Sunday, June 14, 2009

Gen X Gen Y

Recently, the Straits times featured an article by an Aussie poll on Gen-Y members whom are the babies born in the late 80s to 90s. The poll was whether the Gen-Y expect their parents to pay for their housing and etc..generally it means whether Gen Y takes the parents for granted. The result was seemingly overwhelming.

http://www.asiaone.com/print/News/AsiaOne+News/Asian+Opinions/Story/A1Story20090613-148263.html

Put in perspective,most of my fellow peers are the Gen Y-ers and the sentiments are the reliance on the parents are seemingly not as exaggerated as the findings in the poll. Perhaps we had omitted the fact that the poll might not be representative in the Singapore's context.

From one angle, we cannot deny the fact that as a Gen Y-er, I believe the life that I experienced, even as a member of a middle-income family, was much cosier than what my parents had went through. Growing up in a baby-boomer era, my parents were part of their families where 6 or 7,sometimes even up to 10, siblings were common. The downsizing in terms of family size for the Gen-Y was much proportional to the living expenses during the late 80s and 90s. Singapore turned to be more capital and knowledge-intensive and thus, parents are aware that they need to fund the children's education more intensively than what their own parents did. With this thinking, perhaps they felt that setting aside more for fewer children outweighs the vice-versa. Thats why as a Gen Y-er, we realise that the monetary(of course, the love) investment showered upon us were much more. Inevitably, this has caused the latter to be less independent. We step into the real world, or the working society, later by 5-10 years on average than a Gen X-er.

The later we enter the working industry correspondingly means that we have more years that we are financially dependent on the parents. Come to think of it, after the age of 21, for some 18, its the era where the hormones are raging in the non-crooked manner. It means that people start to climb the Maslow hierachy of needs. We start to buy more expensive and heftier products and spend like an adult; going on travel; visiting pubs and clubs. All these are most probably funded from the pocket money in a very general notation. This also points to a bigger pocket money budget, aint it. All these points to why Gen Y are seemingly more dependent on the parents, in my own honest opinion.

Come to think of it, sometimes i wonder if it was much better if i ve opted to work part time and study part-time. The extra 4 years of working experience might have essentially put me in a better position than taking up a 4 years undergraduate course. The opportunity cost of studying means 4 years of salaries + CPF contribution. Well..life is a gamble anyway. The general comfort zone is alwyas the route most travelled.. Haha. In retrospect, part time studying might have been better but i dun have the balls to try it anyway.