A basket of fruit, a table tennis table and a foot massage after two hours of work – this is how boomers like to interpret the term “work-life balance”. Whenever labor market studies deal with the ideas of Millennials and Generation Z. Most recently, Europa-Park boss Roland Mack, who rumbled a few weeks ago that 25-year-olds only want to work three days a week and that home office is also a “huge problem”.
The younger ones are concerned with something that really shouldn’t be apologized for: finding the balance between work and life. There is nothing new about this: the introduction of the 40-hour week in the 1960s brought with it a separation between earning a living and leisure time.
What is new, however, is that this separation – even before the corona pandemic – has been steadily blurred. Some employers fuel this: by being constantly available via company cell phones or e-mails, massages at the workplace and some self-improvement workshops in which you are supposed to show yourself vulnerable and authentic in front of colleagues.
Accordingly, the “young generation” is not generally selfish, lazy or self-centered – attributes that are often used in this context. It proves that in many sectors: hospitals employ comparatively cheap young assistant doctors, who often work several night shifts a week. The business model of strategy consultancies and agencies is based on well-trained university graduates who long for a 60-hour week.
The fact that two generations of a baby boomer generation is generally assumed to be lazy is just as stupid as the accusation against these same boomers that after 27 semesters of sociology, ethnology and economics they only started working at the age of 30, and then only 30 years later to retire.
The background to this (supposed) generational conflict is – unsurprisingly – the demographic change that is slowly but surely affecting the German labor market. According to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW), the working-age population will shrink from the current 53.1 million to 50.1 million in 2035. In order to counteract this unemployment, we have to do what works best otherwise: let the market take care of itself.
Of course there are some employees who let themselves be fobbed off with an office rabbit, a funky summer party or modern indulgences (leadership training instead of more salary). But the real talent comes and stays when employers offer permanent contracts, opportunities for advancement, paid overtime or a solid salary that, in addition to rent including heating, can also pay for more than a filling of the refrigerator.
When it comes to the accusation that young employees are too demanding, it is easy to forget that many younger people actually have a reason to demand more. A look at the current figures from the Federal Statistical Office shows that almost a third of young employees (29.2 percent) in Germany are in so-called atypical contractual relationships. This means part-time, fixed-term positions, temporary work or marginal employment.
If then the state opens its hand so wide even with low salaries or a small salary increase, then the demand for more free time is perhaps the only alternative.