We think the 40 and under crowd are a different animal than the people who came before. They are not.
They have the same basic needs: Food, shelter, security
They have the same basic wants: Fun, fucking, and money for both
Depending on their age, their needs are met by helicopter parents or daddy .gov, or their own work.
Depending on their age, their wants are paid for by helicopter parents or whatever BS job they come up with.
What everyone forgets is there are certain needs or wants that nobody articulates to them, or shames them for, or has told them is old fashioned.
Men want to be useful and desirable to the opposite sex. Most do this through a job where they acquire a skillset that others recognize as useful. This is why the late teens-early 20s is so stressful for them. It should come as no surprise that men in this age bracket have high depression rates.
Women want to nurture, have families, and be desirable to the opposite sex. They want to be desirable enough to get a man who is economically at their level or higher, because deep-down women are more practical than men, and no matter how much feminism has attempted to beat it out of them they know that they need someone who has the ability to take care of them and their children. They know it emotionally even if they can't articulate it or even deny it.
For both of these the psychological literature is clear: Forget what they tell you, they mainly just parrot what everyone else says.
Men who develop no skills have low testosterone, have low self-worth, and are more likely to engage in group criminal behavior as well as terrorism as it gives them a sense of power and belonging.
Women who shun relationships and family typically do well (career-wise) until 30-35, then they go fucking nuts because their body is telling them they've thrown away their life. They also typically have their emotional health medicalized by their mid-20s, if not sooner.
Just because the status quo is what it is at the moment with regard to this age group, doesn't mean that its good for society at large or them as individuals.
Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Understand what this means and you will understand why things are the way they are, the old truths are still true, and you will make yourself miserable trying to live your life outside of accordance with the basic principles we all understood.