Exploring What MilleniGenz Think About Range of Social Issues
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
It has long been accepted that young adults are more socially and politically liberal than the middle-aged or elderly. It is also accepted that as a generational cohort ages, its views become more conservative. But does this piece of received wisdom apply to MillenigenZ? It is well documented that MillenigenZ are far more liberal on political and social issues than older generations. What is less certain is whether this leftward lean will persist as the MillenigenZ age or whether they will go through the same rightward shift as members of Generation X, the Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation did before them. In this study, we address this question in two ways. First, we examine differences in MillenigenZ’s attitudes on a range of social and political issues between two waves of a survey. Second, we compare the attitudes of the youngest members of the MillenigenZ generational cohort to those of the oldest to see whether there are intra-generational differences. Our findings suggest that MillenigenZ are not getting more conservative as they age and, from the youngest to the oldest, remain remarkably uniform in their left-leaning social and political attitudes. Findings from this study advance our understanding of not only this generation but also how generations change over time.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
JCSCORE (ISSN 2642-2387) provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All content in JCSCORE is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
Unless otherwise noted, works published in JCSCORE are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike License (CC BY-NC-SA). By granting a CC BY-NC-SA license in their work, authors retain copyright ownership of the work, but they give explicit permission for others to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the work, as long as the original source and author(s) are properly cited (i.e. a complete bibliographic citation and link to the JCSCORE website), re-use of the work is not for commercial purposes, and the re-used work is shared with the same license. No permission is required from the author(s) or the publishers for such use. According to the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA license, any reuse or redistribution must indicate the original CC-BY-NC-SA license terms of the work.
Exceptions to the application of the CC BY-NC-SA license may be granted at the author(s)’ discretion if reasonable extenuating circumstances exist. Such exceptions must be granted in writing. For coordinating use permission you may either contact the author directly or email jcscore@ou.edu.
References
Baker, G. (2022, June 6). Civilization and its enemies - opinion: Free expression - WSJ podcasts. https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/opinion-free-expression/civilization-and-its-enemies/7a0aa242-9e0c-4972-ab44-e75a81a78b78
Buchanan, L., Bui, Q., & Patel, J. (2020, July 3). Black Lives Matter may be the largest movement in U.S. history. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html
Bui, Q., & Miller, C. C. (2018, August 4). The age that women have babies: How a gap divides America. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html
Chong, D., Citrin, J., & Levy, M. (2021). The Realignment of Political Tolerance in the United States. Perspectives on Politics, 1-22. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537592722002079
Cohen, P., Kasen, S., Chen, H., Hartmark, C., & Gordon, K. (2003). Variations in patterns of developmental transmissions in the emerging adulthood period. Developmental Psychology, 39(4), 657. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.39.4.657
Dodson, L., & Dickert, J. (2004). Girls’ family labor in low‐income households: A decade of qualitative research. Journal of marriage and family, 66(2), 318-332. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2004.00023.x
Dylan, B. (1965) Like a rolling stone [Song]. On Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia Records.
Feather, N. T. (1977). Value importance, conservatism, and age. European Journal of Social Psychology.
Fisher, D. R. (2020). The diversity of the recent Black Lives Matter protests is a good sign for racial equity. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/07/08/the-diversity-of-the-recent- black-lives-matter-protests-is-a-good-sign-for-racial-equity DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/corg.12497
Frey, W. H. (2022, March 9). What the 2020 Census will reveal about America: Stagnating growth, an aging population, and youthful diversity. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-the-2020-census-will-reveal-about-america-stagnating-growth-an-aging-population-and-youthful-diversity/
Fuligni, A. J., Tseng, V., & Lam, M. (1999). Attitudes toward family obligations among American adolescents with Asian, Latin American, and European backgrounds. Child development, 70(4), 1030-1044. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00075
Gewen, B. (2009, September 18). Irving Kristol, godfather of modern conservatism, dies at 89. Retrieved from The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/politics/19kristol.html
Glenn, N. D. (1974). Aging and conservatism. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 415(1), 176-186. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000271627441500113
Grant, M. J., Ross, A. S., Button, C. M., Hannah, T. E., & Hoskins, R. (2001). Attitudes and stereotypes about attitudes across the lifespan. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 29(8), 749-762. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2001.29.8.749
Hao, R. N. (2011). Critical compassionate pedagogy and the teacher’s role in first‐generation student success. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2011(127), 91-98. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tl.460
Igielnik, R., Hartig, H., & Keeter, S. (2022, May 6). Behind Biden’s 2020 victory. Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/#fn-20077983-1
Jamieson, P., & Romer, D. (2008). The changing portrayal of adolescents in the media since 1950. Oxford University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342956.001.0001
Kaufmann, E. (2022, January 25). A generational threat to free expression. City Journal. https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-generational-threat-to-free-expression
Krosnick, J. A., & Alwin, D. F. (1989). Aging and susceptibility to attitude change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(3), 416. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.3.416
Kuta, S. (2020, June 9). There are two Americas, and age is the divider. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Retrieved from https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/there-are-two-americas-and-age-divider
Mannheim, K. (1970). The problem of generations. Psychoanalytic Review, 57(3), 378-404.
McCullough, J. J. (2022, May 9). Opinion: Are millennial leftists aging into right-wingers? The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/are-millennial-leftists-aging-into-right-wingers/
McLaurin, J. A., & Liebman, A. K. (2012). Unique agricultural safety and health issues of migrant and immigrant children. Journal of Agromedicine, 17(2), 186-196. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1059924x.2012.658010
Nail, P. R., McGregor, I., Drinkwater, A. E., Steele, G. M., & Thompson, A. W. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 901-907. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.013
Nordlund, W. J. (1988). A brief history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Labor Law Journal, 39, 715.
Orellana, M. F. (2001). The work kids do: Mexican and Central American immigrant children’s contributions to households and schools in California. Harvard Educational Review, 71(3), 366-390. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17763/haer.71.3.52320g7n21922hw4
Orellana, M. F., Dorner, L., & Pulido, L. (2003). Accessing assets: Immigrant youth’s work as family translators or “para-phrasers”. Social Problems, 50(4), 505-524. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.2003.50.4.505
Parker, K., Graf, N., & Igielnik, R. (2020, May 30). Generation Z looks a lot like millennials on key social and political issues. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/
Peterson, J. C., Smith, K. B., & Hibbing, J. R. (2020). Do people really become more conservative as they age? The Journal of Politics, 82(2), 600-611. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/706889
Pew Research Center. (2014). Political polarization in the American public. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
Pew Research Center. (2018). The Generation Gap in American Politics. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/
Rendón, M. G. (2019). Stagnant dreamers: How the inner city shapes the integration of the second generation. Russell Sage Foundation. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7758/9781610448901
Rodriguez, J. M., & Capotescu, C. (2018, May 31). Analysis: Poor people die younger in the U.S. that skews American politics. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/05/31/because-poor-people-die-younger-in-the-u-s-our-politics-are-more-unequal-than-elsewhere/
Ryan, C. L., & Bauman, K. (2016). Educational attainment in the United States: 2015 population characteristics current population reports. United States Census Bureau, 11.
Samson, F. L. (2015). Asian American attitudes towards a US citizenship path for illegal immigrants: Immigration reform as racialised politics. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41(1), 117-137. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2014.917044
Sanders, J. M., & Nee, V. (1996). Immigrant self-employment: The family as social capital and the value of human capital. American Sociological Review, 231-249. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2096333
Schwadel, P., & Garneau, C. R. (2014). An Age–Period–Cohort Analysis of Political Tolerance in the United States. The Sociological Quarterly, 55(2), 421-452. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tsq.12058
Shear, M., & Hirschfeld Davis, J. (2018, November 1). As midterm vote nears, Trump reprises a favorite message: Fear immigrants. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/trump-immigration.html
Steinbeck, J. (2003). America and Americans and selected nonfiction. Penguin.
Twenge, J. M. (2013). The evidence for generation me and against generation we. Emerging Adulthood, 1(1), 11-16. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2167696812466548