Parents help Gen Z with jobs

For years, across the globe, in both the western and eastern worlds, within the poor South and wealthy North, we have heard that Gen Z stay single, but live with their parents and elders. They postpone social and personal decisions like marriage, independence, outings, and the need for personal spaces. This is true for some sections in urban India. Psychologists have grappled with such trends, which are opposed to the earlier ones, when youngsters craved freedom, and stepped out of their homes between 18 and 25 to pursue dreams, passions, intimacies, duties, and employment opportunities. The reasons were intuitive, and included social, work, personal, and financial pressures.

A new survey finds that Gen Z goes beyond these issues. In fact, they seek help from their parents, and elders in crucial job-related, and job-selection decisions such as writing CVs, talking to potential employers and recruiters, and even salary-related discussions. The Gen Z dependence goes beyond the personal into professional. While earlier, the parents would force children into specific education streams, like science, engineering, and medicine, the Gen Z today revolt and rebel against such impositions. Yet, when it comes to crucial decisions related to jobs, they lean on the parents much more than expected.

For example, more than 40 per cent of the young job seekers, mostly first-timers, take help to write resumes. In a fifth of the cases, the parents contact a recruiter, or join job interviews (15 per cent in person, and five per cent online). More than a fourth of the young respondents involve the elders in salary discussions, and just below a fifth receive advice. In a tenth of the cases, unbelievable as it may sound, the parents directly negotiate the employment terms with the employers. When asked, who has the greatest influence in jobs, nearly a third of Gen Z chose parents, and just a tad higher percentage chose bosses.

More importantly, 34 per cent said that both parents and bosses were equally influential. In essence, 66 per cent depend on parents, either completely or partially, and 69 per cent on bosses. (The figures do not add to 100 per cent because of the obvious reason.) More than two-thirds went a few steps forward, and maintained that the parents gave them regular career advice. More than half admitted that the parents visit their offices, possibly to check the environment, and colleagues. But the exercises are consensual. This is because 55 per cent feel upset if the parents contact the bosses without their knowledge.

Intuitively, experts cite several reasons for these inexplicable trends. The first is that most of Gen Z became job seekers after the pandemic. Thus, they are first-hand witnesses to their parents, and others around them, losing jobs, having their salaries slashed, or not getting the requisite bonuses and increments. This creates a sense of fear, doubts, even loathing among the youngsters. In addition, they have matured in an age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which crept up, and then disrupted the workplaces in the past few years. This leads to more uncertainty about the future of jobs and, hence, the right selection becomes crucial to ensure that those jobs are not replaced by AI.

On the other hand, one can blame the trends to ‘helicopter-parenting,’ or times when the parents are obsessed about the future of their children, and feel the need to aggressively, yet passively, involve themselves in the decisions. The lack of genuine friends, not just online contacts, followers, and acquaintances, which leads to the earlier-mentioned phenomenon of less social interaction plays a role. There are no mentors, and guides to offer mature advice, and parents are the closest things Gen Z can access, especially if they stay with them. The environment is closed, and includes siblings, parents, and elders.

However, if one looks for counterintuitive reasons, and out-of-the-box reasons, one can surmise that Gen Z, more than others, recognise the expanse of fake news, half-baked truths, and falsehoods. Given the dearth of friends, and other external mentors, they need to depend on someone who is credible, loyal, knowledgeable, and give good advice. This can come from parents. Recruiters lie, and so do employers. In every generation, employees are taken for a ride, either on salaries, responsibilities, or working hours. Gen Z is more careful. It avoids the risk that it knows lurks around every corner. It knows the value of truth.

In another way, jobs have expanded, at least in urban areas. Gen Z has gone beyond professional jobs like engineering, medicine, finance, marketing, and law, and seek to enter less-known ‘gig’ and creative areas. Gen Z knows that the sector or segment is not important. One can earn decent money if one is good, even as a cook, blogger (vlogger), and social media influencer (fashion, movies, and other skills). However, the contours of these new jobs are still evolving, and the youngsters need help to navigate these little-known spaces. They can only learn so much from search engines and AI tools.

At the same time, most jobs are turning out to be contractual, as gig workers, freelance, and even in small-time start-ups. Here, job negotiations are trickier and more opaque than in normal full-time ones. There are no standards and systems, as in established firms. Contracts may be less detailed, and open-ended. CVs need to be tuned to excite founders, and recruiters, especially in work-from-home cases. For such jobs, the requirements can be drastically different. For example, sticking to deadlines may be more important than the number of hours.

According to a media report that reported the survey, “Each generation enters the workplace under scrutiny. Baby boomers were called rigid. Millennials were labelled entitled. Now Gen Z faces questions about resilience and independence. Yet, perhaps, what we are witnessing is not weakness, but adaptation. In a volatile economy, collaboration (between children and parents) has become a survival skill. Family, once confined to the personal sphere, now spills into professional terrain. The recruiter’s phone ringing with a parent on the line may seem unusual. But it reflects a broader cultural truth: The boundaries between home and work are shifting.” As they will. 

The deeper issue is not whether parents should be involved. It is about whether the relationship is consensual, and acceptable to the children. If there is comfort in the interaction, if parents are substitutes for mentors, gurus, and guides, who were earlier friends, teachers, and respected acquaintances, there is nothing wrong. But if the parents are professional crutches, and instruments of dependence due to insecurities, there may be a problem. It is up to Gen Z.