Millennial Women in the Workplace: 10 Things You May Not Know
Written by Melissa Schenkman, MPH, MSJ
What’s different about today’s workplace when it comes to being a woman in your 20s, 30s, and 40s?
For one thing, what we value in a role and ultimately require is very different from previous generations (women who we are very grateful to for paving the way for us).
Recently, a friend of mine got offered a great contract position with a national and very well-known healthcare organization. It is an organization that can take years to get your “foot in the door,” so the opportunity was very exciting for her. That is until she got down to the fine print. The job offered no paid time off and wanted employees to work extra hours each day if they had to even take one day off in a year.
While just for health in general it was unwise to take a job that would not allow you take a day off if you got sick, for any woman in a caregiver role (as she is) to young children or an older adult relative, the ask is impossible. And for that reason alone, my friend could not accept the offer.
It’s just one of the challenges millennial-aged women in the workforce are faced with and the kind of thing that can keep us out of it altogether or to stay limited in our roles.
Addressing Millennial Women Workplace Problems
Yet, how will we ever effectively overcome the challenges women face in the workforce when there are lots of employers out there who sadly do not have the wherewithal to identify what hurdles we have in the first place?
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security has an answer to that: by providing “evidence-based research on the particular challenges, needs, and preferences of” millennial women to businesses.
They did exactly as they did research on five key themes of employee empowerment specifically for women and millennials: leadership, management, flexibility, parental leave, and work-life integration.
In their report, WOMEN, MILLENNIALS, AND THE FUTURE WORKPLACE: Empowering All Employees, the discovered the following:
Flexibility is a game-changer for millennial women at work.
It lets you decide where and how you get things done, making work-life balance more achievable.
Millennial women feel empowered when they have a mix of autonomy and structure.
For flexibility to really work, clear guidelines on how to request and use it are essential. Women benefit from removing the guesswork around using flexible options, parental leave, and taking time off.
Embracing the unique leadership and communication styles of women benefits everyone, especially millennials.
Women often lead in ways that are less hierarchical and more cooperative, enhancing everyone's self-worth. Women leaders also commonly bring more transparency and collaboration to the table, which millennials value.
Recognizing and valuing these leadership styles boosts women's confidence and encourages a more autonomous work environment. When companies ignore these strengths disempower women and millennials.
Millennial Women in the Workplace Statistics
Next time you head to your office—the traditional one or where you work from home—and you start your workday, keep these statistics about your being a 20-30-or 40-something-year-old woman in today’s workforce in mind:
Today, women comprise almost half of the United States labor force (46.9%).
More than one-in-three American labor force participants (35%) are millennials, making us the largest generation in the U.S. labor force.
From 2019 to 2029, the largest gain in labor force size is projected for the 35- to 44-year-old age group (which includes many millennials). The gain of over the decade will amount to 4.5 million workers.
The millennial generation in today’s workforce has the highest number of working females of any generation. 72% of female millennials are employed versus 40% in the Silent Generation (those born 1928-1945) versus 66% of women in the baby boomer generation who participated in the work force.
In 2020, 6.7 million workers held more than one job. More than half of those workers were women (3.4 million).
Subscribe to the YMyHealth newsletter to stay up to date on everything that’s health-related for millennials!
