Millennial Work Ethic: A Preliminary Examination of the Work Ethic Profile of Filipino University Students

At present, most students in the universities are considered millennials. As explained by Delcampo, Haggerty, Haney, and Knippel (2010), millennials are individuals born from 1981-2000. In general, millennials are perceived to be the “me” generation or “hero” generation. In addition, they are criticized as individuals who are self-centered, unmotivated, disrespectful, and disloyal (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). Given the conflicting and, to some extent, uncritical generalizations about the millennial cohort, this paper explores the work ethic profile of Filipino millennial university students. The respondents of this study are 248 university students from a private university in Metro Manila, Philippines. Through the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile - Short Form (MWEP-SF), the seven dimension of work ethic were described. Results reveal that Filipino millennial university students scored high on self-reliance. Likewise, they have high mean scores in the dimensions of centrality of work, wasted time, morality/ethics, delay of gratification, and hard work. The dimension of leisure is ranked the lowest. The findings further reveal that there are significant differences in work ethic between male and female respondents. However, in terms of academic specialization, no significant differences were observed. Considering academic achievement, workload, and study hours, these factors interact with the different facets of work ethic.