Armour, Stephanie. 2005. “USATODAY.Com – Generation Y: They’ve Arrived at Work with a New Attitude.” USA Today, November 6. Retrieved May 15, 2018 (https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm).
Millennials appreciate feeling valued and connected to their work and are more productive when personal relationships are fostered in the workplace. Millennials work to live, rather than live to work like previous generations; happiness is a paramount and sought-after value.
Cairns, James Irvine. 2017. The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity and Hope. North York, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.
James Cairns defines the popular culture grand theory of millennial entitlement as the myth that “young people today, more than at any point in history, take for granted the bounty they’ve inherited and expect to have praise and a good life handed to them without anything in return” (Cairns 2017:2). The myth of entitlement is grounded in economic terms. Cairns uses historical context to reject one core assumption, that Millennials are uniquely and historically entitled. He rejects the second assumption, that young people “have never had it so good” using political and economic data to compare the past and present (Cairns 2017, 2). To combat the third assumption, that Millennial narcissism is a threat to democracy and society as a whole, Cairns illustrate that notions of entitlement fuel democratic progress: to do so, he integrates contemporary individual narratives with historic examples of politics of entitlement being used for collective action towards social justice.
Center for Women and Business Bentley University. 2017. Multi-Generational Impacts on the Workplace. Waltham, MA.
the primary challenges reported by Millennial parents who are managers in the work place, “Finding time for me” (76 percent), “Getting enough sleep” (67 percent) and “Managing personal and professional life” (67 percent) are logically connected to the kinds of changes Millennials want for their work lives (Center for Women and Business, Bentley University 2017). Millennials prioritize time allocation, relationships and job security, all of which can be understood as values flowing from what they saw their parents lack
Feldmann, Derrick. 2014. Inspiring the Next Generation Workforce. Washington, DC: The Case Foundation. Retrieved (file:///Users/KendallSchutzer/Desktop/MillennialImpactReport-2014.pdf).
The Case Foundation 2014 Millennial Impact Report surveyed 1,514 Millennials representing 300 companies and closely tracked ten Millennial employees. It found that 92% of Millennials surveyed believed they were actively contributing to a company having a positive effect on the world. The study has a 99% confidence interval with a 3.3% error rate. Cause work, defined as “the programs and initiatives companies execute that help people and communities,” serves as a motivating factor for Millennials seeking and accepting a job as well as their tenure at a company.
Gallup. 2016. How Millennials Want to Work and Live. Wash.
Millennials are interested pursuing purpose and development through their work.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2009. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
While Crenshaw’s (1999) concept of intersectionality “refers to particular forms of intersecting oppressions…the matrix of domination refers to how these intersecting oppressions are actually organized” (18). The matrix of domination describes “structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power” that serve to oppress according to race, gender, ability and other aspects of identity (18).
Lewis-Kulin, Sarah and Kim Peters. 2017. “This Is the Secret to Holding Onto Millennial Employees.” Fortune. Retrieved April 2, 2018 (http://fortune.com/2017/06/27/best-companies-millennials/).
Millennials are interested in finding “special meaning” in their work.
Lopez, Mark Hugo et al. 2006. The 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation: A Detailed Look at How Youth Participate in Politics and Communities. College Park, MD: Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
Millennials are idealistic and committed to creating a better world.
Luttrell, Regina and Karen McGrath. 2015. The Millennial Mindset: Unraveling Fact from Fiction. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Luttrell and McGrath find that Millennials are “blunt, techno-savvy individuals who believe that education is a key to success, technology is an engrained party of life and diversity and social responsibility are paramount” (29). They also find that Millennials “expect to contribute positively and take part in meaningful projects immediately” (29).
Marx, Karl and Martin Milligan. 1988. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst,N.Y: Prometheus Books.
Karl Marx’s theory of alienation: He argues freely deciding to work and the nature of that work is required for person’s body to belong to themself. Under other conditions, humans are alienated from their body and spirit. Marx’s theories are relevant both because respondents explicitly reference his ideas and implicitly mimic the challenges described in his theory of alienation.
O’Brien, John. 2017. Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
John O’Brien’s 2017 ethnography Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys follows a group of Muslim boys in an American city from their early teenage years into emerging adulthood. He frames the lives of these young people as the navigation of the tension between two cultural rubrics, that of being an American adolescent and that of being Muslim. He describes the Legendz, the boys he studies, as leading “culturally contested lives” (6). He separates agency, “individual effort” from autonomy, “freedom from social influence”. He also examines reflexivity, “a ‘stepping back’ that allowed one to consider one’s tradition and culture” (72).
Ocejo, Richard E. 2017. Masters of Craft Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Masters of Craft explores how and why middle-class kids opt into working class jobs without experiencing downward social mobility. Workers found work as bartenders, distillers, barbers and butchers in successful pursuit of finding meaning, fulfillment and purpose in their work. These workers enjoyed the close and personal connection to their products as well as their customers.
Shames, Shauna L. 2017. Out of the Running: Why Millennials Reject Political Careers and Why It Matters. New York: New York University Press.
Shames positions Millennials as rational thinkers. She argues that Millennials engage in a rational cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether or not to run for office (Shames 2017). This rational-thinking cost-benefit analysis framework can be extended to career interests beyond public office.
Zemke, Ron, Claire Raines, and Bob Filipczak. 2013. Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers in the Workplace. 2nd ed. New York: American Management Association.
Millennials are far more likely than older workers to switch careers or change employers regularly