Indian Millennials Have Grown Up

Millennials are an age cohort defined in America as those born between 1981 and 1996. Globally, this generation is perceived as one which owes more than it owns. In the US, for example, lower incomes, higher debts and fewer assets have made this generation come across as worse off than the pre-millennial generation (GenX) on various counts.

Indian millennials? They differ. Both millennials and post-millennials think they live a more comfy life than their parents, fresh data from the latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey show. Even pre-millennials think their lives have been better than that of their parents, the survey shows.

Eight in ten millennials surveyed said they were better off than where their parents were at the same age, responses from the latest round show. Among post-millennials (or Gen Z adults), this figure is similar (77%).

Globalization, since 1991's liberalization, created new vocations, increased earnings and spurred consumerism into developing countries, while it relocated manufacturing from the West to the East, or the Global South in some sense, effectively offshoring opportunities in the West. The consequence for India is a millennial generation which has far greater material comforts than their parents could afford. A majority even believe they have better relationships than their parents did. 

Liberalization is the founding moment for Indian millennials. Rama Bijapurkar, co-founder of People Research on India’s Consumer Economy, calls them "Liberalization Children" (LC). The cohort has witnessed India's transition to an open economy. There was coloured TV (1982), rule of Rajiv Gandhi and the so-dubbed light reforms interspersed between 1981 and 1991, which followed LPG reforms, and the subsequent decontrolling until 1994. The reforms worked together to throw open a cornucopia of opportunities.

More than 85% of the LC are married. This is the first generation which was born outside the socialist phase of India's politics and has had consumption encouraged, not frowned upon. Having a [consumerist] consumption perception of the post-LPG era, their large numbers (30% of population), drove India's consumption growth, caused real GDP-linked income increases. No generation before could do so much.

But let this not blind us. It is also a fact that most of the millennials are rurals, only 10-13% have college degrees. Salaried earners are a minority; most are engaged in casual labour or less rewarding forms of self-employment.

With modest incomes, their consumption attitudes differ from their contemporaries in the West. They spend pragmatically on affordable utilities and their consumerist spirits — which are albeit strong — are rooted in past conservative sensibilities. 

The LC symbolize the birth of Indian Consumerism. However, the next generation is far more disruptive, and has shown what one may call a "gap-up opening." Born after 1996, this group is known as Gen Z in America. The Indian government prefers to call them 'Digizens.' The oldest is under 23 years old. All born after the Y2K which pushed India's software giant identity. 

An interesting observation, originally by Mr Rama Bijapurkar, to conclude with is this: Pew Research, USA, says the baby boomers grew in under the influence of the TV explosion, GenX under the computer revolution, millennials under the internet revolution. However, in India's context, millenials grew up under the convergence of two revolutions: the coloured TV and the computer, the true poster-children of liberalization. The digizens were born in the midst of the internet revolution.

As the economy picks up again, millennials and their digizen children are poised to break the upper circuit of consumption, yet again.

Asish Singh is a Star Correspondent at The Times of India and an incoming freshman at Ashoka University.