It was the first day after the new year holiday when I visited a friend's house in suburban Los Angeles. Her parents were still visiting for the holidays, clanking pots and pans in the kitchen, as my friend and I sat in the living room with her two children: Leo, 14, and Julia, 16.

Julia and Leo attend a private high school quite a distance from home. Julia recently got her driver's license, so she often drives them to school each day. Both are somewhat quiet and introverted, but I eventually got the children to open up by asking what they wanted from a future job. Julia said, "A job that helps me earn money – just enough, not too much." Leo stated, "I want a job that makes me happy." Julia interjected, "I just want a job I don't hate." She continued, "I want a job that doesn't consume my entire life and pays a decent wage. I don't want jobs that take up too much time, like being a lawyer, for example." Both agreed that money would be their top priority when choosing a job.

This perspective differs from common assumptions about the young workforce. Currently, it is often believed that the Millennial generation seeks interesting and inherently satisfying jobs. According to this popular assumption, young employees today would leave a job if they didn't find much joy in their work.

However, longitudinal data reveals a more realistic picture of the iGen generation, and even Millennials. Compared to previous generations at the same age, a slightly lower percentage of iGen and late Millennial individuals value intrinsic rewards from work. These rewards include an interesting job where they can learn new things and see the results of their efforts. Like Julia, many iGen individuals simply hope for a job they do not hate doing hang ngay.

Another major trend is the decline in the importance of social attributes at work, such as making friends in the workplace and having a job that allows interaction with many people. The iGen generation shows less interest in these aspects. Similar to their reduced in-person interaction with friends in their free time, they also exhibit less enthusiasm for face-to-face social interactions at work. This might surprise many generation consultants.

Based on cross-sectional studies, consultants often assume that Millennials and iGen care more about the social aspects of work. However, young employees' interest in social activities may be more related to age than to generation. When unmarried and without children, young people often have more time and a greater need for social engagement. Yet, when compared to previous generations at the same age, iGen shows less interest in making friends in the workplace.

Remote work combined with in-office presence is an increasingly popular trend. *Photo: Pexels*

Overall, what many Boomer and GenX individuals cherished most in their work—such as interesting tasks or close colleagues—is less significant for iGen. What they need is simply a job. Jordan, 23, wrote, "We should care less about whether a job is interesting or encourages creativity, because those things don't bring in much money. That's why so many people my age are carrying 100,000 US dollars in student debt but working at Starbucks."

The practicality of the iGen generation also extends to their view on work-life balance—the idea that work should not overshadow other aspects of life. When my colleagues and I analyzed this data in 2006, valuing leisure time was the most prominent generational difference. Compared to the Boomer generation, Millennials had a significantly higher tendency to desire jobs with more time off, a more relaxed pace, less supervision, and more time for other life activities. However, iGen has somewhat tempered those expectations, bringing the desire for work-life balance back to early 1990s levels.

Perhaps having grown up during the Great Recession, iGen holds a more realistic view of work and its demands. iGen may also be reversing one of the most notable trends in young people's work attitudes: the decline in the belief that work will play a central role in their lives. The Millennial generation simply did not believe that work would be as important to them as the Boomer generation once did. They wanted to focus more on other aspects of life. In contrast, iGen has reversed this trend, bringing the importance placed on work's central role back to levels comparable to the GenX generation in the 1990s—though still significantly lower than the Boomers' emphasis on work in the 1970s.

A similar trend emerges when considering the level of disagreement with the statement, "Work is nothing more than a way to make a living." In this aspect, iGen has halted the previous decline but has not yet improved it. Like Julia, many iGen individuals do not want jobs that "take over their lives."

Part 1, To be continued

(Excerpt from "iGen - the smartphone generation" by Jean M. Twenge, translated by Nguyen Tuan Linh, published by Alpha Books)