The generation known for its obsession with avocado toast and selfies is approaching midlife — and power. The eldest of the millennials, a generation born between 1981 and 1996, are now in their early 40s, and some are challenging the stereotypes that have long defined them.
The generation that came of age during the rise of the internet, weathered the Great Recession and pioneered the gig economy is now stepping into leadership roles and assuming more responsibilities on both the home and work fronts. They include JD Vance, 40 years old and about to be the third youngest vice president in U.S. history, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, who is being considered for a key leadership role in the House. “Is this AOC’s moment?” The Washington Post recently asked.
The rest of the millennials are wondering if it is their moment, too.
For many millennials, myself among them, aging comes with a host of pressures: financial instability under the weight of student loan debt, heightened rates of anxiety and depression, and complex decisions about having children and navigating a demanding juggle of careers and caring for children. Dubbed the “burnout generation,” many millennials feel stretched to their limits.
But they’re also in a unique position to have significant influence in the coming decades.
Millennials have surpassed baby boomers in numbers and make up the largest eligible voting electorate and workforce demographic in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center. They’re also the most ethnically and racially diverse generation of Americans; more than 40% of millennials are minorities.
Demographer William Frey, who’s been studying the cultural generation gap, calls millennials a “bridge” generation between the older and less diverse generations and more diverse post-millennials. It’s why the millennial cohort, he believes, is well-positioned for understanding and building relationships with people of various backgrounds and worldviews. (Vance demonstrates this; his Indian-American wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.)
“Moving into middle age, what their experiences are going to be — both because of their diverse backgrounds and their ability to move across different racial and cultural lines and to interact with people — is certainly a positive thing in terms of our economy and ability to move into the new future,” said Frey, who is a senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
As more of the cohort rises in their professions and accumulates wealth, they’re poised to influence cultural, political and economic landscapes in profound ways over the coming decades, analysts say.
The ‘burnout’ generation?
I turned 40 last week, and with this milestone came a strange and unsettling realization: I’ve officially entered middle age — defined by Brittanica as a period between 40 and 60 — and I’m not sure I’m prepared for what lies ahead.
Now that I’m 40, midlife no longer feels like a distant horizon — it is here and I am in it. Along with middle age comes an unspoken expectation that by now, everything should be figured out: a stable career, financial security, family and kids, and a clear sense of who you are.
But for many millennials, which make up more than 70 million of other Americans, that picture feels more aspirational than real. Many millennials I know are navigating financial uncertainty, grappling with mental health challenges and striving to maintain healthy family dynamics. Other millennial friends are going through divorce and mourning the loss of parents. Many are reckoning with decisions they made in their 20s and 30s and, now armed with greater clarity and self-awareness, making adjustments for the years ahead.
Despite being the most educated generation in history, millennials entered adulthood during a time of financial instability and many are still playing catch-up. Student loan debt, the housing crisis and stagnant wages delayed wealth-building milestones for millennials and put them in a weaker economic position compared to previous generations at the same age. Anne Helen Petersen, author of “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” points to precarity and “hustle culture,” which have contributed to a sweeping exhaustion among the generation.
“The burnout experienced by millennials is textured by how we interact with digital technologies, and some of our ideas about work and the fetishization of overwork,” Petersen said in a Vox interview. “There’s a feeling of instability that’s the baseline economic condition for many, many millennials, and it’s enhanced by these other components of our lives that make it harder to turn away from.”
This burnout may also explain why some millennials are delaying marriage, choosing not to have children, or redefining traditional markers of success. The feeling of precarity and burnout have, for many, overshadowed the milestones that older generations saw as the right of passage.
But psychologist Jean Twenge, the author of “Generation Me,” argues that millennials are actually in a better financial position than it seems. “The data on the income, on median incomes, is extremely clear: The millennials are actually making more money than previous generations at the same age,” Twenge said in a Washington Post interview.
Lindsey Memory, a librarian in Springville, Utah, who will turn 40 this summer, told me that for years she felt financially and professionally behind. She got a degree in a narrow field — academic librarianship — that takes time to advance in. Meanwhile, her husband was restarting his career in his 30s and the couple faced mounting expenses from infertility treatments. But the year 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, felt like a breakthrough: they had their first child, her husband started a new job as a software developer and they were able to buy a house.
A year later, Memory was promoted as a head of a library department. “That salary bump allowed us to pay off our car and finally let our hair down ... not looking too hard at our grocery totals every week,” Memory told me. “The best part of aging for me has been finally reaching financial and career stability.”
While members of Generation Z have been criticized for their laissez-faire attitudes toward work, millennials have been characterized as perfectionists and called “the hardest working generation,” channeling their ambition and adaptability into navigating a precarious world. But the question remains: At what cost?
Parenting and aging
As the first generation shaped by the internet and digital technology, millennials spend a significant portion of their lives online. Yet, they’re acutely aware of their compulsive scrolling habits. In fact, “Out: scrolling” — reducing the time spent online — was a recurring theme among New Year’s resolutions shared by millennial influencers on Instagram — a self-aware nod to their love-hate relationship with technology.
For millennial parents, the challenges are even more pronounced. With kids transitioning into their teenage years, they’re navigating dilemmas their own parents never had to face: When is the right time to give a child a phone? Is it safe to let them roam the neighborhood unsupervised? What’s the most effective way to discipline in an age of constant digital connectivity?
Memory and her husband often talk about how they will help nurture healthy phone habits for their three kids, even though their children are still young. “Knowing they will model their behaviors after mine also makes me pretty conscious of how often I’m staring at my screen in front of them,” she told me.
The rapid pace of technological progress over the past two decades has left parents of young children without a roadmap. Millennials are forging their own path, often feeling as though they’re improvising through uncharted territory.
At the same time, aging is stirring existential worries in a culture more obsessed than ever with youth and its preservation. Teenagers flock to Sephora, fueling a multibillion-dollar beauty industry, while the average age of Botox clients continues to drop. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have invested millions in longevity and immortality research, chasing the dream of defying aging altogether. The Netflix documentary on centimillionaire Bryan Johnson’s extreme anti-aging regimen — complete with more than 100 daily supplements and gene therapy — highlights the lengths to which some of us will go to do battle with death.
“When you are young, your body does (most) things you want it to — you are your looks, strength and energy,” Memory told me. “But as you age, your body no longer does the things you want it to ... and you start to understand that maybe the ‘you’ of your youth was never real.“
Amid this relentless fixation on youth, embracing the grace and depth that come with aging feels countercultural, a quiet rebellion.
Opportunities for change
But despite the challenges my generation is up against, millennials have unique opportunities to drive positive change in ways that previous generations couldn’t. Having embraced technology as it evolved — but without being fully shaped by it in childhood — millennials are uniquely positioned to model healthier digital habits for their children.
The dual responsibilities of juggling caregiving for boomer parents while simultaneously caring for Gen Alpha children could help millennials advocate for policies that address the realities of modern family life, such as expanded parental leave, eldercare support and workplace flexibility. Millennials have the power to redefine family structures and set new standards for intergenerational care.
Millennials make up the largest eligible voting bloc, which means that the priorities and values of this generation will continue to shape public policy and election outcomes for decades, even though the older generations still make up the majority of Congress, despite the share of millennials and Gen X-ers increasing in recent years, according to Pew Research Center.
As managers and employers in the most diverse generation, Frey says millennials know how to “get along.”
“The point is that [millennials] are open to interacting with people of different backgrounds because they understand many of them, and they’ve had some difficulty themselves as they were growing up,” he said. “How they advance and how they’re able to succeed will do a lot to help the generations behind them, because they’ll be the role models for this kind of new diverse America.”