Generation Y Care?

Every Saturday night, Main Street in Manayunk crawls with 21-28 year-olds looking to let loose and party with their friends. They easily throw down $40 for a quick sushi dinner and pay $8 a martini until the bars close down at 2am. Most are college-educated, live in comfortable apartments or still at home and work in a professional, office atmosphere. In cities all over the country, members of ‘Generation Y’ live a fast-paced, faux-glamorous lifestyle where instant gratification is demanded and success is measured by the higher number BMW they drive or the cost of a designer handbag. Meanwhile, more than three billion people around the world live on less than $2 a day. And only 15 minutes away in North Philadelphia, the poverty rate exceeds 56%. Are the children of the baby boomer generation aware or knowledgeable on the issues that concern the impoverished lower class of the inner city? Or are they simply uninterested and don’t care about anything other than their own lives and their own success?

This research project will seek to discover the average middle-class, young professional attitudes towards the city’s poor. It will find out if living distance from the inner city makes any difference in their opinions and expose the cause of these views, whether it is race or gender related, religious background, family history, career path or political affiliation. Generation Y are the future leaders of America and the issues they care about concern every citizen. Unfortunately, too many young professionals are more concerned with material possessions and getting ahead financially than they are about social issues and helping those in need. By understanding what drives and what is important to young, working adults, we can market global issues on a level that best reaches them. Maybe there is something else a 24-year old would rather be doing on a Saturday night than getting wasted with his friends or watching endless hours of television. Maybe they do care about poverty, health care and affordable housing, but no outlet has ever caught their attention or convinced them that their help is needed. The findings of this research will provide a base of knowledge when it comes to targeting volunteers from the young professional class.

Prior research on this subject has been mostly along the lines of understanding youth in America and preventing them from making bad choices. Once people reach their early twenties, they have pretty much established their lifestyle and goals, especially those in the working world. As one starts to get older, new interests and activities wane and the relationships one makes influences the issues they care about and the concerns they have. Most volunteers come from teenagers or retirees. Those in the middle of life are more focused on themselves or their families than on understanding social issues, but there are several groups made up of young professionals that come together to raise awareness for issues and donate time and money to charity. The Young Professional’s Group of LA works with local homeless shelters and the National Urban League of Young Professionals is a network that provides volunteering opportunities for other young professionals. CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) has funded studies on the beliefs and attitudes of Generation Y, including studies on faith, political involvement, diversity and education and research on young adults’ attitudes towards the welfare system has also been done at the University of Iowa. There are several young professionals organizations in Philadelphia, but all of them focus on social activities rather than volunteering.


Along with interviews and surveys as a basis for data collection, a documentary will also be filmed simultaneously to get the “feel” and “tone” of the attitudes of young adults. Interviews will take place in public settings, with all subjects unknown to the researcher. An equal amount of female and male subjects will be chosen and age, background and career status will be questioned. Problems that may arise could be fabrication of background and opinions by subjects if on appearing on camera and wanting to portray a certain image. Other problems may include lack of background information and prior research examples, but all in all, this proposal appears manageable.