Is A Job Just A Paycheck?

For Younger Workers It Seems So. Is That What's Wrong With Them?

For young Americans, a job is nothing more than a paycheck.

That is one of the takeaways from The ADP Research Institute’s 2024 People At Work survey¹, which found that workers within the Generation Z population cohort were the least likely to prioritize daily enjoyment over pay when assessing their job situations.

As adults aged 25 to 34 settle into the workplace and begin to advance in their careers, they’re less likely than any other group to make day-to-day enjoyment a top job priority (26%).

By comparison, 40% of workers aged 55 and up rated daily enjoyment as the most important aspect of a job, with workers aged 45-54 not too far off the pace at 33%.

This mercenary trend is apparently a distinctly American phenomenon, as workers in Europe of all ages appear a great deal less concerned about the size of the paycheck and more.

This lack of concern for satisfaction and even enjoyment while at work is not merely noteworthy, it is also a further indication of the generational decline in mental health that has been taking place for the past several decades.

Some of this shift may be environmental, reflective of the different economic and societal crises each generation has had to endure as they first moved into the workforce.

The findings suggest millennials have been broken down by years of unrewarded graft and have formed a detachment from their personal happiness in the workplace, meaning a deprioritization of their happiness for 40 hours a week.

Older millennials graduated into the financial crisis, meaning a tighter job market that removed the luxury of choice enjoyed by predecessors. Younger millennials and Gen Z likewise have faced the turmoil of a pandemic, generationally high inflation, and rising interest rates just as they settle into their careers.

As a result, they now appear ready to lock in for longer stretches of more intense hours in search of financial security.

Indeed, there does appear to be a general apprehension among millennials and Generation Z workers that their work situations are perhaps more economically precarious than prior generations. According to a survey by the Thriving Center of Psychology, millennials especially do not believe they either have the time or the finances for the almost cliched “mid-life crisis”.

However, this should not be taken as an indicator of emotional or economic stability among millennials. On the contrary, millennials are reporting the exact opposite situation.

So far, 64% of Millennials have experienced a life crisis, with nearly 2 in 5 (39%) experiencing one in 2024. When undergoing this type of crisis, Millennials commonly deal with five types of mental health struggles

Additionally, millennials especially are not happy with their life situation.

Nearly 1 in 2 (49%) Millennials feel trapped by their life. Most feel trapped because of money, life circumstances, themselves, or a compilation of all those things. Statistics show that 70% are not where they thought they’d be at this point in their life. 

“Being told the same old tropes of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, getting married at a young age, buying your own home after getting your “adult” job, etc. leads to feelings of inadequacy,” said Dr. De Gannes. “When most to all of your goals are unreachable or further from reach than they were before, we compare to those that have succeeded on social media, and access to mental health support seems like a distant luxury, it is easy to fall into a feeling of being trapped.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a sense among millennials that how older generations perceive them is part of the problem.

Full disclosure: I am in the Generation X age cohort. Arguably, that would make any bias I have regarding millennials and Generation Z a factor here.

Yet this latest data also merely restates the reality that there are generational differences at play here. Perhaps most notably, Millenials and Generation Z workers are generally less “purpose-driven” than their GenX and Baby Boomer co-workers.

Conventional wisdom paints Gen Z candidates as especially idealistic — that they’re more “purpose-driven” than previous generations, more concerned with making an “impact,” and more likely to prioritize their “personal values” when choosing an employer. 

The conventional wisdom is wrong. 

In fact, the exact opposite is true: Baby Boomers, the oldest generation in the workforce, are the most likely to prioritize their impact and personal values. 

According to the Future Of Recruiting 2024 survey² by business-oriented social media platform LinkedIn, older job candidates are consistently more likely to prioritize socially oriented factors such as “impact” over personal priorities and values.

While some of this may be reflective of Baby Boomers being presumptively more economically secure than their younger Millenial and GenZ co-workers, there is no escaping what the data is saying about younger workers—they are less idealistic and more likely to view a job a little more than a paycheck.

Why? As we said, it does make common sense: Older generations are more likely to have established their careers and built a respectful nest egg — they have the latitude and luxury to pursue their passions and prioritize their personal values. 

Maybe Gen Z and younger generations are more vocal about social issues; maybe they elevate different issues, or express their concerns in a different way than older generations would. 

But none of that implies that they’re overly idealistic or disconnected from reality — on the contrary, Gen Z’s most unique priorities are rooted in the concrete reality of their economic livelihoods and long-term earning potential. 

Far from being idealistic or purpose-driven, GenZ and millennial workers are far more likely to be concerned about purely personal priorities, such as advancement and skills training.

Yet we must also not lose sight of the possibility that this mercenary egocentric focus among younger workers appears to come at a cost: declining mental and emotional health.

Teach The New Dogs Old Tricks

A Gallup poll from September of last year showed that “Generation Z”—those born from the mid-1990s through the early 2000s—are experiencing significantly lower levels of self-assessed mental health than earlier generations:

A smaller share of Gen Z is thriving compared to millennials at the same age, and members of Gen Z are far less likely to describe their mental health as “excellent,” according to a new study.

“Less than half (47%) of Gen Z Americans are thriving in their lives — among the lowest across all generations in the U.S. today and a much lower rate than millennials at the same age,” a report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation said.

What often gets overlooked about this study data is that, just as millennials are doing better than Gen Z Americans, Gen X Americans are doing better than millennials, and Baby Boomers are doing better than Gen X Americans, if we look at the percentages self-reporting poor mental health.

While this data does not let us prove conclusively that GenZ work attitudes are directly responsible for their generally poor mental health, this data does raise that possibility into a probability.

Indeed, many Baby Boomers eligible for retirement are either postponing retirement or choosing to “unretire” and re-enter the workforce.

If you ask George Jerjian to describe retirement, he’ll use one word: “Boring.”

He initially stopped working in 2007 because of a health scare at age 52. His health improved within the year, leaving him to enjoy the newfound freedom that should accompany one’s golden years. 

Instead, Jerjian said his “enthusiasm and energy diminished” within 10 years, leaving him feeling “restless and stuck.” At 62, he decided to formally “unretire” by launching his own coaching company to help others “achieve a more fulfilling retirement” than he had.

To be sure, a part of the rationale behind this trend is the longer lives people are expected to have in retirement—and the need to ensure retirement funds last as long as the remainder of one’s life!

One driving factor? We’re living longer. By the United Nations’ estimate, the entire world had just 27,000 centenarians in 1970. Now, the global centenarian count tops 500,000 and could be headed as high as 3.5 million in 2050.

And boredom on a budget isn’t anyone’s idea of a post-career peak. “Depending on when you plan to retire, you may have another 30, 40, 50 or more years of life — and that’s a long time to drift aimlessly,” Jerjian said.

Inflation is still sticky, interest rates are unlikely to fall by much and surveys show that most people haven’t been saving enough to live comfortably in retirement. Making extra money was the most common factor driving some Americans back to the workforce, according to a recent AARP survey.

Still, when we look at ongoing mental health crises in this country, such as the loneliness epidemic, we must at least explore the possibility that the work attitudes among younger generations are contributing their mental and physical health issues.

The Loneliness Epidemic

Loneliness and social isolation are emerging in a variety of ways in people, underscoring that this is no small mental health concern. A recent poll by the APA shows Americans to be more anxious, feeling more stressed, and getting less sleep.

When asked about a list of lifestyle factors potentially impacting mental health, adults most commonly say stress (53%) and sleep (40%) have the biggest impact on their mental health. Younger adults (18-34 years old) are more likely than older adults (50+) to say social connection has the biggest impact on their mental health. Despite the increasing anxiety, most adults have not sought professional mental health support. In 2024, just one in four (24%) adults say they talked with a mental health care professional in the past year. Notably, younger adults (18-34) are more than twice as likely as older adults (50+) to have done so.

With younger adults more keenly aware of the impacts their social connections (or lack thereof) have on mental and physical health, is there at least a possibility that their more self-centered approach to work is contributing to their lower mental and emotional health?

At a minimum, we must acknowledge the growing body of research showing that psychotherapy—”talking”—is at least as helpful in treating symptoms of depression as antidepressant medication.

Are Antidepressants The Wrong Answer For Depression?

What gets left barely acknowledged, however, is the existence of research suggesting that psychotherapy is at least as effective at treating depression than antidepressants. That was the clear conclusion of a 2005 study2 comparing antidepressant medication efficacy against cognitive therapy (psychotherapy).

Cognitive therapy can be as effective as medications for the initial treatment of moderate to severe major depression, but this degree of effectiveness may depend on a high level of therapist experience or expertise.

Even though antidepressants do work for some patients, across broad patient demographics cognitive therapies are shown to work better for more people, and should be promoted over antidepressants.

Without venturing into the weeds of the relative merits of medication vs psychotherapy, that data stands as yet another reaffirmation of the importance of strong social connections and healthy social support networks in maintaining anyone’s individual mental health. Our mental health is demonstrably connected to the degree to which we are engaged in our communities and the wider world around us.

Focusing one’s work energies on personal priorities such as pay rises, advancement, and upskilling might accelerate the pace at which those priorities can be realized, but they are still personal priorities. They represent an inward vision of self, not an outward vision of something beyond self.

To be clear, we cannot simply dismiss economic concerns for any worker, and especially for younger workers seeking to establish their economic independence. The post-COVID era has not, by and large, been an era of expanding real incomes in the United States, but rather has been an era where inflation has eroded real incomes.

The Not-So-Hidden Costs Of Inflation

For any young person hoping to own their own home, or start a family, issues such as pay and advancement are naturally going to be of great significance, and should be.

Yet there is no escaping the reality that a full-time job is the arena where we will have our greatest opportunities for social connection and social engagement as adults. When we work 40 hours per week, there are simply not enough hours left in the week for other activities to present nearly as many such opportunities as a rule.

An argument can surely be made, then, that even younger workers struggling to establish themselves would do well to remember these social dimensions of the workplace, and the importance of those social dimensions on a person’s mental as well as physical health. Even when a paycheck is our primary priority, work-based relationships, and indeed our overall relationship to the work itself, are essential ingredients in our mental, emotional, and physical health.

Would younger workers benefit from giving greater consideration to socially-oriented job priorities such as “impact”? The data says they should at least be mindful of the possibility.

Younger workers regard a job as just a paycheck. That might just be what’s wrong with them.

1. The ADP Research Institute. People at Work 2024: A Global Workforce View. ADP Research Institute, 2024, https://www.adpri.org/assets/people-at-work-2024-a-global-workforce-view/.

2. LinkedIn Talent Solutions. The Future of Recruiting  2024. Linked In Talent Solutions, 2024, https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/resources/future-of-recruiting.