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Comment by jonawesomegreen | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't everyone want work-life balance? I don't think this is something restricted to millennials.

I think it's pretty easily explained in even just the fifth paragraph in: most bosses are baby boomers, with a stay at home spouse who takes care of household things (the "life" part of the balance), and they consider face time important. Most millenial couples OTOH are both working full time jobs, but willing to telecommute and have flexible hours, but are not permitted to, thereby leaving less time for the "life" part of that balance. It's basically a mismatch of perceptions and failure to understand what "work-life balance" actually means.

Baby Boomers lived through the most prosperous period in American history. They have roots. They're tied to the US.

Millennials have gotten shit on repeatedly, between the housing crisis, the student loan crisis (looming), and a subpar job market. They have less ties and more mobility.

As a Millennial with a 2200 sqft house, a job and no student loans I don't feel the same way.

But I guess in some way I was lucky (no student loans because I studied in an international school, which was much cheaper). And housing because I moved to a cheap area and telecommute to a company in Silicon Valley.

We in the tech industry are outliers.

How did the housing crisis affect millenials?

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/why-millennials-stuck-at-...

"The homeownership rate of the 30 year old cohort has tanked starting in 2007 with the market implosion. That is very clearly illustrated by the green line above. Why? These were the folks buying with toxic mortgages and timed the market very poorly (or simply had bad luck). The rate of those young adults living at home has gone up unabated since 1999. Of course the increase in home prices has been driven by investors and this will simply make it harder on a cohort with lower incomes and much higher levels of student debt.

It is safe to say that many more young Americans will be renting deep into their adulthood. It is also safe to say given the current cost of college that many more young Americans will be coming back home to live with mom and dad. The Fed’s findings are simply reinforcing this trend."

It's a shame that "living with mom and dad" is taken as failure in the US. If the situation could be a happy one, it seems like a nice way to do things.

Cultural norms take time to change :/

There is that old work hard mentality that your work ethic makes you a man in society. Below someone states men worked and women stayed at hoe to take care of the "life" part. Also in the way that many people grow up to work where their father did and much more was on you to be there working hard and have face time.

These days most companies can save money and hire more people if they allowed people to work form home or where ever they were. Most sales, leadership, tech support, software engineering, etc can be done from anywhere outside of the office with the technology these days. Computers and phones are mobile anywhere.

Companies wouldn't have to worry about getting bigger offices, facilities, cubicles, and other exenses with an office full of people.

No; workaholics are plentiful, especially among startup founders. Some people, when asked what they would do with an extra ten non-burnt-out hours in the day, truly respond "get another ten hours of work done!"

Which is a fine attitude to have, as long as you don't impose it on others and work regulations don't cater to that choice.

We should not all be slaves for the minority of workaholics. I don't mind that you hustle, I'd rather have a beer at the beach with my wife, work 4 days a week, and lead a more simple life.

"The days are long but the years are short."

Founders don't count as workers in my mind. For a founder, work is the hobby. No one wishes they could be working for someone else 10 more hours and plenty of people want to work on productive things in their off hours.

That's different, as they directly reap the benefits of doing that work. If I were to stay another 10 hours at my job, I would receive precisely dick, as I'm sure most of us would.

Perhaps the suggestion is the millennials are doing something about it, where previous generations didn't. It's unfortunate if they feel emigration is the only available solution.

But it's easy to say you'd like to emigrate. Actually doing so takes some dedication. Are there any statistics on that?

Agreed.

Also: I'm gonna go ahead and say that statements about what "Millennials" want/do/buy/are/read/smell/eat/whatever are about as dumb as any other kind of blanket statement.

The only consistent parts of the various definitions of "millennials" I've heard are "human" and "younger than the person making the claim".

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