Growing Pains: Cash & Gen Y in the GTA

We live in a generation that is all about themselves.  It’s a new social norm.  Professional and personal lives aren’t in sync with previous realities.

 

Research shows that in today’s society, the majority of young people expect to find a job to provide for themselves and their family. This is more or less due to a social standard placed on people that encourages them to have their lives structured by a certain age. However, what happens when you are at that magical age and your life isn’t structured? This is a problem many young people are coming up against.

 

According to GoodTherapy.org, it’s a different world that has never been faced before.. Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett in his book "Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Though the Twenties” believes that in today’s society fewer jobs are available and formal education is required in the modern economy.

 

“I think there's also some truth to the idea that social and demographic shifts in population - people working until they are older, the aging population in general meaning that there is less room for young adults in the job market.” Said Anne Wilson, psychology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.

 

Arnett writes in his book that young people aren’t living up to the standard set by previous generations.  They were born in an era where premarital sex and birth control is more prevalent.  In fact, the belief of psychologists is that fewer women are having babies because there are more career options available.

 

In her book, “Generation Me” Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, discusses how younger generations are all about themselves. She focuses on how the young adults are freer and more empowered to build up their self-esteem and less concerned with the community norms.