Between 2007 and 2009, we experienced what has come to be known as the Great Recession here in the United States, a period of economic decline when we saw the housing market collapse, income inequality increase, and per capita household wealth fall. This decline affected all generations of Americans but took an especially significant financial and emotional toll on millennials (those born between 1981-1996), who were just entering adulthood during these years. At a time when they expected to be enjoying the first tastes of independence, millennials instead found themselves facing an uncertain job market, declining wages, high student loan debt, and limited savings potential compared to previous generations. A 2018 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that people born in the 1980s had wealth levels that were 34 percent below where they would have been had there not been a recession. As a result of these circumstances, many millennials were forced to accept lower paying jobs, forego medical care, and delay major life changes, such as buying a home, getting married, and having children. Moreover, as one of the first highly “connected” generations, they found themselves increasingly turning to social media for information and escape, which ultimately served to foster comparisons and to heighten feelings of inadequacy. All these factors contributed to increasing rates of depression, stress, and anxiety among millennials, and research supports the notion that millennials were indeed already suffering from declining mental health when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit.
A study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association found that between 2014 and 2020, millennials reported a 43 percent increase in incidences of major depression and a 17 percent increase in substance use disorders. In addition, a 2019 poll found that 30 percent of millennials said that they felt lonely and had no friends, no close friends, or no best friends. This finding reflects the reality of an increasingly online world where many relationships exist solely via chats and “likes” on posts. It would stand to reason, then, that the changes wrought by the pandemic exacerbated these existing mental health concerns for millennials. In fact, a Harris Poll found that nearly one-third of millennials reported a further decline in their mental health due to the pandemic, while a survey by the American Psychological Association on Stress in America found that almost half of millennial respondents confirmed they were struggling with making day-to-day decisions due to stress. While baby boomers and those of the silent generation reported less stress and more financial security than millennials, likely due to having fewer work or family responsibilities and more savings and equity built over time, industries known to employ millennials were hard hit by the pandemic. Therefore, millennials were more likely to experience job loss or a reduction in pay. As a result, any financial recovery that they may have achieved following the recession was at risk of being hindered, if not reversed completely, leading to greater debt and less ability to save for the future. This caused some millennials to delay having children, to decide not to have children at all, or to leave the workforce to care for children in the face of high childcare expenses or lack of available care. Other millennials found themselves sandwiched between caring for young children and aging parents and wondering how to protect the health and well-being of both higher risk populations. Those whose companies transitioned to remote work found themselves struggling with the physical separation from their work teams, the loss of a primary support network, and an increased sense of disengagement and disconnection from work, while the closing of services they came to depend on for quality of life, such as restaurants and gyms, further led to symptoms of isolation, depression, and anxiety. It’s not surprising, then, that we saw an uptick in alcohol use, smoking, vaping, and overdoses among millennials during the pandemic as they tried to cope with their changing life circumstances and an uncertain future.
Despite increasing mental health concerns for millennials, they are one of the first generations willing to speak out about mental health needs and to advocate for support via policy changes at the organizational and governmental levels. In this way, they can be viewed as “change agents” in an ongoing conversation around destigmatizing mental health. As mentioned earlier, they are also heavily reliant on technology and social media, which has its pitfalls, but also provides a platform for normalizing conversations around seeking support, particularly when high profile individuals choose to share their own personal struggles publicly. It is interesting, then, that millennials are less likely than other generations to know what benefits are available to them through their employer, to be less comfortable disclosing symptoms of stress to their employer, or to be less honest about needing time off from work to attend mental health appointments. This reinforces the fact that many employers continue to treat mental health as a taboo topic, and it holds important implications for how employers can better support their millennial employees moving forward. When consulted, millennial employees have expressed that they would like their employers to:
- Create a healthy organizational culture that normalizes conversations around mental health starting from the top down
- Extend employee wellbeing benefits that are easy to understand and access and align with a whole-person care model
- Offer employees flexibility and control over their work schedules
- Prioritize technologies that make work more efficient
- Provide mentorship and development opportunities
Since millennials are projected to comprise 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, companies would do well to consider how they can begin implementing initiatives that address these needs so that they have the best chances of attracting and retaining employees of this generation. Some ideas include offering designated mental health days as part of a standard benefits package, establishing discussion groups at work for mental health support, developing and clearly communicating safe return-to-work plans, making greater use of mobile apps and interactive online learning tools as part of the onboarding and training process, and offering comprehensive employee wellbeing services, such as free or low-cost counseling, financial wellness programs, and childcare and eldercare resources.
For their part, millennial employees can be proactive in addressing their own mental health needs by limiting their exposure to social media and news channels, establishing fitness and other wellbeing practices at home, nurturing important relationships, even virtually, and seeking out personal therapy. All these efforts will serve to help millennials better manage the emotional and practical challenges of daily life in what is and will continue to be an unpredictable world.
