The Indebted and the Entitled: Millennials Navigating Selfhood in Uncertain Times

• In Event: 118 - Section on Economic Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 17. Selfhood

Abstract

This paper uses interviews and observations of the Millennials as they transition from college into their first, second, and third jobs. Through these qualitative techniques I capture their surprise, frustration, and their sense-making processes as they navigate opportunity and failure in a post-recession job market and the lives it affords. The terrain on which they attempt to build adult lives feels new, uncertain. Learning from them, we can understand more about late capitalism in the trenches, about self-making amidst uncertainty, and about the aspirations, dreams and realities of elites who don’t feel elite. What emerges are two groups of storytellers about deservedness, effort, and what constitutes success: the entitled and the indebted. This paper explores how they use signs and symbols from their past to make sense of their relationship to the market, to their past and to the life they are building.

Author

• Karla A. Erickson, Grinnell College