Millennia’s Come of Age as America's Most Stressed Generation

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Millennias Come of Age as America's Most

Stressed Generation

Arianna Huffington

February 19, 2013

First came the "Baby Boomers," then came "Generation X." The branding of the subsequentgeneration, the one that came of age during the 2000s, was less definitive, ping-ponging between"Generation Y" and "The Millennials." I'd like to add a third name: "Generation Stress."According to Stress in America, a study commissioned by the American PsychologicalAssociation, Millennials are the most stressed demographic. And from what we heard out ofWashington last week, the conditions creating that stress aren't going away anytime soon. Butthere's still cause for hope.

The study asked participants to rank their stress level on a scale of 1 ("little or no stress") to 10("a great deal of stress"). Millennials led the stress parade, with a 5.4 average. Boomersregistered 4.7, and the group the study labeled the "Matures" gave themselves a 3.7.

The findings were consistent across almost every question. Nearly 40 percent of Millennials saidtheir stress had increased last year, compared to 33 percent for Boomers and 29 percent forMatures. Over half of Milliennials said that stress had kept them awake at night during the last


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month, compared to 37 percent for Boomers and 25 percent for Matures. And only 29 percent ofMillennials say they're getting enough sleep, compared to 46 percent of Matures.

These levels of stress are taking their toll. Irritability and anger from stress were reported by 44percent of Millennials, 36 percent of Boomers and 15 percent of Matures. And 19 percent ofMilliennials have been told they're suffering from depression, compared to 12 percent ofBoomers and 11 percent of Matures. "Stress is a risk factor for both depression and anxiety,"says Norman Anderson, psychologist and CEO of the APA. "We don't have data on the specificcauses of depression and anxiety in this sample, but it does make sense scientifically that theMillennials who report higher levels of stress in their lives are also reporting higher levels ofdepression and anxiety."

In fact, it's reasonable to assume that higher levels of stress put the Millennials at higher risk forall sorts of destructive downstream consequences of stress. "Stress is a huge factor when we lookat medical problems such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiac disease," says Dr. NancySnyderman, NBC's chief medical editor.

Over25 million Americans already suffer from diabetes, and almost 70 million have high bloodpressure, making them four times as likely to die from strokes and three times as likely tocontract heart disease. And yet only 17 percent of Millennials believe their health care providersgive them "a lot or a great deal" of support in managing their stress.

Not surprisingly, work is one of the biggest causes of stress, with 76 percent of Millennialsreporting it as a significant stressor, compared to 62 percent of Boomers and 39 percent ofMatures. "Many of these young people have come out of college or graduate school withhorrendous student debt into a job market where there are not very many jobs," said KatherineNordal of the APA. "This has put their life plans, probably, on hiatus."

The job numbers are indeed grim. According to Generation Opportunity, the unemployment ratefor Millennials rose to 13.1 percent in January, up nearly 2 points from December. Among youngAfrican-Americans, it's a whopping 22.1 percent. And if you count those 18-29 year-olds whohave given up and dropped out of the labor force, the overall youth unemployment rate stands at16.2 percent.

And even for the lucky ones who are working, the picture remains bleak. According to theEconomic Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2011 wages adjusted for inflation fell by over 11percent for young high school grads and by 5.4 percent for young college grads. It doesn't helpthat, as a study by the Center for College Affordability found, 48 percent of working college

grads are in jobs that don't require a college degree and 38 percent are in jobs that don't require ahigh school diploma. The report concluded that from 2010 to 2020, while 19 million collegegrads will be hitting the job market, the economy will add fewer than 7 million jobs requiring acollege degree. That's a pretty serious -- and stress-producing -- gap.

Those numbers add context to President Obama's push for colleges and universities to increaseenrollment and the number of degrees they grant. That's a great goal, but it highlights the factthat, to the extent that we even talk about jobs in our political conversation, we tend to talk about


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them without mentioning what kind of jobs. Nearly all the conversation on the first Friday ofeach month when the previous month's jobs numbers come out is about whether the number wentup or down. But when there's an uptick -- and don't get me wrong, an uptick is much better thana downtick -- nobody talks about the context and conditions that have far more impact onpeople's actual lives, such as the fact that putting heavily indebted young adults to work at halfthe salary they had four years ago isn't exactly a way to win the future.

And any of those heavily indebted, heavily stressed-out Millennials listening to PresidentObama's State of the Union speech would not have gotten much stress relief. He didacknowledge the increasingly untenable cost of higher education -- "Today, skyrocketing costsprice too many young people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt" -- and declared that he would "ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act so thataffordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types offederal aid." That sounds promising. If it ever happens. But it's hard to imagine Washingtonwielding that stick strongly enough to truly make quality higher education affordable. Even ifcollege tuition stopped increasing right now and just stayed exactly where it is for the nextdecade -- which we all know is not going to happen -- it's still a huge problem.

A more promising approach would be to take strong action on student debt, which last year hit arecord $1 trillion. The disastrous 2005 bankruptcy "reform" bill, which excluded student debtfrom being discharged in a bankruptcy, has created a new form of indentured servitude, in whichtens of thousands of college grads live their entire lives with a crushing debt burden. ConsumerFinancial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray seems open to reform, but actually doing itwill take a sense of urgency. "It would be prudent to consider whether they [Congress] wish tomodify the code," he told The Huffington Post in July.

Color me skeptical that, in the absence of being pushed, John Boehner is going to wake up one

day with a burning urge to modify student debt regulations. It would be great to hear thepresident say something along the lines of: "If Congress won't act soon to protect futuregenerations, I will." That's what he said about climate change during the State of the Union.That's certainly a vital issue, and so is "protecting future generations" from crushing student debt.

As for the perspective from the other side of the aisle? "Today, many graduates face massivestudent debt," acknowledged Senator Marco Rubio in his response to the State of the Union. Sowhat's Rubio's solution to this massive student debt? "We must give students more informationon the costs and benefits of the student loans they're taking out." Ah, yes, more information! Notexactly problem solved! All the more reason to include student debt in the president's "Things IWill Take Executive Action On" folder.

Even those lucky Millennials who land a decent job often face a workplace rife with destructivedefinitions of success. And, given how few jobs there are for them, it's the Millennials who havethe least amount of leverage to push back. This is still a world in which, according to TonySchwartz, author and CEO of The Energy Project, the prevailing work ethic is one in which"downtime is typically viewed as time wasted," and "rewards still accrue to those who push thehardest and most continuously over time." But, he adds, "that doesn't mean they're the mostproductive."


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As Schwartz points out, more than one-third of American workers regularly eat lunch at theirdesks, and a recent study showed that an average of 9.2 vacation days were skipped last year. Allthis overwork inevitably leads to sleep deprivation, which costs American businesses over $63billion a year -- even though studies show that for each 10 hours of additional time off,productivity increased by 8 percent. "Strategic renewal," Schwartz writes, "including daytimeworkouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer,more frequent vacations, boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health."

But given the harsh job market they're entering, Millennials are incentivized to ignore the path tostrategic renewal. Even so, we know they are looking for ways to lower their stress level. TheAPA study found that 62 percent of Millennials had tried to reduce their stress in the last fiveyears. But only 29 percent of them, compared to 38 percent of Boomers and 50 percent ofMatures, reported that they were doing a good or excellent job of it.

Amidst all this gloom, there is a sliver of sunshine: a recent Gallup poll that found that, evengiven the battered economy they're entering, 80 percent of Millennials were optimistic abouttheir standard of living getting better.

Yes, as the clich goes, the next generation is the future, etc. etc. etc. And, without fail, at somepoint, the future will be theirs. So here's hoping that as they advance through the ranks of theworkplace, Millennials will channel that optimism to do themselves -- and the generation afterthem (Generation Z?) -- a favor by redefining success. Perhaps the mountain of stress they arecurrently scaling will give them the perspective to change what my generation has handed off tothem.

Photo: Mikael Damkier/Shutterstock

Millennia’s Come of Age as America's Most Stressed Generation

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