Money & Work
Making Work Work For Gen Y
Many twenty-somethings say they’ll seek out careers that will let them balance jobs and family better than their baby boomer parents did.
tlj213@nyu.edu
Melissa Smith, 26 of Merrick, NY, always wanted to become a lawyer. She earned a degree in political science from Siena College in Loudonville, NY, and planned to go to law school. But just a few months before graduation, she hesitated.
“At the time, I didn’t think about what a lawyer does,” says Smith. “So I decided to become a paralegal and work in a firm to see if it was really what I wanted to do before I committed to law school.”
It wasn’t.
“I realized I had no desire to become an attorney after watching how much work they did and what little lives they had,” says Smith, who is now studying nursing after working for four years at several different corporate firms. “At the end of the day I realized I want [to do more than just] sit behind a desk and make a lot of money for a big corporation.”
Smith is not the only one making such decisions: Experts say that many young people seem to be less concerned with the size of their paycheck and more interested in meaningful work that will give them enough time to devote to their personal lives.
“Both men and women are looking into careers that offer more flexibility,” says Katie Kiel, an associate for Catalyst, a non-profit research organization that specializes in work-life issues. “They are looking for positions that will allow them to manage their work and personal life effectively—It’s what we call the agile work place.”
Sabrina Fuchs, a 21-year-old senior studying secondary education at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, NY, chose teaching, in part, because of the flexibility it offers. “By [becoming a teacher] I will not only be doing something that I like, but when I have a family I’ll be able to be home to raise my kids because of the hours.”
According to Kiel, younger people have a different outlook on work than their parents did. Whereas the baby boom generation lived to work, Gen X- and Y-ers work to live. “This may be in response to the long hours of toil and trouble that [young people] saw their parents go through,” Kiel says. “We now have a 365 days a year, 24 hour a day, workplace, and people are expected to be available any time.”
“Young people are looking at their parents’ work and figuring out how they want to be like their parents and how they want to be different,” agrees Ellen Galinsky, co-president of the Families and Work Institute (FWI), a non-profit research center.
A study of workplace attitudes by FWI found that young people tend to be more “family-centric” than their parents, meaning that they place a higher priority on family than on work. The survey found that 50 percent of Gen-Y workers and 52 percent of Gen-X workers are “family-centric” compared with 41 percent of boomers.
Sam Sibble, a senior at New York University, says that his parents’ work-life decisions gave him guidance. “My father worked very hard – almost too hard. And my mother worked fewer hours [and] spent more time with us,” says Sibble, a 21-year-old senior studying film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “I need to find a happy-medium between my father and my mother.”
Sibble, who just landed a job as a talent agent assistant, says that for him, personal time is a must-have. “Most of the people in this industry – talent agents and studio execs – don’t have families; a lot of them are married to their jobs,” says Sibble. “That’s not how I want to be. It doesn’t mean anything in the end if you don’t have your family.”
According to Galinsky, many young people are interested in starting their own business. It’s a way “you can have control and I think control is very important to younger people,” she says. “Even if you’re working hard, you’re setting the rules.”
Ross Weber, an ocean export manager at ARI Shipping, an international distribution company in Inwood, NY, says he grew up with a father who owned his own business and was able to do things with his kids, like coach little league and attend school concerts.
“My goal has always been to work for myself because of all the pros,” says Weber, 21, of West Babylon, NY. “It’s nice to be the boss and control everything and not be strangled by the daily 9-5.”
For those who don’t aspire to be self-employed, experts foresee a workplace that will be forced to become more accommodating. According to data from Catalyst, many companies are now offering reduced or compressed workweeks and telecommuting. To take advantage of these options, Kiel says one must be proactive and approach their manager to have a “career discussion”.
Sibble, for one, plans to do that. “There are certain things in life that are more important than making money, and you don’t want to miss out on those things for any reason” he says.
Ross Weber, 21, aspires to run his own company so he can have flexibility and more personal time.
Photo courtesy of Ross Weber