40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric as this is the millennials who are around the age of 40: they earn 2,000 euros a month, live worse than their parents and are known as "geriatric".

This year the first millennials turn 40 and it's time to take stock. It is not very well known why, but much of Spanish society confuses the young generation Z with millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, who are now between 25 and 40 years old, and are pigeonholed in what sociologists call generation Y.

It could be said that they are a sandwich generation, being in the middle of two well-differentiated generational groups, generation X and generation Z: the purely analog and the digital natives.

But perhaps the most significant characteristic of this group, which, with 8.5 million people, represents 18% of the Spanish population, is that they are a generation marked by two major economic crises, in 2008 and 2020.

When the Great Recession broke out in 2008, the youngest were adolescents and the oldest were between 27 and 28 years old, an age at which a certain vital fullness was assumed. Instead came the rise in unemployment and the worsening of wages and, with them, an enormous difficulty in accessing housing or having children. They are often said to be "the first generation that will live worse than their parents", at least based on different indicators.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

As if that were not enough, when macroeconomic waters were somewhat calmer, came the economic crisis derived from the coronavirus pandemic, last year, with consequences that have been equated with the effects that a war would have for the already battered Spanish economy.

It is impossible to make an accurate x-ray of an entire generation and the reality of a 25-year-old who, hopefully, is starting his working life, perhaps it does not resemble that of someone who is suffering the crisis of the 40. So below you will find a portrait of what is known of the talluditos millennials, known as geriatric, those who are well into their thirties or just turned 40.

In an article published in Medium that went viral a few months ago on the internet, the author and expert in leadership Erica Dhawan called the microgeneration in which the 40-year-old millennial is framed as "geriatric millennials", which she defines as those born between 1980 and 1985. What distinguishes them is, above all, their experience with technology.

Who are they? How do you think? Is it true that they live worse than their parents?

Perhaps it is unfair to define them as the egocentric and selfish generation that many sociologists draw, perhaps focusing more on characteristics linked to youth. However, some aspects can be generalized.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

According to the 2018 report, The Vital Perspectives of Young people, prepared by the company Myword, of the former president of CIS Belén Barreiro, for the European Parliament, millennials are the generation that is perceived as the one that lives or will live worse. Especially in economic and political issues associated with socio-economic inequality, access to housing, employment and the political situation.

The study points out that "perhaps as a result of the context in which millennials have grown up (unemployment, job insecurity, difficulty to emancipate themselves, etc.)", they have had to reorder their vital priorities. "It is considered that this generation values more than the previous aspects related to the enjoyment of life such as having leisure time, being free, living unique experiences and working on what they like," said the report.

For half of millennials, their main concern is unemployment. As the Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020 shows, it is for 47% and it is not free.

To see the evolution of unemployment, it is enough to compare the rate among those under 25 years of age in 2005, in the years of economic boom, with respect to those of this year, with the pandemic effect already underway. At the time, the youth unemployment rate was half, around 20% compared to 40% today.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

At that time, the early school leaving rate was over 30% and today, although it is still the second highest in the European Union, it has fallen to 16%. Higher education has also been progressing and has doubled since the first millennials were born until now, although this does not involve a high-wage job.

The endemic problem of unemployment in Spain, together with the distrust generated towards the banking sector, result in only 17% of Spanish millennials expected their financial situation to improve in 2021, according to the consultancy. In the rest of the countries surveyed, this indicator stood at 30%, which shows that the mentality of the Spanish generation Y is more pessimistic (or realistic) than in other countries of our environment.

The stark lessons of the two major economic crises that this generation has experienced in the first person, have caused them to become more conservative regarding their job expectations. Especially in the wake of the pandemic. According to the aforementioned Deloitte survey, there has been a decrease in the rate indicating the desire to change jobs in the next 2 years.

"Only 35% of millennials bet on changing companies for the 55% that was registered in the 2019 edition", point out from the consultancy, which also points out that the desire to continue working in the same company for a period of more than 5 years has grown: 35% compared to 23% in 2019.

This search for greater job stability corresponds to the difference in income between the families of older millennials with respect to the baby boom generation. The heads of households composed of boomers have an annual income of about 10,000 euros above millennials between 30 and 40 years.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

According to the report of the Bank of Spain The COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the economic conditions of the young generations, the income of heads of households composed of people under 35 years of age is around 22,000 euros per year. A figure that rises to almost 31,000 in the case of those who contribute the most in households between 35 and 44 years.

The latter perceive something less than the baby boom generation. The heads of households of Spanish households made up of people between 55 and 64 years of age are around 33,000 euros, these being the ones with the highest income among all the layers of the population.

All age groups were affected at the wage level by the 2008 crisis, but as can be seen in the graph of the Social Observatory La Caixa, millennials were the most affected, especially the youngest.

After the bursting of the housing bubble, housing became one of the main problems for millennials. And it still is today, according to the figures, which indicate that just over half manage to buy one.

According to the INE, 63.8% of Spaniards between 30 and 44 years old had a house in ownership in 2017. If we distinguish by sex, men who had bought a house amounted to 67.1 per cent, compared with 58.6 per cent for women. In the next age group, between 45 and 64 years, the percentage rises to 80%, with virtually no difference between men and women.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

With housing prices rising since the 1990s and wages lower than those of the previous generation, the result has been that the effort to buy a home by a medium-sized household has skyrocketed. In the 80s a family could buy an apartment of almost 100 square meters with the equivalent of 3 years of gross income. Currently it would take about 7 years for a similar typology.

Birth is another aspect that helps to shape this population group. The better conditions of millennials compared to later generations is reflected in the birth rate.

Spanish women of 40 years have twice as many children as those of 23, despite the fact that the first women are not in the ideal age to be mothers (12,241 births compared to 6,266). The age at which most women have children in Spain is 34 years (26,361 births in 2019, according to Statista).

The bulk of births in Spain are to mothers aged between 31 and 37 (above 20,000 in all intervening years). However, it is striking that in our country women aged 22 and 42 have approximately the same children. In fact the latter have some more: 5,389 the first, in 2019, by the 5,863 of the second.

These data correspond to before the pandemic, which has caused a fall in the birth rate, according to the provisional data of the INE for 2020, which indicate a fall of around 20%. The National Institute of Statistics also warns of a worrying delay in motherhood, with an increase of 41.1% compared to a decade ago in the total number of mothers aged 40 or over.

40 years old millennials 2000 euros month living geriatric

At a technological level, they are the not-so-young people who have listened to music on a walkman, then on CD and then on Napster. He has watched countless movies on VHS and has spent much of his childhood playing on the street or in arcades.

They have also been the first to experience firsthand the technological revolution that has meant the arrival of new technologies such as the internet or smartphones, which have completely transformed the world in a few years.

Today they develop with ease with the latest technological innovations, but many of them have engraved in the retina the infernal noise that the first routers made to connect to the network from the PC, the sound of Messenger notifications or those first Nokia phones that weighed as much as a brick, but were even more resistant.

They can also be a valuable asset for many companies in a hybrid working age. With the skills of older and younger generations, they can bridge the communication styles that may exist between teams made up of different age groups. For example, a geriatric millennial knows how to send a Slack message to a Gen Z coworker instead of calling them suddenly, which might be alarming to some. But they also know they need to help older peers learn how to use video calling platforms like Zoom.

Cultural changes have also been seen in terms of the spiritual aspect. According to the CIS, in 1981, when the first millennials were born, only 20% of the young people of that time said they were atheist or agnostic. Today they are almost 60%.

The European Parliament survey asked the millennial sample what they thought had improved their lives compared to their parents'. Of course they did not highlight the economic aspects and focused on the social areas, on issues such as access to information, leisure and culture, freedom, gender equality or family reconciliation.