{
  "title": "The Declining Fortunes of the Young",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, February 27, 2020",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/27/the-declining-fortunes-of-the-young",
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  "summary": "Definition: millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Trends and context",
      "content": "- Definition: millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000.\n- Core concern: Despite being more educated than their parents, millennials may have less job stability during their working life.\n- Structural shifts:\n  - Since the mid-1980s, the number of well-paid middle-skill jobs in manufacturing and clerical occupations has decreased substantially in the United States and Europe.\n  - Job opportunities are increasingly concentrated in relatively high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low-wage jobs.\n  - The “hollowing out” of the middle classes is linked to the disappearance of routine occupations—jobs with a higher share of tasks performable through a set of easily codified rules (such as bookkeeping, clerical work, and some manufacturing jobs)—driven by technological progress and global integration.\n  - Automation and artificial intelligence continue to replace workers and may also limit job creation in growing sectors.\n- Recent shocks:\n  - The global financial crisis and the 2007 crisis contributed to widening earnings and income gaps between generations; in Europe, incomes declined for young people after the 2007 crisis due to unemployment and have since recovered but have not grown.\n  - The rise of the “gig” economy and increases in temporary contracts have further decreased job stability, particularly for the young.\n- IMF staff research focus: labor force data from the United Kingdom over the period 2001–2018, with analysis by gender and education level."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Non-college educated workers (United Kingdom, 2001–2018)",
      "content": "- Routine jobs:\n  - Non-college-educated workers are 5 to 15 percentage points less likely to be employed in routine jobs now than they were two decades ago.\n  - This decline has particularly impacted younger generations as middle-wage, middle-skill job opportunities evaporate.\n- Gender dimensions:\n  - Labor market opportunities for non-college educated young women appear most affected.\n  - They are increasingly likely to be employed in low-skill manual-based jobs.\n  - Their real wages over all occupations have fallen in the past two decades.\n  - Millennial women’s wages today are more than 10 percent lower than those of women in the baby boomer generation, almost double the gap that exists for their male counterparts."
    },
    {
      "heading": "College-educated workers (United Kingdom, 2001–2018)",
      "content": "- Education attainment and returns:\n  - The share of college-educated workers increased from 29 percent in 2001 to 45 percent in 2018.\n  - As attainment of higher education rises for younger generations, the returns to a university degree are falling.\n  - An undergraduate degree still leads to a much higher likelihood of having a “good job,” but it presents less of a guarantee than it did in the past in the United Kingdom.\n- Job task composition:\n  - The two criteria of a “good job” are wages and the extent of abstract-thinking in a job’s tasks, which can be complementary to technology.\n  - An abstract job is one that typically requires creative, problem-solving, and coordination tasks performed by professionals and managers.\n  - The share of abstract jobs among the highly-educated has fallen between 2001 and 2018.\n  - In recent years, both highly-educated male and female workers have become more likely to take middle-skill jobs compared to less-educated workers.\n  - For recent generations, a college education does less to ensure a high-paying job in an abstract job than it did for their parents.\n- Additional concern: The widening gap between the wages of the young and those of older people since the Global Financial Crisis, although narrowing more recently, remains of concern."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations",
      "content": "- Short-term responses:\n  - Create new opportunities for people displaced by automation, particularly for low-skilled workers.\n  - Support research and development fields to help employ college-educated workers in areas such as science and technology.\n  - Remove legal barriers to employment and allow for more flexible contracts to help more young people get jobs.\n- Long-term strategies:\n  - Education and skills training programs should prepare participants to meet the adjusted demands of the labor market.\n  - College graduates should be literate in, and easily capable of using, technology for their chosen sector.\n- Overarching focus: Policies should build skills to complement automation and reduce the impact of job displacement on workers both in the short and long run.\n\nThe Declining Fortunes of the Young, Era Dabla-Norris, Carlo Pizzinelli, Jay Rappaport, February 27, 2020\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- driven by technological progress and global integration.\n- incomes declined for young people after the 2007 crisis\n- New IMF staff research\n- https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-jobs-for-non-college-5.jpg\n- https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-wages-for-non-college-5.jpg\n- https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-college-educated-workers-3.jpg\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/02/27/the-declining-fortunes-of-the-young"
    }
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    "Authors: Era Dabla-Norris, Carlo Pizzinelli, Jay Rappaport",
    "Published: February 27, 2020",
    "Definition: millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000.",
    "Core concern: Despite being more educated than their parents, millennials may have less job stability during their working life.",
    "Structural shifts:",
    "Recent shocks:",
    "IMF staff research focus: labor force data from the United Kingdom over the period 2001–2018, with analysis by gender and education level.",
    "Routine jobs:",
    "Gender dimensions:",
    "Education attainment and returns:",
    "Job task composition:",
    "Additional concern: The widening gap between the wages of the young and those of older people since the Global Financial Crisis, although narrowing more recently, remains of concern.",
    "Short-term responses:",
    "Long-term strategies:",
    "Overarching focus: Policies should build skills to complement automation and reduce the impact of job displacement on workers both in the short and long run.",
    "[driven by technological progress and global integration.](https://blogs.imf.org/2017/04/14/the-hollowing-out-of-middle-skilled-labor-share-of-income/)",
    "[incomes declined for young people after the 2007 crisis](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2018/01/23/Inequality-and-Poverty-across-Generations-in-the-European-Union-45137)",
    "[New IMF staff research](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/10/11/Job-Polarization-and-the-Declining-Fortunes-of-the-Young-Evidence-from-the-United-Kingdom-48644)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-jobs-for-non-college-5.jpg](https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-jobs-for-non-college-5.jpg)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-wages-for-non-college-5.jpg](https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-wages-for-non-college-5.jpg)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-college-educated-workers-3.jpg](https://www.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/eng-feb-19-college-educated-workers-3.jpg)"
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