Over the past several waves of The Hispanic Millennial Project we’ve asked questions surrounding aspects of health, wealth and happiness to better understand the “lens” Hispanic Millennials see their world through and how it compares to non-Hispanic White, African-American and Asian Millennials. The first wave of the research determined the Hispanic millennials were much more optimistic about the future than their non-Hispanic cohorts. The second wave found that they were half as likely to be ‘very stressed’ as their non-Hispanic peers. In the third wave of the research study we asked questions regarding attitudes towards wealth which we thought would be a departure from the first two waves but the findings turned out to be intimately tied to the previous research.

Most studies that compare wealth with happiness use wealth as a proxy for income. They try to find out, for example, if there is an annual income above which individuals are more likely to state they are happy or try to measure happiness levels after receipt of various amounts of money. While income is certainly one of the key aspects of wealth it is by no means the only component of wealth. Therefore, before trying to figure out how Millennials felt about wealth we first asked them to define what wealth meant to them. 

Having money is a key component of wealth when it comes to all Millennials but, interestingly, Hispanic Millennials also mentioned family & relationships as a key component at twice the rate of non-Hispanic White Millennials. In fact, Hispanic Millennials mentioned the importance of family & relationships when discussing health issues in Wave 2 of the research and when discussing life goals in Wave 1. The importance of relationships is not just something Hispanic Millennials talk about - they behave in ways that support relationships. For example, when we asked about how they preferred to exercise, Hispanic Millennials preferred team sports at twice the levels of non-Hispanic White Millennials who preferred more solitary activities such as hiking. Hispanic Millennials also have a more social connections in both their ‘real’ lives and on social media. Hispanic Millennials text with a median 3.5 people a day. That same number for non-Hispanic Millennials is 1.5. 

As mentioned earlier, Happiness is a lens through which one can view the world which may or may not correlate with increased monetary wealth or other supposedly positive factors. For instance, Hispanic Millennials have lower median income that non-Hispanic White Millennials but they report feeling less financially overwhelmed than their non-Hispanic peers.

Therefore, it isn’t enough to pull Census figures on household income and craft a communication strategy or product offering based on income brackets when it comes to Millennials. A non-Hispanic White Millennial considered high-income on paper may consider themselves financially strapped and be more receptive to money saving offerings while a low income Hispanic Millennial may view their financial situation in a positive light and be receptive to more aspirational messaging.  

Health, wealth and happiness are not three separate concepts but all aspects of a worldview best exemplified by Hispanic Millennials. As the definition of wealth changes and Millennials place less value on materialistic aspects of wealth in favor of relationships Hispanic Millennials, in particular, will lead the way and help write the next chapter of the American dream.