In 1965, The Beatles intoned, "Yesterday, All my troubles seemed so far away" (Yesterday, EMI 1965). Indeed, our view on challenges might be influenced by our perspective, looking forward or back. I have rarely related the history that led to the potential of me; I am inherently and deeply private. Nonetheless, here goes. I have deep roots in Indiana agriculture, dating from its frontier era. I likewise have decades of roots in Mississippi, dating to its manifest destiny homestead era. How do people from such a distance meet in the mid-20th century? In the absence of technology, vacation travel, and other modern wonders, the answer is migration.
I descend from a line of Mississippi farmers who homesteaded, built cabins, and lived off the land. My grandfather was a sharecropper who traded a promised portion of his harvest for the seasonal use of someone else's bottomland. He borrowed to plant and prayed to harvest sufficiently to both share and repay. He came from a level of poverty that I can scarcely imagine.
There came some years tougher than others, whether from drought or flood. Sometimes the expected harvest simply did not come. It was an era in which manufacturing jobs in Mississippi were few and far between. Legend has it that some Mississippians would not have eaten in those days but for the WPA and its Sardis Dam project, but that is another story. I have heard it recounted so many times—imagine building the (then) largest land dam in the world with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows.
It was a time when war was beginning in Europe, threatening beyond, and America was still recovering from the first "war to end all wars." We might readily agree that there was uncertainty, challenge, and even angst.
There came an opportunity for work. A man in a stake truck drove through Mississippi and promised work picking produce in Missouri. As it had been a tough crop year, my grandfather rode north without the accoutrements of a seat, seatbelt, air conditioning, and more. He picked until the crop concluded. There soon followed an opportunity for similar agricultural work in Indiana, and he rode east in another truck in continued pursuit of a living.
When that Indiana crop concluded, he answered a handbill for factory work. A now infamous company was producing rock wool insulation at a factory in Alexandria, Indiana. Through grace or luck, perhaps fate, he was hired and began a career there. That lasted thirty years. I periodically look at the watch he was presented with at retirement, and I reflect.
Thus, my Mississippi heritage resulted from people unable to earn a living in one (or more) place, and itinerant progression in search of more. More opportunity, more money, more stability. The journey soon enough brought my father to Indiana and to the opportunity for college, a first in that family.
Agriculture, fertile land, and homesteading brought my mother's ancestors to rural Indiana. Success and sustenance kept them there, though the particular locations changed, as did crops, livestock, and other details. Not the first in her family to attend a university, she was nonetheless the first female member I can find who did so.
College brought the meeting that led to me. Not the first in my family to earn a college degree, I am the first in my line to earn a doctorate. There is little in this history that might be mistaken for privilege or advantage. There is much that reflects hardship, hard work, perseverance, and patience.
Over a long career arc starting in my teens, I have engaged in something close to 25 jobs. This all came back to me with a recent news story about stability and convenience.
Fortune noted that a majority of "white collar" workers over 50 (Millennials, born 1981-1996)(Generation X 1965-1980)(Boomers 1946-1964) declined to consider relocation when they lost employment.
Their work environment evolved, and when that impacted them, they elected geographic stability over potential opportunity. In other words, they accepted work that was local over work that required relocation, despite that work perhaps offering other advantages in monetary and career terms.
The context is an evolving workplace that reemphasizes in-person as the virtual opportunities diminish.
See Heigh Ho? (January 2025);
Perspectives on Virtuality (September 2025). And, in this context, the conclusion is that Generation Z (born 1997-2012) is more likely to elect relocation in reaction to loss of employment, while the older workers are less so.
The Millennial resistance is attributed to family ties in some location, the challenges of selling and buying a home, and perceptions that surround the economics of that. But the third explanation is more confounding - the "lost promises of the boomer generation." This is about perceptions of increased instability in "white collar" work.
This older cohort, over 50, views opportunity with a measure of skepticism. They perceive the potential or probability that a major decision, relocation, and promising new position may, in fact, produce only a short-term respite from unemployment. Their longevity doubts about the new position may hinder their enthusiasm about relocating for it.
This will potentially intersect with the declining opportunities for virtual work, any general decline in workforce participation (think COVID-19), and any diminishing flow of new college graduates resulting from
declining birth rates, perceived general market conditions, or
artificial intelligence impacts.
In a real sense, there is likely to be a persistent market demand for experienced and able "white collar" workers in the coming years. The demand will be measured and weighed against geographic location limitations and the relative faith and confidence of those workers offered new opportunities as the working world shifts and adjusts.
Will they get on the stake-truck? Will they seek less lucrative local alternatives?
The short answer is a consensus of doubt. Anyone who claims to know where the current turmoil leads or where the next turmoil begins is likely guessing (at best). But undoubtedly, Business will be constrained to considering the challenges, worker motivations and concerns, and business necessities in broad contexts in order to meet demands and facilitate success in an evolving world.
The first of the Generation X retirement will be 2032, and Social Security is projected to be in
financial difficulty about then. Will that cohort be short-sheeted with an increased retirement age as the
Boomers were in 1983, albeit with much less notice? Will the potential for such doubts encourage or discourage any offers that involve relocation for workers in those populations?
In a word, the challenge is "certainty," or perhaps even "predictability." In the workplace, it is possible that the environment would benefit from some measure of both as the economy evolves and workers face
difficult education and occupation choices and challenges.
That said, are today's challenges actually different than those faced by a poor sharecropper exiting a depression into a second war to end all wars, in an evolving environment of mechanization and industrialization? One might find it difficult to describe either as "more" or "less" challenging, daunting, or disconcerting.
There are many who quickly perceive "privilege," but that appearance may perhaps conceal work, risk, and effort. As we lament our challenges, let us not forget that yesterday was perhaps as difficult as today, and tomorrow may be more difficult still. There will be opportunity, risk, and choices. That is not new.
