Conflict of Ukrainian Generations X and Y: Ways to overcome it in the context of the war in Ukraine

Abstract

In the conditions of war, the problem of maintaining a comfortable psychological climate in professional teams and society in general is acutely felt because Ukrainians are in a depressed psychological state. Conflicts among people of different ages are also escalating, as representatives of the baby boomer generation are gradually being replaced by Generation Y, and therefore most Ukrainian companies are teams of representatives of Generations X and Y. The purpose of this study is to find ways to overcome the problem of conflict between different generations. Among the key scientific methods of this study is M. Rokeach’s model, which was used to rank the terminal and instrumental values of representatives of Ukrainian generations X and Y, and the method of canonical correlations, used for comparative analysis of the value structure of the analysed generations. The main results of the study indicate that the aggravation of relations and the emergence of misunderstandings among Ukrainians is a consequence not only of the influence of war, but also of the conflict of the most economically active generations – X and Y. This conflict is caused by differences in the perception of life (i.e., in values), a large difference in the socio-political conditions of formation and belonging to different archetypes of generations according to the Strauss-Howe generational theory. Ukrainian generation X is a recessive generation of “nomads”, while generation Y is a dominant generation of “heroes”. The results of a comparative analysis of the dominant terminal and instrumental values of these generations indicated that 50% of the dominant values are common terminal and only 33% are common instrumental. It was found that the Ukrainian Generation X has more post-materialistic values, while Generation Y prefers materialistic values, which was a consequence of socio-political events in Ukraine, under which these generations were formed. The practical significance of the results obtained lies in the fact that the proposed recommendations for overcoming the conflict of Ukrainian Generations X and Y by factoring in the most important values for each of these generations will help not only to overcome the conflict of generations, but also to increase the effectiveness of their interaction.