Are today's Millennials splintering into a new generational cohort? Maybe!

Abstract

A new generational cohort is emerging from the Millennial market segment as a result of cataclysmic events that have occurred since 2008. Interviews with college upperclassmen in the United States identified significant events influencing their values, the values arising from these events, and new values not associated with older Millennials. The most important events identified included the Great Recession, 9/11, and the election of the first African-American president. Values of Millennials were assessed in online surveys of college juniors and seniors in the United States in the fall of 2009 and 2010 and among older Millennials, aged 27-31, during the summer of 2010. The values most strongly differentiating the younger and older Millennials were "piety" and "thrift." Younger Millennials in the United States are less thrifty and more secular and sexually permissive than older Millennials. They are also less patriotic and less concerned about politics, sustainability, saving, and making mistakes in life. This suggests a splintering of the Millennials cohort as a result of the Great Recession and the potential emergence of a younger "entitlement" cohort. It also suggests further investigation of cross-national value shifts among younger Millennials, prompted by the Great Recession.

Understanding the green buying behavior of younger Millennials from India and the United States: A structural equation modeling approach

“…The results of a more recent survey show that compared to older adults, only 32% of Millennials described themselves as environmentalists (Pew Research Center 2014a). Younger Millennials (college juniors and seniors) were found to be less engaged in sustainability behaviors than older Millennials (27-31 years) (Debevec et al 2013). These conflicting findings indicate that a clearer understanding of the factors that motivate Millennials to exhibit proenvironmental purchasing behavior is needed.…”

Narcissism normalisation: tourism influences and sustainability implications

“…Meanwhile studies concerning generation Y have highlighted their strong sense of being unique and special (Howe & Strauss, 2009). The term "entitlement generation" has been coined by Debevec, Schewe, Madden, and Diamond (2013) when researching young millennials' consumption practices which demonstrate a high sense of self and expectation. Increasing narcissistic traits are said to be particularly prevalent amongst the young, who tend to score more highly on the NPI for example (Bergman, Fearrington, Davenport, & Bergman, 2011;Rosen et al, 2013).…”

Sustainability and Mountain Tourism: The Millennial’s Perspective

“…Others explore attitudes towards diet, i.e., Millennial interactions with dietary supplements, functional food and the beverage marketplace [47], and their attitude to sustainable wine [48]. Social aspects were also investigated, i.e., interaction amongst multiple generations of workers [49][50][51], behavioural assessment of various types of Millennials on the basis of the Great Recession, 9/11 and the election of the first African American US president [52], and Millennial behaviour regarding the decision to turn nursing activities into a working career [53]. Millennial perceptions of sustainability and the material effects of information technologies [54] were also verified with the ICT, i.e., assessment of the triple bottom line at computer games [55,56].…”