A New Political Generation: Millennials and the Post-2008 Wave of Protest

Abstract

Building on Karl Mannheim's theory of generations, this address argues that U.S. Millennials comprise a new political generation with lived experiences and worldviews that set them apart from their elders. Not only are they the first generation of "digital natives," but, although they are more educated than any previous U.S. generation, they face a labor market in which precarity is increasingly the norm. And despite proclamations to the contrary, they confront persistent racial and gender disparities, discrimination against sexual minorities, and widening class inequality-all of which they understand in the framework of "intersectionality." This address analyzes the four largest social movements spearheaded by college-educated Millennials: the young undocumented immigrant "Dreamers," the 2011 Occupy Wall Street uprising, the campus movement protesting sexual assault, and the Black Lives Matter movement. All four reflect the distinctive historical experience of the Millennial generation, but they vary along two cross-cutting dimensions: (1) the social characteristics of activists and leaders, and (2) the dominant modes of organization and strategic repertoires.

This Job is Beneath Me: Subjective Underemployment, Person-Job Fit, and the Role of Proactive Behaviours

“…Prolonged bouts of underemployment among recent university graduates may be particularly devastating, as bachelor degree acquisition has long been touted as a ticket to stable and adequate employment (Vuolo, Mortimner & Staff, 2016). Indeed, Kalleberg (2011) notes that the millennial generation is more educated than their parents, but are frustrated by bleak job prospects in an "increasingly polarized labor market" (Kalleberg, 2011, p.3;Milkman, 2016).…”

Youth and generations in times of crisis: Portugal in the global situation

“…as well as trying to configure alternatives to the social system that is drawn (Caren, Ghoshal, and Ribas 2011;Williamson 2014;Milkman 2017). They are highlighted, over all, for being movements of collective action to the global scale, formed in globalized conditions of connection, provided either by the integration of new technologies of information and communication in daily life, or by the relative widening of the opportunities of geographic international mobility.…”

“…See, for instance, Gouglas (2013);Williamson (2014);Milkman (2017);Bessant, Farthing, and Watts (2017).5 It suffices searching, in any search engine, for the terms "Brexit and generation" to find thousands of news and articles published in the media such as bbc, The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, etc., that between 2016 and 2017 tried to show and interpret the Generation Gap present in the Brexit.…”

The multidimensional politics of inequality: taking stock of identity politics in the U.S. Presidential election of 2016

“…The historical scholarship around politics and inequalities, then, like the complex inequality studies of contemporary social relations, would surely suggest that we should not expect all women to support a single partisan agenda or candidate. 11 To be sure, Clinton made gestures to diverse constituencies that were more inclined to a liberal Democratic message, even interjecting the term intersectionality into her campaigning in order to appeal to youth and minorities on the left who are comfortable with and embrace the term (e.g., Foran 2016;Milkman 2017). But the dominant message remained that women as a whole should naturally relate to the Democratic nominee and thus support her bid for the presidency.…”