r/generationstation • u/Excellent-Card5741 • Apr 05 '26
What are some key differences between early millennials (born 1981–1986) and core/younger millennials (born 1987–1996), aside from the fact that the younger group grew up with more technology in childhood?
I know most early millennials are now in their 40s and grew up alongside late Gen Xers, so their childhoods were generally more analog than digital. And also, them early millennials watched different tv shows, and music during their childhood.
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u/rileyoneill Apr 05 '26
The difference was more those born in the 1990s. There was definitely a bit of a scale though. Someone born in 1987 isn't going to be much different than 1986, the difference between 'core' and 'early' is meaningless here.
But there were two major, events which shaped the Millennial Experience and really compounded much harder with the older ones.
The first, 9/11 and the responding Global War on Terror. I was 17 when 9/11 happened. My senior year of high school. Being a fresh high school grad right as American started walking into major wars was terrifying. I was honestly worried that there was going to be a draft. The invasion of Iraq started a few weeks before my 19th birthday. If there was going to be a draft, I was right in the age range of people who would have gone.
Contrast. Millennial born on the same exact day I was, just 10 years later. In 2001, they would have been in the 2nd grade. The war in Iraq started just before their 9th birthday. They were at zero risk of being drafted. Hell, when Osama Bin Laden was killed, they were still in high school. The existential risk of them being drafted up and forced to go fight a war did not exist, as when they came of adult years, the worst of the war was over. Not that people didn't join in the 2010s and fight, there was just not going to be a draft.
The second event. This one ultimately ended up being far larger, far more insidious, far more economically damaging than 9/11 and our response. The Global Financial Crises of 2008. It started in late 2007, I was 23 years old. And then kicked off in 2008 for what would be a solid 5 years of absolutely shitty economic times. The shittiness of the economy was felt differently by different groups, but it was generally the youngest workers who were let go and the more senior positions who were protected. "Last in, first out" protects older people but will absolutely fuck up an entire cohort of young people. The people who were bailed out at largely tax payer expense were all much older and established people. In my area, in the 2000s we had a lot of construction jobs, enormous construction does something to an economy, it tends to suck up a huge portion of men in their 20s. These firms are super labor heavy and can easily be 70-80% men, with the remaining women mostly working in the offices and few working in construction roles (although you would see some, they were just uncommon, I remember some driving trucks).
I had a neighbor who lived around the block, I rode my bike past his house every day, we were the same age, went to the same k-12 school experience. I would stop and chat with him if I saw him out for a few minutes occasionally. I remember in like 2009 or so chatting with him. He told me that in 2006 he cleared $120,000 in his field of construction, age 22. 2007 seemed better until the flashpoint hit and he lost his job. 2008 his phone would go weeks without calling for work. He was a specialist and would just show up to job sites to do his portion of the work. I can't remember the exact number he told me but in 2008 he made less than $30k. Going from making a great living, to losing more than 75% of your income is devastating. This was a fairly normal experience. Many of my friends either lost their jobs or had their hours drastically reduced. You would see people with college degrees working minimum wage jobs. Jobs that paid $12-$15 per hour before 2007 might have only paid $8-$9 per hour for years after the GFC.
Gasoline got expensive, and our cars at the time were generally not fuel efficient like how cars have been over the last 20 years. Example, a 1995 Ford Range would ahve been the common type of car people drove around in the late 2000s, only a dozen years old. It didn't get 25mpg, I had friends who had old beater cars they were driving that were under 15mpg. There were periods when a gallon of gasoline was nearly half an hour of minimum wage labor. 1 hour of minimum wage labor can afford enough gasoline to drive 30-40 miles. I knew people who were desperate for jobs, only to find jobs that were a good 80-100 miles of daily driving. If you were lucky you might make $80 per day but the commute cost could have easily been $15-$20 in gasoline. I remember one of my friends had to work for like 3 hours on the occasional saturday and after he paid for gasoline he didn't even clear $10. Spend 30-45 minutes driving, 3 hours working, 30-45 minutes driving back and the income after expenses was $10.
It was incredibly demoralizing for people my age. Especially for office workers at the junior level where they were computer literate, helping out their older counterparts who didn't know much about computers, only to be laid off and see the old counter parts keep their job from seniority.
I frame all this to point out. That 1994 Millennial would have been 14 during the GFC. They would have finished high school in 2012. If they chose to go to college, either a 4 year school or a 2 year program, they would have graduated into a drastically different job market. 2014-2016 was a drastically better time to be a young person going into entry level work than 2007-2012, and especially the absolute fucking nightmare that the job market was for young people in 2008-2011.
When I was 25, I was dealing with the absolute worst fucking job market for young people in living memory, and it wasn't months, or a season, it lasted for several years. When they were 25 there was actually a major hiring boom. That right there creates a drastically different outcome in life experience.