Here’s how older millennials truly feel about their salaries

Former lawyer Lee Shulin’s pay fluctuated wildly over the years as she switched jobs in search of a career she could shine in.

In her first job 14 years ago as a senior associate in a big law firm, she made an enviable $8,500 a month. That was cut by nearly half when she left the firm for the public sector in 2010, and it dipped even further when she switched to the recruitment industry, where her income depended a lot on commissions.

“I just wanted to find something I could excel in… At first, my primary motivation was job satisfaction,” said Ms Lee, 41. Reality set in when she got married and the need to provide for her son began to loom large.

So, pay was a factor, but not the only one, when she started legal recruitment firm Aslant Legal in 2016. Her son was just one month old. She felt that her prospects could be improved by having her own business, after six years of working at different recruitment agencies.

She also wanted to escape a toxic work environment with a heavy drinking culture. “I felt the only way to create a healthier culture was to start my own firm.

“Now, with Aslant Legal, I have the freedom to build a supportive and flexible work environment for everyone.”

Many in Ms Lee’s generation have similar sentiments, going by the findings of a new survey.

Pay is a key consideration for millennials – as well as Gen Zs – but work-life balance and flexibility are almost as important as salaries. The bottom line: Young people are generally satisfied with their salaries and work-life balance.

There were some differences, with Gen Z respondents more likely than millennials to be happy with their pay and work-life balance.

The survey of 1,000 young people was commissioned by The Straits Times and carried out in May by market research firm Kantar. Here’s how these younger workers viewed their salaries and related aspects of employment, such as work-life balance and a career that lines up with their passion.

Here’s how older millennials fee about their salaries

Looking back on her career, Ms Lee has no regrets.

“Everything happens for a reason. Without my own career transitions, I wouldn’t be able to advise lawyers today about making their own career moves,” she said.

These days, she wants to spend more time with her sons, aged eight and five, even if it means fewer hours in the office and working late after the boys have gone to bed. Her husband, Mr Brian Liew, a former commodities broker, is Aslant Legal’s director of operations and oversees the company’s finances.

Ms Lee said: “I don’t really like the term ‘work-life balance’ because it creates a false paradigm where you can have work, life, health and everything balanced perfectly. It’s never possible.

“But what is possible is being able to define what it means to have a life outside of work.”

She added that a perfect career is an illusion. “All of us face challenges at work, and even if it seems like some of your friends are thriving, they might be dealing with struggles behind the scenes… Secretly, everyone is still figuring things out.”

He has been with his current employer for nearly nine years, and moved to Japan recently on a short-term assignment.

Pay mattered more to him when he was in a junior position, just starting out in his career.

But as he grew in seniority and was given more responsibilities, including managing a team, he found a sense of purpose that made going to work every day more of a pleasure.

Mr Chua said: “I’m quite interested in people, and seeing the potential that they have and what I can do to help them see things from a different perspective or discover parts of themselves that they never thought existed.”

He also relishes the excitement of working overseas in an unfamiliar environment.

“If you’re not meaningfully challenged, if you’re doing the same things day in, day out, it can be a job that pays you very well but at the end of the day, you still dread waking up,” he said.

Experts said it is not surprising that many Gen Zs and millennials are satisfied with their salaries and work-life balance.

Younger workers, especially those aged 18 to their mid-20s, are likely to still be living with their parents, noted Singapore Management University professor of sociology Paulin Tay Straughan.

“If I can make that assumption, then it means that their financial load is not as high because they don’t have to pay rent… and they just have to look after their own expenses and savings for the future.

“If that’s the case, I can understand why salary is not a major concern for them,” she said.

The normalisation of hybrid work post-pandemic has also made it easier to achieve a more desirable work-life balance, she said.

In addition, the lack of heavy financial responsibilities also frees one to pursue a career in line with one’s passion, she added.

However, Professor Sam Yam, who heads NUS Business School’s management and organisation department, noted that many young workers might say it is important to have a career they are passionate about but find that it’s harder than it looks.

He added that the expectations of young job seekers have become “highly unrealistic” compared with those of older generations at the same age, years ago.

“We cannot just work 40 hours a week and expect that we have three promotions in five years.”

Sixty per cent of respondents as a whole said work-life balance is important to them, and that they would prioritise it over career advancement, while 40 per cent said work-life balance is more crucial than higher pay.

But while some expectations may indeed be pie-in-the-sky, things have also undoubtedly changed.

Prof Straughan said: “Moving forward, a holistic package is probably going to be more attractive than just having good remuneration, simply because we’ve learnt how to appreciate things like fringe benefits, (such as) leave and a good insurance package.”

Still, while 67 per cent of survey respondents think that pay transparency within a company is crucial for maintaining trust and morale, young workers have a lot to learn about being assertive enough to speak up for themselves.

Only 40 per cent said they felt comfortable discussing their salary with colleagues and friends, and 42 per cent were okay with initiating a conversation with their boss about a pay rise.

Most Gen Zs and millennials ST spoke to said it is important to have constructive conversations about pay with their peers so they can determine if they are being paid fairly, and get a sense of the industry standard.

“There are so many more nuances in these discussions that you’ll get compared with just reading a salary report,” said one of them.

Prof Yam said companies could be more transparent when recruiting by posting a reasonable salary range in their job advertisements, although he cautioned that a range restriction might deter higher-earning top performers.

He said: “I generally think that talking about salary among peers is a good thing, especially in jobs that are relatively low in the hierarchies (as these jobs involve) more discrepancy in terms of pay.

“If you make less than $10,000, for instance, there’s no reason for you not to disclose your salary and not to know more about what people are making.”

Prof Straughan said that within a company, conversations about pay can be tricky as appraisals involve many factors, including the quality of an employee’s work.

“I think what employees want to hear is how come I’ve been graded as a C, and not a B? That’s the conversation that’s harder, which takes a lot of confidence to have, but we should advance towards that.”

This article was originally published in The Straits Times.