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Millennial is the vaguely defined buzzword that won’t go away – and now MPs have been given a guide to help them understand the term.

Produced by the House of Commons Library, the 50-page document is filled with statistics and research about what it calls the “generation much talked about and arguably misunderstood”.


MPs have been given a 50-page ‘Guide to Millennials’

By Pascale Hughes

It says that millennials, who make up 14 per cent of the population, are young people aged from around 25 to 34, who “entered adulthood” at the turn of the 21st century.

The average MPs is 52, although there are 39 millennial MPs in the House of Commons at the moment (plus the SNP’s Mhairi Black, who at 22 is too young to be a millennial).

Millennials is the term “usually used to describe those born between the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s”, the report says. There are around 8.82 million millennials living in the UK.

Top millennial spotting locations (% of population that is 25-34)

  • Battersea – 31.5%
  • Vauxhall – 30.8%
  • Bethnal Green and Bow – 29.1%

And the least popular

  • Arundel and South Downs – 7.4%
  • Christchurch – 7.5%
  • New Forest West – 7.6%

Where to find them

  • Millennials are concentrated in London where around 19 per cent of them live.
  • Around 26 per cent were born abroad.
  • Around 13 per cent were born in another EU country.

What they do

  • The employment rate for millennials is at a near record high for the 25-34 age group at 82.0 per cent.
  • The unemployment rate for millennials is low at around 4.5 per cent.
  • They are most commonly found in the wholesale and retail sector (13.5 per cent), health and social work (12.4 per cent) and education (9.8 per cent).
At 22, Mhairi Black is the too young to count as a millennial.

At 22, Mhairi Black is the too young to count as a millennial.

What they own

  • 40 per cent have degrees – but 47 per cent work in a non-graduate role.
  • They bore the largest falls in real average earnings following the 2008 recession.

What they lack

  • Houses – 59 per cent live in rented accommodation.
  • Financial assets and wealth than older generations (because, the report says, they have had less time to accumulate them).

What they think

  • In the 2015 general election they were most likely to vote for Labour.
General Election party vote by age group. Source: BES. (Image: House of Commons Library). Labour = red; Conservation = blue; LibDem = yellow; UKIP = purple; Green = green.
  • In the 2016 Referendum, around 60 per cent of them voted to ‘Remain’ in the EU.
    EU Referendum Remain/Leave % by age group. Source: IpsosMori. (Image: House of Commons Library).

What has shaped them

  • Recent significant world events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis are seen as having a major impact on their socio-political outlook.
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