Among the interesting disciplines to track, which can have some bearing on the field of career development, is urban studies and its cousin, demographics. Just as a demographic change in basic assumptions occurred fifty or so years ago, resulting in greater population mobility driven by employment opportunities, we are now possibly on the cusp of another such megatrend.
This time, population mobility may be slowing down. Is this a back-to-the-future swing? Perhaps a bit so, but it is not entirely being driven by a regressive return to the good old days. Two significant factors may be at play according to Joel Kotkin of Chapman University, http://www.joelkotkin.com/ among others.
One is that Generation X, the workforce cohort roughly between the ages of 30 and 45, appears to be placing traditional family values at high priority in that they elevate the importance of family to that of career. This is expressed to a degree very differently from the Greatest Generation and the Boomers who felt that work came first.
If a better job offer came from Bakersfield, then kids help pack up the station wagon, because we are leaving Binghamton. Apparently, these Xers are finding that establishing community roots and multi-generational family ties has tangible benefits like reduced stress, anxiety, and social/familial isolation.
The up-rootedness, high divorce rates, and latch-key acceptance of their parents have helped to push Xers toward stability, pragmatism, and the concept that makes Boomer managers everywhere cringe, work-life balance.
And can you blame the Xers? An unintended consequence of trashing the traditional values of the Greatest Generation (and don’t get me wrong, many of them needed challenging) was that we pushed our kids to become socially more conservative in some deep ways. Some serious good has come out of the way Xers were raised. They were instilled with the desire to be good parents and it is not a big leap from that value to the one of wanting to be a solid member of a local community.
I remember as young Boomer, we thought we were so gloriously liberated. We were the generation of change, quick to challenge old assumptions and antiquated behaviors. Well, as it turns out, living life free of the shackles of anyone over thirty inspired us counterintuitively to become workaholics. We worked more hours per day and more days per year than most industrialized societies.
We have gained much wealth and ego fulfillment, but we do not seem to have induced our children to emulate us. Now, as we near retirement, the truth that we have not been as liberated as we thought we were has become evident. Yes, Boomers have redefined the workplace, but not as we envisioned thirty to forty years ago.
Secondly, technology is allowing for reverse mobility. With advances in cloud computing, telecommuting, social media, and teleconferencing there is less need to physically travel when the contacts needed for work can increasingly be had at home or the local office. This in combination with the corporate trend toward decentralized workplaces allows productive, high-quality work to be done locally, if not at home.
At some point soon, home-based employees or subcontractors will surpass the number of those taking mass transit to work, resulting in more availability to family, friends, and local businesses. Ubiquitous computing means that contacts can be ever-present. Face to face can still happen. It will just be remote.
As Xers make their mark on the world it will continue to be interesting, if not entertaining, to see what kind of hybrid lifestyles they will make out of traditional and novel values. Perhaps, the result of their efforts to achieve individual work-life balance will be a more widespread and beneficial social balance between individualism and strong communities. Now, that would be an accomplishment.
