Introducing our limited series, Millennials of New West

What happens when you Google the words, "New Westminster millennials"?

For one, you'll see there's a running list of stories surrounding this age group, defined by Statistics Canada as "those who are born between 1981 and 1996, and were between 25 and 40 years old in 2021." It's a quickly growing generation, seeing a Canada-wide increase of 8.6% between 2016 and 2021, according to info from the 2021 census.

This context is important when we're looking at New Westminster via Statistics Canada's numbers: of the 78,916 people living in this city, 21,655 of them are millennials. And this is the first time there are actually more of them than the baby boomer generation—which appears to be the trend for a number of places across the country.

"Millennials outnumber baby boomers in Alberta...versus Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut...millennials also accounted for more than one-third of the downtown population of large urban centres in Canada in 2021, while baby boomers accounted for one-fifth of it," reads A Portrait of Canada's Aging Population.

What's more, millennials in Canada are expected to outnumber baby boomers in six years' time.

Is that replicated in New West? Going back to the latest statistics, this appears to be the case. In the data set we're using for this, the baby boomer generation is considered someone who in 2022 is between the ages of 56 and 75, inclusive, so born between 1946 and 1965. There are 14,420 people in New West who fall within that age range.

How do we define the millennial generation?

This can be tricky, since definitions change based on region, country, scientific method, a person's life experiences ... and so on. For the sake of clarity and consistency, we're going to go with the definition used in A Portrait of Canada's Aging Population, which is reflective of the latest set of data collected for the 2021 census.

The writers say their definition is based on largely on the Pew Research Centre's definition, which you can look at here.

Because we wanted to capture as many people's experiences as we could, our callout was fairly flexible, so long as the people who spoke to us were within or fairly close to that age range.

What did we know before talking to millennials in New West?

A quick online search of the term "New Westminster millennials" seems to line up with some of the topics that came up in my discussion with participants. I scanned the first five pages of the Google search and categorized the topics that came up.

The categories I used were housing, finance, employment, millennial statistics, and politics. Anything that simply came up with a news or category tag of "millennials" was excluded (versus pointing to an actual result like an article or compiled data), along with anything that didn't point to our city of New West—so, an article that talked about the American New West, or Millennials in Edmonton would have been excluded.

There were a total of 37 results; those were cut down to 20 after accounting for whether they fit the parameters. The category that came up the most was housing (12); this was followed by finance (4), employment (2), and politics (1). Interestingly—but probably not surprisingly—there were three results that talked about finances and housing in one result. I expected this as it's become common to read stories of those who have had to move back in with their parents; in one instance one of the results included an article called "multi-generational living, space sharing, and other millennial home-buying hacks."

Everyone we talked to mentioned the word "affordability," though the term was subjective. In one case, one contributor said they felt comfortable financially living in New West after purchasing their home; another said they'd managed to buy something but it felt, in some cases, like it was a stretch to make everything work.

Some reflections about this work

I want to stress this is a snapshot: while this isn't a scientific paper, these are thoughts that have run through my head as I've worked on this over the last couple of months. I think it's only fair that I share them with our readers.

Full disclosure: I am a millennial, and I was born in 1990. (Cue the groans from anyone who is older than me; I'm sorry!) I actually didn't have any major motivations for moving to the city, other than to be with my now husband. I'll spare you the story, but if you're interested, you can read all about that here.

A majority of the participants were homeowners, with only three renters in the mix. Additionally, most folks were from so-called "mainland New West" and no respondents from Queensborough ultimately participated in the piece. (Queensborough folks, don't worry—we have some stuff in the works for your neighbourhood too, I promise!)

The Google search is meant to be more illustrative than anything: when I began this project, I expected housing would be a pretty popular topic among participants, and it did come up quite a bit. It was probably the most focused-on topic in this series, and very much tied in with finances—though there were some unique bits and bobs that came up with each participant.

I could have also done the callout for participants at different times of the year, and it might have yielded different results. What if I had made the callout for participants when we started The Anchor in May? The ask for participants went out over social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram, which would also impact the replies—although at least one person said they found out about it through a local WhatsApp group they were a part of.

The qualitative data that comes out of these pieces is essentially a glimpse into what's going on in the city: how are people finding housing? What about school for their kids? Accommodations for their pets? What's life like as a renter? Is it everything they expected?

But most importantly, these folks have been kind enough to open up their lives to us, and that can be tough. Everyone's journey is so different, and to be able to hear from others who are trying to make their lives work might help us feel a little less alone on this big rock.

The second part of this series will take a look at the subject of housing as a New West millennial. Stay tuned for Thursday's newsletter for more.