Generation X and Millennials are too busy respectively listening to Nirvana and getting famous doing nothing on Youtube. Where’s the respect I tell you! The world we live in is a consequence of a strong protestant work ethic of love-children born after WWII. Look at those kids, playing gameboys on the shoulders of giants. What’s the world going to be like when the boomers aren’t around to pay their rent for them? Probably about the same actually if findings published in Springer’s Journal of Business and Psychology are to be believed.
The common idea that Baby Boomers shared a generational work ethic that elevated them to some sort of workaholic sainthood may be a complete fabrication and part of a social narrative that never really existed.
The meta-analysis took 77 studies and 105 different measures into work ethic and the average age of those involved in the study. However the study found no conclusive evidence that such a work ethic ever existed at all. This finding backs up previous studies that came to the same conclusion.
“The finding that generational differences in the Protestant work ethic do not exist suggests that organizational initiatives aimed at changing talent management strategies and targeting them for the ‘very different’ millennial generation may be unwarranted and not a value added activity,” says study author Keith L. Zabel to Springer. “Human resource-related organizational interventions aimed at building 21st century skills should therefore not be concerned with generational differences in Protestant work ethic as part of the intervention.”
Essentially, there’s nothing to worry about, millennials are just as bad as the people they crawled out of.
You hear that you youngins? Time to start lying about how hard you work to your kids, We’ve gotta pretend that our day in the sun was way better than they way our kids with their holodecks have it in 2030.