Gen what?: debunking age-based myths about worker preferences

It's no secret that the relationships between people and their work, and between employees and employers, have changed dramatically in recent years. The composition of the workforce is evolving, too, and quickly. As the youngest workers become an ever-larger share of the workforce - by some measures, Gen Zers could comprise more than one-quarter of the global workforce by 2025 - it's easy to turn to generational stereotypes for clues about what these employees, and their older peers, want from their work experience. Conventional wisdom supposes that different generations have different...  [+] Show more

It's no secret that the relationships between people and their work, and between employees and employers, have changed dramatically in recent years. The composition of the workforce is evolving, too, and quickly. As the youngest workers become an ever-larger share of the workforce - by some measures, Gen Zers could comprise more than one-quarter of the global workforce by 2025 - it's easy to turn to generational stereotypes for clues about what these employees, and their older peers, want from their work experience. Conventional wisdom supposes that different generations have different attitudes about work. But our research suggests that work preferences are more similar than different across age groups.

To better understand labor market trends, we conducted two surveys of workers. The first survey was completed in April 2022 and comprised a global sample of 13,386 workers from Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The second survey was completed in September 2022 and focused on workers in Europe (16,246 people from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland) and the Middle East (3,164 people from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Both surveys included people of working age across 16 industries. Our analysis included only traditional workers, or those respondents reporting a traditional employer-employee relationship in which the employer hires the employee, pays them directly, and manages their work. It excludes nontraditional workers, such as online and platform workers, freelancers and consultants, contract workers, business owners, day laborers, and seasonal workers.

Edited excerpts from publication.