http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/american-dream-fades-for-generation-y-professionals.html
God, that's fucking depressing. The one sliver lining I see was that last paragraph:
“As it is, all of my possessions still fit in the back of my truck,” she says. “I can pack it in a couple hours, pick up the trailer and horses and move anywhere the gas tank will take me at the drop of a hat. What can the system take away from you when you have that kind of freedom?”
Maybe we'll see Gen Y be the first truly anti-materialistic generation in a long time, because they're realizing how much of a burden that plasma TV and iPhone and townhouse and whatever can be when you suddenly have to become nomadic again.
It's not just the legal and business sectors, either. Across a huge range of professional disciplines, there are simply far more people with advanced professional degrees than there are jobs to utilize them. I blame the "everyone should go to college" mentality that we've had for the last 50 years. Not only did it dilute the value of a Bachelor's Degree, but it produced a glut of people who mortgaged their future on their education (myself included), because that's what we've all been told since we were kids -- study hard, get a good education, and there will be a good job waiting on the other side.
I even thought I could avoid the vagaries of private sector fluctuation by choosing a career in government -- the government always needs diplomats and intelligence specialists, right?? And surely there can't be a glut of applicants in something that narrow?
I genuinely fear for my kids' futures. I definitely don't have the level of success that my father does. And I'd be heartbroken if my kids had it even harder.
EDIT: Going back to something we were discussing earlier, I think this desire for some huge cataclysmic change or some kind of sweeping struggle (apocalypse, zombies, etc.) is because we (GenX and GenY) don't have anything really larger than ourselves to dive into. We want to be part of something big, really big...but it's just not out there. For our grandparents, there was The War, and then the Cold War. For our parents it was either The Company or some kind of narcisisstic navel gazing and yoga and granola. Either way, it was still something.
But there's no big war or existential threat, and the days of working 40 years at a company and drawing a safe pension and gold watch are long gone. Even the hippie communes have lost their luster.
I think that's one reason why
both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement were lightning in a bottle there for a while. Both tapped into the frustrations, that latent feeling that we all have that something is just seriously not right, and the desire to be part of something larger.
Honestly, if ever we needed a crash space settlement program it's now. How many tens, hundreds of thousands would volunteer to go settle the Moon/Mars/space station/whatever -- partly because it's a chance to do something truly great and groundbreaking and of benefit to the future of mankind, and partly because it beats the fuck out of working retail when you have a college degree?