's history.

Chapter 1

Meet the Millennials

Don't stereotype me or my generation."

Her name is Emily. Our team was supposed to be interviewing her, but she had a knack for making us the respondents. This time she was suggesting how we approach our research project. Perhaps "suggesting" is not the best way to say it. She was telling us what to do.

But Emily was right. You cannot really stereotype her or anyone in her generation. In many ways this generation is the most diverse generation in America's history. More on that later.

So why spend thousands of hours researching and writing about a generation that, in some ways, defies description? In the case of Emily's generation, we readily admit that any attempt to describe their behavioral and cognitive patterns will never satisfactorily represent any one segment of the larger group. But we do believe it is helpful to understand this generation with all of its diversity and to touch on some common themes that have touched a large number of its group.

By the way, we are talking about the Millennial Generation, a group of young people whose birth years range from 1980 to 2000. This generation edged out the Boomers (aka the Baby Boomers born 1946 to 1964) to become the largest generation in America's history.

We'll talk more about the demographics of this generation later in this chapter. For now we see the sheer size of this generation, and it takes our breath away. Nearly seventy-eight million live births took place between 1980 and 2000. The Millennials are already impacting businesses, the workplace, schools, churches, and many more organizations. Frankly, if we don't learn more about this generation, we are doing them and ourselves a disservice. They are just too big to ignore.

For those of us who've been around awhile, we are familiar with all the fuss about the Boomers. That generation garnered incredible attention because of its sheer size. Companies wanted their business. Politicians wanted their votes. Schools wanted their enrollment. Churches wanted their attendance. And charities wanted their contributions.

Now a new generation has emerged, and they are slightly larger than the Boomers. We saw the impact these young people could have in the 2008 presidential election. The eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old Millennials voted for Barack Obama by an overwhelming sixty-six to thirty-two margin. This generation spoke, and they got their president.

And the impact they are making is just beginning.

Emily is right. She was born in 1987, and she is part of a diverse generation. Still, that diversity does not mean we can't learn key facets about her age cohorts. Some things are already changing with the Millennials.

For example, the Millennials are on track to become America's most educated generation. In 2007, the first year the twenty-five- to twenty-nine-year-old age group was entirely comprised of Millennials, 30 percent had attained a college degree. That is the highest rate ever recorded for that age group.

As another example, Millennials are marrying much later, if at all. In 1970 about 44 percent of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-old Boomers were married. Today only 15 percent of Millennials in that age group are married. And the average age of first marriages has gone up from 20.8 for women in 1970 to 25.5 today. For men the average age of first marriages has increased from 23.2 to 27.5 over that same period.

One more significant change is worth noting from the Boomer generation to the Millennials. About 65 percent of young adults cohabit at least once prior to marriage, compared to just 10 percent in the 1960s.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. We have much to unpack about the Millennial Generation in the chapters to come. For now let's take a look at our study and how we got the information for this book.

The Millennial Study

Our study was a researcher's dream in many ways. We had the incredible opportunity to hear from twelve hundred Millennials across the country. Our representative sample included American adults born between 1980 and 1991. So to be clear, our study is on the older Millennials. We did not include those born between 1992 and 2000.

How accurate is our study? At a 95 percent confidence level and a 50 percent response distribution, the potential sampling error on this national study is +/- 2.8 percentage points. Okay, we admit it. The previous statement is not very exciting unless you are a statistical nerd. Simply stated, this research is pretty accurate. You can trust the statistical validity of our work.

We tried hard to keep this study bias free at the design stage of the research instrument, to the actual survey process, and to the interpretation of the data and writing of this book. Still we realize that biases may have crept in at some points, so we want you to know just a bit about our backgrounds.

We are both evangelical Christians. Though we are unapologetic about our faith, we have tried to be objective as we asked and interpreted the questions. We realized early in this process that our beliefs represented a minority of the Millennials, and we wanted to be fair in our assessments and conclusions.

Millennials represent a more diverse group than do any previous American generations. Respondents in this study were a demographically representative sample of U.S. Millennials in all of their diversity. Whites are still a majority at 61 percent, but that number is lower than previous generations. African-Americans accounted for 14 percent of our sample, Hispanics, 19 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and mixed, 1 percent.

Gender representation was very balanced. Males accounted for 51 percent of the respondents, and females accounted for 49 percent. The percentage of respondents from each birth year, 1980 to 1991, ranged from 8 percent to 10 percent, with the exception of the birth years 1990 and 1991, where the percentage was 7 percent and 4 percent respectively. Again our point is to demonstrate the balance and valid representation of the sample.

Matters such as education, income, and geographical distribution reflect similar distribution of the entire generation. We could belabor all these points and bore you to death. We do want you to have confidence in our study.

Respondents were asked a series of questions with most of them requiring an objective response. Some of the questions, however, were open-ended, and the Millennial was able to go any direction he or she desired. That part of the study, though difficult to capture in percentages and trends, included some of the most fascinating and fun work of this project. You will hear many of the comments of the Millennials throughout this book. Most of them were not shy!

Our research team began the process by deciding what we wanted to hear from the Millennials. Some of the questions represent the perspectives of the old man (Thom), while others reflect the younger view of the Millennial coauthor (Jess). Others had input as well.

Some of the categories where we asked questions include:

• What's really important in your life? What truly matters?

• What is your attitude about the environment? Are you really as green as the anecdotal information suggests?

• What are your attitudes about money and other financial matters? Do you have plans for you own finances?

• What types of work environment do you like or not like? How do you choose a job?

• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? How will you impact the future world in which you will live?

• To whom do you turn for guidance? Are you more likely to be a loner or to seek help?

• What are your views on leadership? How do you view leaders today?

• What are your attitudes about marriage? How important is family to you?

• How important are other relationships such as friends and coworkers?

• What technology tools do you like and use? How involved are you in social media?

• What are your spiritual views? How often are you involved in spiritual activities?

The journey to learn more about this generation was fascinating. At many points in the study, we were greatly encouraged. The Millennials are a generation that has hope for the future. Indeed, they are a generation that, as a whole, wants to make a positive difference for the future. Nearly nine out of ten respondents indicated that they feel responsible to make a difference in this world.

They are the Millennial Generation, the largest generation in America's history. Before we delve more fully into the facts, hopes, dreams, and attitudes of this generation, let's take a brief excursion into the previous generations. The Millennials are, as the name states, the generation to take us into a new century and a new millennium. The previous century, however, was populated largely by four other generations: the G.I. Generation; the Silent Generation; the Boomers; and Generation X.

The Generations Before

Emily shared with us some of her dreams and aspirations. "I really plan to make some contribution to this world in my lifetime. I don't care if I rise to the top of an organization or become a political power broker," she said. "I just want to make a contribution."

This attitude is pervasive among the Millennials. The young men and women we surveyed are, as a rule, not focusing as much on self as they are on how they can make a difference. This one insight has enormous implications. They are the largest generation in America's history, and they want to make a contribution. Compare this attitude with that of the Boomers, a huge generation only slightly smaller than the Millennials. The Boomers have been largely self-absorbed and narcissistic. Imagine the change our nation could experience if the dominant attitude in America shifts from entitled to giving.

But let's back up even farther than the Boomer Generation and get a glimpse of all the generations that shaped our nation. First, look at the relative population size of each of the generations:

G.I. Generation (1904–1924)	59.6 million (live births)
Silent Generation (1925–1945)	55.4 million
Boomer Generation (1946–1964)	75.9 million
Gen X (1965–1979)	51.5 million
Millennial Generation (1980–2000)	77.9 million

As we will note later, generations can be defined in a number of ways. Although we don't reject other definitions, our primary determination of a generation was demographic. We simply looked at the pattern of live births, with no one generation exceeding twenty-one years in length.

Let's take the much-discussed Boomer Generation as an example. The number of live births spiked significantly from 1945 to 1946 reaching over three million (3.4 million) for the first time in our nation's history. Thus the "boom" began in 1946. Live births peaked above four million from 1954 to 1964, but then dropped dramatically in 1965 to 3.7 million. Thus the boom ended and a new generation, Gen X, began.

With that definition in mind, let's look at the five generations of the twentieth century. Of course, we recognize that the Millennials take us into the twenty-first century and into a new millennium.

G.I. Generation. The fairly stable population of this generation was most affected by two events: the Great Depression and World War II. The latter event gave the generation their name.

The members of this generation are some of the most powerful people our nation has known. They are the first full generation to enjoy the benefits of Social Security, yet their affluence was set even without Social Security.

This generation includes nearly sixty million men and women, though the majority of them are no longer living. For most of their lives, the G.I. Generation benefited from an expanding economy, rising real estate values, and generous government programs. Interestingly, their wealth has not depended on lengthy education. A high school education was sufficient to find a good-paying, secure job with good benefits in their early years. Because they typically had a lower level of education than successor generations, their perspectives on life tended to be shaped differently from the younger population.

Silent Generation. The generation born from 1925 to 1945 got a bad deal with its name. They were called the Silent Generati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other Books by Thom S. Rainer
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Postscript