The huge Generation Y, born 1985 to 2004, is now making its mark in college enrollment as the share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a surge in enrollments at community colleges, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Generation Y would make its presence know in this arena because one of the early peaks in the Generation Y birth data came in 1990 with well over four million live births. These kids are now nineteen years old and ripe for college. Age Curve Consulting has bee watching the consumption of this “bigger than the Baby Boomer “generation very closely and Generation Y has not disappointed us. According to Pew Research Center almost 11.5 million students or about 40% of all Generation Y young adults ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in college as of October 2008 (Newest data available). Both the total number and the percentage are the highest ever. The spike in junior college would follow as the four year schools have their pick of the best and brightest and the two year schools take the overflow. In 2007 there were 3.1 million young adults in community colleges but by 2008 that number had swelled by 300,000 students or 11.8% of all the 18 to 24 year olds. Enrollment in the four year schools remained flat during this same period.

So what is the employment picture for these 18- to 24- years- olds? It’s bleak. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 46.1% of them were employed as of September 2009, the lowest number ever since this data has been gathered starting in 1946.

The trend to two year community colleges has its financial advantages. Compared to four year public colleges the cost is on average a third less and compared to four year private schools the cost is about two thirds less (College Board, 2009). Is the trend to the cheaper college a product, at least in part, of the recession? Yes, without a doubt.

Is there a silver lining to this grey cloud of high unemployment and difficult economy for the large beleaguered Generation Y? Yes, for one they are graduating high school and attending college in record numbers. Education is a good thing. So if they can’t find work let them stay in school. The economy will rebound especially as China begins to falter because of its ill-fated one child only policy and manufacturing begins to find its way back to the States as China runs out of labor. The United States will have the biggest, best and most educated labor force in its history, another good thing. There’s more. Back in the early 1980’s when the 1957 peak of the Baby Boomers found the employment and economic climate to be very unfriendly what did they do? They opened their own businesses by the millions, so they could eat. Necessity is the mother of invention. We can’t wait to see what Generation Y will invent as they face the same challenges.    

Recently my wife, two daughters and I were invited to a home coming party for a middle-aged Latino friend, Angel, who had been away in the Philippines for several months on special military assignment for the United States Air force. The house was packed and we were definitely the non-Latino minority because every grandmother, grandfather, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, in-law, cousin, niece, nephew and friend was in attendance to welcome Angel home. It was an interesting mix. My demographic instincts took over. 

The older first generation folks who were born in Puerto Rico spoke English but with a definite Spanish accent. When they spoke among themselves they seemed to favor speaking Spanish. The second generation, Angel’s counterparts, spoke perfect English with a slight hint of a Spanish accent. The remaining third and forth generation young adults, teens and young children chattered away in English and so I’m told know little or no Spanish. There was of course a young anomaly or two who was a recent arrival who spoke Spanish. I was impressed with how quickly these Latino immigrants assimilate.  My German ancestors who came to the States in 1840 took one hundred years to break away from the old culture, but these Latinos seem to have done it in a single twenty year generation. Amazing.  

Demography aside, the food was wonderful, indigenous dishes I can’t pronounce but could certainly eat. Desert was cake and ice cream so Angel summoned the entire group into the dinning room for the ceremonious cutting of a huge sheet cake. Then a wonderful thing happened that I would never have expected. The entire family spontaneously sang (belted out) the Star Spangled Banner. 

Pew Research just completed an interesting study called:

Latino Children: A Majority are U.S.- Born Offspring of Immigrants. By Richard Fry and Jeffrey S. Passel 

Here are a few of the interesting findings that shed light on this dynamic group. Latinos now make up 22% of all kids under the age of eighteen in the United States, up from 9% in 1980. A whopping 52% of the Nation’s 16 million Latino kids are considered second generation, meaning that they are the native born offspring of at least one foreign born parent. The Latino immigration from Mexico, Central and South America began in earnest around 1980 and has only recently tapered off.

About 11% of Latino kids are themselves first generation meaning that they were born outside of the United States and about 37% are third generation meaning that they are U.S. born of U.S. born parents.    

Projections by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that by 2025 nearly three in ten children in the United States will be of Latino ancestry. While on the surface this number might alarm some people it actually is very healthy from a demographic stand point. As immigrants go Latinos bring a lot to the table. They assimilate very quickly, are hard working, have strong family ties and are culturally very compatible with main stream America. It would be difficult to design a better immigrant. 

In 2007 there were 4,317,000 babies born in the United States, a record year. Twenty-five percent of those babies were Latino, precipitated by four-teen percent of the U.S. overall population. The United States is the only Western culture and industrialized nation in the world with above replacement level fertility (2.2), thanks to the Latino contribution. This means that unlike Asia or the European Union the United States will have a viable labor force for decades to come.

Forty Years after Woodstock, a Gentler Generation Gap 

It had to be one of the most divisive times in American history. Family was divided against family. No, this is not a reference to the Civil War, but rather it is a description of the turbulent 1960’s and early 1970’s in the United States. 

It was the Baby Boomers against the Silent Generation and the G.I. Generation, Hippies fighting the establishment, the young versus the old, the people under thirty against the people over thirty, war against peace, long hair versus short hair, parents against kids, kids against parents, authority opposed to chaos, protestors clashing with police, tolerance versus intolerance, the right against the left and above all: rock and roll against everything else music. It was a clash of cultures on a grand scale. No one really understood what caused the divide but it was certain that the Vietnam War played an important part. It was an unstable time that divided families and broke up homes, a time of elevated crime and drug use. This period was defined by its music and the exclamation point was a rock concert attended by over 500,000 people, Woodstock.   

The Pew Research Center released a very interesting and revealing Social and Demographic Trends Report in August 2009. It apparently was timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the famous outdoor rock concert and music festival, Woodstock. 

Pew polled a nationally representative sample of 1,815 people age 16 and over from July 20 to August 2, 2009.  The results of the poll were surprising and counter intuitive. Apparently serious fractures still exist between young and old adults in their work ethic, respect/tolerance of others, acceptance of technology, religion, moral values and political views. But according to Pew “...this modern generation gap is a much more subdued affair than the one that raged in the 1960s, for relatively few Americans of any age sees it as a source of conflict- either in society at large or in their own families.” 

So if the fractures still exist, where is the conflict? Where are the protestors, the sit-ins, the mass marches? According to the Pew research there is one major aspect of the culture that enjoys a marked difference when compared to the clash of the 60s. We all like the same music; rock and roll. Two-thirds of the people polled by Pew stated that they favored rock and roll over country, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, classical, jazz and salsa. Back in 1966 a Harris poll showed that only 4% of people twenty-one and older stated that rock and roll was their favorite kind of music making rock and roll the most unpopular music of the day. Like Dylan sang “The times, they are a changing...” 

So does the common music sooth the savage in the different generations? Perhaps, Pew states it in a borrowed phrase: “… the generations appear to have found a way to disagree without being disagreeable.” Are we really a kinder gentler nation? It would appear so. According to a 1969 Gallup poll 74% of the public thought there were major conflicts between generations compared to Pew’s 2009 findings that show that 79% of Americans felt that there were major divides today between the perspective of younger and older adults.  Clearly we have more conflict today with surprisingly less acrimony. 

Could it be that the answer lies in the within the American family? Do Boomer parents get along better with their kids than their parents got along with them? The evidence would support a resounding yes. When asked, the Pew respondents supported this position. Only 10% of parents of older children reported that they often have major disagreements with their teenage or young adult kids. This is compared and contrasted to 19% that stated that they themselves routinely had major disagreements with their parents. Maybe Boomers are just cooler parents and maybe today’s issues just aren’t the stuff worth fighting for. 

A closer look at the American home could reveal some answers and give us an insight into what is perceived as differences between generations. The biggest differences according to the Pew poll fell predictably into two areas: technology and music. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents said that there was significant difference in the way young and old used new technology, the internet and computers. No surprise there. It would be hard to imagine a heated generational exchange erupting over a conflict between using email over texting or even Facebook versus LinkedIn. What about the music differences? Nine out of ten of the people polled cited huge differences between young and old preferences. But remember, its all rock and roll. So where is the divide? Is it worth hunkering down for a battle between oldies and pop? 

Who has better values?  The respondents to the Pew poll were very clear in their answer. With respect to three of the four values tested the public, regardless of age, voted two to one in favor of older Americans indicating that they are superior in terms of their moral values, respect for others and work ethic. The younger generation got the nod for being more socially tolerant, though the results were not lop-sided. 

The fact that the public perceives older Americans as having a better moral compass than their younger counterparts is no surprise. What is interesting is the one category of ethics where the younger generation shines, social tolerance. It is important because it represents a big change. Generation Y was taught not to see color and as a result they don’t. As our Nation becomes more and more ethnically diverse this quality of Generation Y will pay dividends. 

The work ethic of Generation Y is bound to improve as well as this cohort floods the workplace and faces twenty percent unemployment at entry level. Nothing improves your attitude faster about work than the need to eat. The lop-sided work ethic issue with young adults could easily have been a product of the tiny Generation X because this cohort enjoyed an employees market and full employment at entry level. In fact when Generation X entered the workforce there were ten jobs and eight workers. Nothing breeds a bad work ethic faster than being in demand. That’s all changing in today’s economic and demographic climate.  

It has been forty years since Woodstock and though the perception is that generations in the United States are still divided it is apparent that we have learned how to disagree, to get along. Boomers are not the same parents as their parents no more than Mick Jagger is the same as Benny Goodman. The Boomer’s kids, Generation Y, appear to prefer to make their mark and changes through harmony than through protest or discord. All this bodes well for The United States because we can ostensibly work out our internal differences and concentrate on making the world a better place.       

The 3 Beacon Blog

How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm and Stay Ahead of the Crowd

Book Review by Nicholas Eberstadt

August 10, 2009

Many thanks, Nick for "The Age Curve" book review on Amazon!

Wanna Read Just One Book On The Topic? This Is It,August 9, 2009 By Nicholas Eberstadt (Washington DC) Kenneth Gronbach has done a terrific job of making business sense out of demographics. His focus in this book is the US market--and the sometimes surprising impact that population changes can have on markets, investments and company prospects. Demographic fundamentals may not always be decisive here--but boy, when they do matter, they they can matter big-time! And people who do not get it are left hanging out to dry... "The Age Curve" is a very shrewd book, written in a funny, unassuming style that has the semi-miraculous effect of making demographics interesting to a broad audience. It is a great read for any curious generalist--and it should be required reading in the boardroom for every company merchandising consumer products large or small, especially in these difficult times. (Memo to GM and Chrysler: if you guys understood Gronbach's message, you might not be bankrupt right now..)

Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist and a demographer by training, is the Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is also a senior adviser to the National Board of Asian Research, a member of the visiting committee at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a member of the Global Leadership Council at the World Economic Forum. He researches and writes extensively on economic development, foreign aid, global health, demographics, and poverty. He is the author of numerous monographs and articles on North and South Korea, East Asia, and countries of the former Soviet Union. His books range fromThe End of North Korea(AEI Press, 1999) toThe Poverty of the Poverty Rate(AEI Press, 2008).