News reports this week revealed that women who make up the millennial generation (people born between 1980’s and the early 2000’s) –are officially minimizing the gender wage disparity in the workforce. In other words, the young women of today who are beginning to enter the workforce are considered significant competition to men. For the first time in contemporary history, college education has made this accomplishment possible. More women have college education then men, which has caused women to become more eligible for skilled jobs and therefore be held to a higher standard when it comes to employment.
Studies from 2012 performed by Pew Research Center show that women of the millennial generation are earning 93% of what men earn by the hour. Previously, women were making only 84 cents to the dollar compared to their male counterparts. Still, despite this progress, many of the millennial women are apprehensive about what they may earn in the future. For instance, this generation of women continues to believe that it is more the norm for women to care for a family rather then men. Today there is still gender stereotyping; women are “meant” to be the stay-at-home parent and thus continue to see that as part of their inherent gender role. Notwithstanding, this so –called “distraction” of parenthood may be an inhibition to their professional careers, and a majority of millennial women actually prove to be worried about this possibility.
Although the gender wage gap is minimizing, the entire millennial generation is not always seen as a positive asset to the workforce. Research proves that this generation wants to pursue a life infused with meaning and accordingly is less engrossed in trying to attain financial success. Yet, managers of the millennial generation still insist that the millennials just want to “get rich.” This is precisely because it is understood to be composed of “trophy kids.” In other words, while growing up these children received positive reinforcement all of the time – trophies or the like whenever they did something well or even failed to do something but still earned an “A” for effort. Today, this has caused the incoming workforce to seem selfish because they believe they are privileged. They have never received much criticism; as a result, a significant amount of instruction from employers is necessary in order to get assignments done, regardless of what they may be. Once the millennials complete their assignments, or are even still in the midst of completing them, they demand an evaluation of their work – but this evaluation must be only positive.
From the instant millennials enter the professional workforce they demand to be treated as a colleague of equal status to already working and more experienced employees. They insist on having full and unlimited access to the CEO’s in order to get their own ideas put on the table. Many times, this persistence and even motivation has a negative connotation, but in fact the millennial generation just has a strong desire to achieve. In the end, it is hard work and diligence that lead to success, two characteristics that are indubitably not absent in the millennial generation.