Are Millennials Actually Minimalist Consumers, or Is That a Myth?

The trope of a once-younger millennial generation (Pew Research defines this age cohort as having been born between 1981 and 1996) embracing the downsizing or minimalist movement has made headlines for some time now. As Joshua Becker wrote for Becoming Minimalist, news outlets including Time, Fortune, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and Goldman Sachs have all weighed in on the concept, creating a mythology around the concept of the aging millennial as forgoing traditional consumerism common to previous American eras.

But is that true? Opinions differ on the subject.

Some experts argue that members of the millennial generation participate in the purchasing and consumerist process on equal footing with both younger and older age groups. Others insist that the millennial generation, and perhaps others observing their anti-consumerist behavior, may have been the vanguard of an authentic minimalist movement.

Millennials May Never Have Been Minimalists at All (and Definitely Aren’t Now)

According to millennial Kelli Maria Korducki, writing for Business Insider, the notion of the minimalist millennial may have been a self-promoting myth. Pointing to shelves adorned with impulse buys in her own apartment — as well as data suggesting that millennials are not only spending on experiences and services but also on goods — Korducki suggested that it was time to put this rumor to bed once and for all.

“While my fellow 28- to 43-year-olds have yet to shake our association with less-is-more living, that old stereotype doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny anymore. Consumer-spending data suggests we have no trouble dropping our hard-earned cash on goods and services — experiences and things. As we’ve built careers and started families, our buying habits increasingly resemble those of Gen X and boomers when they were the age we are now,” she wrote.

Korducki summoned data from the 1950s and 1960s indicating that consumer spending during those decades accounted for about 60% of U.S. GDP, contrasting this number with consumer spending resting at about 68% today. Given that millennials are now the largest age cohort in the U.S. workforce, per a separate Pew Research report, it follows that this generation hasn’t exactly slowed down its spending.

Additionally, despite the anxieties around millennials not being able to own homes, millennials now represent the largest proportion of homebuyers. In fact, millennial homeownership rates are nearly on par with those of baby boomers at the same age. With this in mind, Korducki reiterated that the idea of millennials embracing minimalism may have been more myth than reality all along.

Furthermore, that figment may be a figurative torch passed on to the next generation in line: Gen Z.

“For better or worse, public memory is short. Many of today’s young adults might not even be aware that the current crop of 30-somethings were ever considered minimalists in the first place. There’s evidence that the rest of us are starting to forget, too. Maybe you’ve read about the new TikTok trend sweeping Gen Z: a mindful alternative to the ‘haul’ culture that’s grown around ultrafast fashion and ultracheap e-commerce platforms. It’s a whole new approach to stuff. Some have said it might even slow down the economy. This time around, we’re calling it ‘underconsumption core,’” Korducki concluded.

Millennial Minimalism: An Aesthetic Movement Rather Than a Reduction in Retail Consumption?

A bevy of search engine results concerning the notion of “millennial minimalism” does much to support the argument that the movement was more of an aesthetic designation than anything else.

Zee News quoted Fashor co-founder and CEO Vikram Kankaria on the subject.

“Minimalism, at its core, is about simplifying life by focusing on what truly matters. It involves decluttering physical spaces, reducing material possessions, and prioritizing experiences over things. For millennials, who grew up in an era of unprecedented consumerism and digital saturation, minimalism offers a counter-narrative to the cluttered and overstimulated world they inhabit,” Kankaria said.

Buying furniture from IKEA or The Container Store versus purchasing more traditional items from another furniture store doesn’t represent a sea change away from consumer spending, but rather an altered path. While Zee News gestured toward quality purchases over quantity, and experiential spending over the material, it should be remembered that retailers still offer experiences — in fact, “experiential retail” is often a buzzword conjured up to represent the future of the segment, as Lightspeed reported.

On the other hand, as Becoming Minimalist’s Becker wrote, millennials may contribute to a slowing degree of consumption as they overwhelmingly prefer urban living, with all of its walkable streets, reducing reliance on personal vehicular transport. A focus on experiences over possessions, as Becker argues, continues with this generation as they spend more on food and drink and less on physical ownership of goods.

Environmental concerns and a generalized distrust of corporations and corporate entities persist among this age cohort, Becker suggested, while he also offered hope for the future of the millennial generation.

“But I am hopeful for the millennial generation. At the very least, they have examples to learn from. For example, both their parents and their grandparents continue to live beyond their means in crippling debt. Millennials appear to be a generation hard-wired for minimalism. I hope the trend continues,” he concluded.