generation z problems essay

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We Know About Gen Z So Far

One-in-ten eligible voters in the 2020 electorate will be part of a new generation of Americans – Generation Z. Born after 1996 , most members of this generation are not yet old enough to vote, but as the oldest among them turn 23 this year, roughly 24 million will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in November. And their political clout will continue to grow steadily in the coming years, as more and more of them reach voting age.

Unlike the Millennials – who came of age during the Great Recession – this new generation was in line to inherit a strong economy with record-low unemployment . That has all changed now, as COVID-19 has reshaped the country’s social, political and economic landscape. Instead of looking ahead to a world of opportunities, Gen Z now peers into an uncertain future.

There are already signs that the oldest Gen Zers have been particularly hard hit in the early weeks and months of the coronavirus crisis. In a March 2020 Pew Research Center survey , half of the oldest Gen Zers (ages 18 to 23) reported that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a cut in pay because of the outbreak. This was significantly higher than the shares of Millennials (40%), Gen Xers (36%) and Baby Boomers (25%) who said the same. In addition, an analysis of jobs data showed that young workers were particularly vulnerable to job loss before the coronavirus outbreak, as they were overrepresented in high-risk service sector industries.

Aside from the unique set of circumstances in which Gen Z is approaching adulthood, what do we know about this new generation? We know it’s different from previous generations in some important ways, but similar in many ways to the Millennial generation that came before it. Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet. They are also digital natives who have little or no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones.

Still, when it comes to their views on key social and policy issues, they look very much like Millennials . Pew Research Center surveys conducted in the fall of 2018 (more than a year before the coronavirus outbreak) among Americans ages 13 and older found that, similar to Millennials, Gen Zers are progressive and pro-government, most see the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity as a good thing, and they’re less likely than older generations to see the United States as superior to other nations. 1

A look at how Gen Z voters view the Trump presidency provides further insight into their political beliefs. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January of this year found that about a quarter of registered voters ages 18 to 23 (22%) approved of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president, while about three-quarters disapproved (77%). Millennial voters were only slightly more likely to approve of Trump (32%) while 42% of Gen X voters, 48% of Baby Boomers and 57% of those in the Silent Generation approved of the job he’s doing as president.

Gen Z is more racially and ethnically diverse than previous generations

Generation Z represents the leading edge of the country’s changing racial and ethnic makeup. A bare majority (52%) are non-Hispanic white – significantly smaller than the share of Millennials who were non-Hispanic white in 2002 (61%). One-in-four Gen Zers are Hispanic, 14% are black, 6% are Asian and 5% are some other race or two or more races.

Gen Zers are slightly less likely than Millennials to be immigrants: 6% were born outside of the U.S., compared with 7% of Millennials at the same age. But they are more likely to be the children of immigrants: 22% of Gen Zers have at least one immigrant parent (compared with 14% of Millennials). Even as immigration flows into the U.S. have diminished in recent years , new immigrants will join the ranks of Gen Z in the years to come. As a result, this generation is projected to become majority nonwhite by 2026, according to Census Bureau projections .

In some regions of the U.S., Gen Z has already crossed this threshold. In the West, only 40% of Gen Zers are non-Hispanic white. Just as many are Hispanic, while 4% are black, 10% are Asian and 6% are some other race. In the South, 46% of Gen Zers are non-Hispanic white. Minority representation is lowest in the Midwest, where more than two-thirds of Gen Zers (68%) are non-Hispanic white.

Gen Z on track to be the best-educated generation yet

A look at older members of Generation Z suggests they are on a somewhat different educational trajectory than the generations that came before them. They are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to be enrolled in college. Among 18- to 21-year-olds no longer in high school in 2018, 57% were enrolled in a two-year or four-year college. This compares with 52% among Millennials in 2003 and 43% among members of Gen X in 1987.

These changing educational patterns are tied to changes in immigration especially among Hispanics. Gen Z Hispanics are less likely than Millennial Hispanics to be immigrants, and previous research has shown that second-generation Hispanic youth are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to attend college than foreign-born Hispanic youth.

Gen Zers are also more likely to have a college-educated parent than are previous generations of young people. In 2019, 44% of Gen Zers ages 7 to 17 were living with a parent who had a bachelor’s degree or more education, compared with 33% of Millennials when they were the same age. Both of these trends reflect the overall trend toward more Americans pursuing higher education .

Perhaps because they are more likely to be engaged in educational endeavors , Gen Zers are less likely to be working than previous generations when they were teens and young adults. Only 18% of Gen Z teens (ages 15 to 17) were employed in 2018, compared with 27% of Millennial teens in 2002 and 41% of Gen Xers in 1986. And among young adults ages 18 to 22, while 62% of Gen Zers were employed in 2018, higher shares of Millennials (71%) and Gen Xers (79%) were working when they were a comparable age.

Gen Zers and Millennials have similar viewpoints on many major issues of the day

The views of Gen Z mirror those of Millennials in many ways. Still, survey data collected in 2018 (well before the coronavirus outbreak) shows that there are places where this younger generation stands out as having a somewhat different outlook.

For example, members of Gen Z are more likely than older generations to look to government to solve problems, rather than businesses and individuals. Fully seven-in-ten Gen Zers say the government should do more to solve problems, while 29% say government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals. A somewhat smaller share of Millennials (64%) say government should do more to solve problems, and this view is even less prevalent among older generations (53% of Gen Xers, 49% of Boomers and 39% of Silents).

For the most part, however, Gen Zers and Millennials share similar views on issues facing the country. These younger generations are more likely than their older counterparts to say the earth is getting warmer due to human activity: 54% of Gen Z and 56% of Millennials say this, compared with smaller shares of Gen Xers, Boomers and Silents (48%, 45% and 38%, respectively).

When it comes to race relations, Gen Zers and Millennials are about equally likely to say that blacks are treated less fairly than whites in this country. Roughly two-thirds of Gen Zers and Millennials say this, compared with about half of Gen Xers and Boomers and smaller shares among the Silent Generation.

Younger generations also share a different view of the U.S. relative to other countries in the world. Gen Zers (14%) and Millennials (13%) are less likely than Gen Xers (20%), Boomers (30%) or Silents (45%) to say the U.S. is better than  all  other countries. Still, pluralities of every generation except the Silent Generation say the U.S. is one of the best countries in the world along with some others.

Within the GOP, Gen Zers have sharp differences with their elders

Among Republicans and those who lean to the Republican Party, there are striking differences between Generation Z and older generations on social and political issues. In their views on race, Gen Z Republicans are more likely than older generations of Republicans to say blacks are treated less fairly than whites in the U.S. today. Fully 43% of Republican Gen Zers say this, compared with 30% of Millennial Republicans and roughly two-in-ten Gen X, Boomer and Silent Generation Republicans. Views are much more consistent across generations among Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Similarly, the youngest Republicans stand out in their views on the role of government and the causes of climate change. Gen Z Republicans are much more likely than older generations of Republicans to desire an increased government role in solving problems. About half (52%) of Republican Gen Zers say government should do more, compared with 38% of Millennials, 29% of Gen Xers and even smaller shares among older generations. And the youngest Republicans are less likely than their older counterparts to attribute the earth’s warming temperatures to natural patterns, as opposed to human activity (18% of Gen Z Republicans say this, compared with three-in-ten or more among older generations of Republicans).

Overall, members of Gen Z look similar to Millennials in their political preferences, particularly when it comes to the upcoming 2020 election. Among registered voters, a January Pew Research Center survey found that 61% of Gen Z voters (ages 18 to 23) said they were definitely or probably going to vote for the Democratic candidate for president in the 2020 election, while about a quarter (22%) said they were planning to vote for Trump. Millennial voters, similarly, were much more likely to say they plan to support a Democrat in November than Trump (58% vs. 25%). Larger shares of Gen X voters (37%), Boomers (44%) and Silents (53%) said they plan to support President Trump.

Younger generations see family, societal change as a good thing

Across a number of measures, Gen Zers and Millennials stand out from older generations in their views of family and societal change. Roughly half of Gen Zers (48%) and Millennials (47%) say gay and lesbian couples being allowed to marry is a good thing for our society. By comparison, only one-third of Gen Xers and about one-quarter of Boomers (27%) say this is a good thing. Pluralities of Boomers and Gen Xers say it doesn’t make a difference. Members of the Silent Generation are the most likely to view this as a bad thing for society.

There is a similar pattern in views of people of different races marrying each other, with larger shares of Millennials and Gen Zers saying this is a good thing for our society, compared with older generations. Very few across generations say this is a bad thing for society.

Gen Zers and Millennials are less likely than older generations to say that single women raising children on their own is a bad thing for society. Still, relatively few in both generations say this is a good thing for society, while about half say it doesn’t make much difference (roughly similar to the shares among older generations).

When it comes to their own home life, the experiences of Gen Z reflect, in part, broad trends that have reshaped the American family in recent decades. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data, about three-in-ten (29%) live in a household with an unmarried parent while 66% live with two married parents. A roughly comparable share of Millennials (69%) lived with two married parents at a similar age, but the shares among Gen Xers and Boomers were significantly larger (72% and 86%). Of those Gen Zers who are living with two married parents, in most cases both of those parents are in the labor force (64%). This compares with a slightly higher share of Millennials who were living with two parents at a comparable age (66% had two parents in the labor force) and a slightly lower share of Gen Xers (61%).

Generations differ in their familiarity and comfort with using gender-neutral pronouns

Ideas about gender identity are rapidly changing in the U.S., and Gen Z is at the front end of those changes. Gen Zers are much more likely than those in older generations to say they personally know someone who prefers to go by gender-neutral pronouns, with 35% saying so, compared with 25% of Millennials, 16% of Gen Xers, 12% of Boomers and just 7% of Silents. This generational pattern is evident among both Democrats and Republicans.

There are also stark generational differences in views of how gender options are presented on official documents. Gen Z is by far the most likely to say that when a form or online profile asks about a person’s gender it should include options other than “man” and “woman.” About six-in-ten Gen Zers (59%) say forms or online profiles should include additional gender options, compared with half of Millennials, about four-in-ten Gen Xers and Boomers (40% and 37%, respectively) and roughly a third of those in the Silent Generation (32%).

These views vary widely along partisan lines, and there are generational differences within each party coalition. But those differences are sharpest among Republicans: About four-in-ten Republican Gen Zers (41%) think forms should include additional gender options, compared with 27% of Republican Millennials, 17% of Gen Xers and Boomers and 16% of Silents. Among Democrats, half or more in all generations say this.

Gen Zers are similar to Millennials in their comfort with using gender-neutral pronouns. Both groups express somewhat higher levels of comfort than other generations, though generational differences on this question are fairly modest. Majorities of Gen Zers and Millennials say they would feel “very” or “somewhat” comfortable using a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to someone if asked to do so. By comparison, Gen Xers and Boomers are about evenly divided: About as many say they would feel at least somewhat comfortable (49% and 50%, respectively) as say they would be uncomfortable.

Members of Gen Z are also similar to Millennials in their views on society’s acceptance of those who do not identify as a man or a woman. Roughly half of Gen Zers (50%) and Millennials (47%) think that society is not accepting enough of these individuals. Smaller shares of Gen Xers (39%), Boomers (36%) and those in the Silent Generation (32%) say the same.

Here again there are large partisan gaps, and Gen Z Republicans stand apart from other generations of Republicans in their views. About three-in-ten Republican Gen Zers (28%) say that society is not accepting enough of people who don’t identify as a man or woman, compared with two-in-ten Millennials, 15% of Gen Xers, 13% of Boomers and 11% of Silents. Democrats’ views are nearly uniform across generations in saying that society is not accepting enough of people who don’t identify as a man or a woman.

Teens and technology

Looking at the relationship American teens have with technology provides a window into the experiences of a significant segment of Generation Z. According to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey, 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds have access to a smartphone, and a similar share (97%) use at least one of seven major online platforms.

YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are among teens’ favorite online destinations. Some 85% say they use YouTube, 72% use Instagram and 69% use Snapchat. Facebook is less popular with teens – 51% say they use this social media site. Some 45% of teens say they are online “almost constantly,” and an additional 44% say they’re online several times a day.

Some researchers have suggested that the growing amount of time teens are spending on their mobile devices, and specifically on social media, is contributing to the growth in anxiety and depression among this group. Teens have mixed views on whether social media has had a positive or negative effect on their generation. About three-in-ten (31%) say the effect on people their own age has been mostly positive, 24% say it’s been mostly negative, and 45% say it’s been neither positive nor negative.

Many teens who say social media has had a positive effect say a major reason they feel this way is because it helps them stay connected with friends and family (40% of teens who say social media has a mostly positive effect say this). For those who see the effect of social media as negative, the most common reason cited is that it leads to bullying and rumor spreading (27% of teens who say social media has a mostly negative effect say this).

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy

• Financial Information
• Our History
• Our Leadership
• The Casey Philanthropies
• Workforce Composition
• Child Welfare
• Community Change
• Economic Opportunity
• Equity and Inclusion
• Evidence-Based Practice
• Juvenile Justice
• Leadership Development
• Research and Policy
• Child Poverty
• Foster Care
• Juvenile Probation
• Kinship Care
• Racial Equity and Inclusion
• Two-Generation Approaches
• See All Other Topics
• Publications
• KIDS COUNT Data Book
• KIDS COUNT Data Center

Social Issues That Matter to Generation Z

With tech­nol­o­gy at their fin­ger­tips — and a reg­u­lar tool in their grow­ing hands — Gen Zers have been able to con­nect to cul­tures around the world and learn about issues and news ear­li­er and more often than any gen­er­a­tion before them. This broad cul­tur­al expo­sure from an ear­ly age like­ly con­tributes to Gen­er­a­tion Z’s ten­den­cy towards open-mind­ed­ness, lib­er­al views and advo­ca­cy for the fair and equal treat­ment of others.

Eight Top Social Issues for Gen Z

Eight issues, in par­tic­u­lar, have com­mand­ed the atten­tion of Gen­er­a­tion Z so far. These are: 1 ) health care access; 2 ) men­tal health; 3 ) high­er edu­ca­tion; 4 ) eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty; 5 ) civic engage­ment; 6 ) racial equi­ty; 7 ) the envi­ron­ment; and 8 ) gun violence.

1 . Health Care Access

Health care is a core issue for Gen­er­a­tion Z. Almost nine in 10 Gen Zers ages 18 to 24 view access to health care as a human right , accord­ing to a nation­al poll in 2022 . In addi­tion to access, they see afford­abil­i­ty and qual­i­ty as key sys­tem issues to improve. As part of this issue, access to repro­duc­tive health care, specif­i­cal­ly, has emerged as a top pri­or­i­ty for Gen Z young adults.

When it comes to their own health care, near­ly one in five ( 17 %) Gen Zers ages 18 to 24 did not have ­health insur­ance  in the fall of 2022 , accord­ing to Cen­sus Bureau data. This high unin­sured rate is espe­cial­ly con­cern­ing giv­en that ado­les­cents and young adults gen­er­al­ly have low lev­els of health care access to begin with — and this is a vul­ner­a­ble phase of devel­op­ment in which sig­nif­i­cant phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes are tak­ing place. 

The age span of 14 through 24 , which cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents Gen Z (ages 12 to 27  in 2024 ), marks a for­ma­tive stage in the lifes­pan, when youth must nav­i­gate increas­ing auton­o­my while form­ing their iden­ti­ties and build­ing socioe­mo­tion­al and life skills. This emerg­ing inde­pen­dence is crit­i­cal in the health care con­text, as young peo­ple must learn to tra­verse the health care sys­tem, devel­op health lit­er­a­cy and take charge of their own health needs.

While young adults who have health insur­ance often are cov­ered by their par­ents’ plans, the old­est mem­bers of Gen Z have aged out of their par­ents’ plans and are invest­ing in their own insur­ance for the first time. Many can only afford cov­er­age through the Afford­able Care Act and Med­ic­aid expan­sion .

When it comes to health care, youth today gen­er­al­ly have a holis­tic view – believ­ing providers should screen for social deter­mi­nants of health such as food inse­cu­ri­ty and hous­ing needs – and they val­ue self-care, con­ve­nience and effi­cien­cy. Thanks to evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy, they are grow­ing up with­in a med­ical sys­tem offer­ing unprece­dent­ed online options for con­nect­ing with physi­cians, health coach­es , ther­a­pists and oth­ers — as well as self-mon­i­­tor­ing dig­i­tal tools — empow­er­ing them to gath­er infor­ma­tion, learn and man­age their health needs.

At the same time, Gen Zers are less like­ly to have pri­ma­ry care providers rel­a­tive to old­er Amer­i­cans, and they fre­quent­ly pre­fer telemed­i­cine to tra­di­tion­al in-per­­son vis­its, espe­cial­ly those with geo­graph­ic or trans­porta­tion bar­ri­ers . How­ev­er, main­tain­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty in tele­health appoint­ments is a con­cern for some young peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when they still live at home or lack a pri­vate set­ting. Ado­les­cents and young adults often have unique and sen­si­tive health needs, such as repro­duc­tive or men­tal health issues, that require con­fi­den­tial care.

Gen Z also believes that racial inequities exist in the health care sys­tem , and many report their own expe­ri­ences of dis­crim­i­na­tion in health care set­tings. Med­ical providers can respond by ensur­ing that they pro­vide cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive ser­vices ground­ed in pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment prin­ci­ples, whether vir­tu­al­ly or in person.

2 . Men­tal Health

Men­tal health is a cri­sis in Amer­i­ca, accord­ing to more than eight in 10 Gen Zers . This gen­er­a­tion is far more like­ly to report emo­tion­al health prob­lems than old­er age groups. A  2022 sur­vey of U.S. young adults ages 18 to 29 found that about half report­ed ​ “ always” or ​ “ often” feel­ing anx­ious in the past year, com­pared to one-third of adults over­all. In addi­tion, a  mul­ti-year Gen Z study found that they were 83 % more like­ly to report anx­i­ety issues and 86 % more like­ly to report depres­sion com­pared with oth­er gen­er­a­tions. Mem­bers of Gen Z are con­cerned about this cri­sis affect­ing their age group , but they tend to be prag­mat­ic about address­ing it and they are help­ing to des­tig­ma­tize the issue. They are more accept­ing of and open to talk­ing about depres­sion, anx­i­ety and oth­er emo­tion­al chal­lenges than old­er generations. 

While tech­nol­o­gy and social media can fos­ter crit­i­cal social sup­port and con­nec­tions for young peo­ple, they can also aug­ment anx­i­ety, depres­sion, low self-esteem and stress . Con­tribut­ing to this, trag­ic U.S. and world news is now deliv­ered faster than ever — and dif­fi­cult to avoid — via an assort­ment of apps and out­lets. Gen Zers report seri­ous con­cerns about home­less­ness, gun vio­lence, sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion, cli­mate change and more . Oth­er major stres­sors for Gen Z in recent years include the COVID- 19 pan­dem­ic, high hous­ing costs, and per­son­al finances.

For­tu­nate­ly, today’s young adults are more like­ly to seek treat­ment for their anx­i­ety and depres­sion than old­er age groups. Near­ly one in three ( 31 %) young adults ages 18 to 29 report­ed receiv­ing men­tal health care in the pre­vi­ous year, com­pared to one in four ( 25 %) adults ages 30 to 49 and less than one in five ( 18 %) ages 50 to 64 , accord­ing to the 2022 sur­vey not­ed above. Oth­er stud­ies note sim­i­lar trends. At the same time, young peo­ple who need treat­ment do not always get it. In 2022 , almost half ( 47 %) of young adults said they did not get men­tal health care when they thought they might need it in the pre­vi­ous year, with cost cit­ed among the top bar­ri­ers. Low­er-income and LGBTQ groups tend to be par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble, both in terms of access­ing treat­ment and expe­ri­enc­ing poor men­tal health outcomes.

Read more about Gen­er­a­tion Z and Men­tal Health

3 . High­er Education

High­er edu­ca­tion is one of the top issues Gen­er­a­tion Z cares about. The vast major­i­ty ( 83 %) of U.S. Gen Zers ages 12 to 26 believe a col­lege edu­ca­tion is ​ “ very impor­tant” or ​ “ fair­ly impor­tant,” accord­ing to a  2023 Gallup sur­vey. Con­sis­tent with this, mem­bers of Gen­er­a­tion Z are the least like­ly to drop out of high school and the most like­ly to go to col­lege com­pared to old­er gen­er­a­tions, accord­ing to the Pew Research Cen­ter .

How­ev­er, only about half ( 53 %) of col­lege-bound Gen Zers thought they could afford it , based on the same 2023 sur­vey. While con­cerns about col­lege afford­abil­i­ty were con­sis­tent across all demo­graph­ic groups, Black Gen Zers were the least like­ly to think they could afford it ( 39 %). Researchers note that this could con­tribute to low­er col­lege enroll­ment and com­ple­tion rates among Black students.

As learn­ers, Gen Zers are inter­est­ed in acquir­ing career skills, and they val­ue flex­i­ble and per­son­al­ized teach­ing approach­es. They are inde­pen­dent, cre­ative, hands-on and tech-savvy stu­dents who pre­fer immer­sive, active edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ences ver­sus pas­sive­ly sit­ting and lis­ten­ing to lec­tures for hours. Of course, they are a diverse group with dif­fer­ent back­grounds and learn­ing styles, which is part­ly why flex­i­bil­i­ty and mul­ti­ple modes of learn­ing (e.g., visu­al, audi­to­ry, kines­thet­ic, e‑learning, self-dis­cov­ery, etc.) work well for them.

The pan­dem­ic knocked a sig­nif­i­cant share of stu­dents off their aca­d­e­m­ic path. For instance: In Octo­ber 2020 , more than 40 % of house­holds report­ed that a prospec­tive stu­dent was can­celing plans to attend com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, accord­ing to data from the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau . Since the pan­dem­ic, col­lege enroll­ment rates have con­tin­ued to decline , espe­cial­ly among two-year insti­tu­tions, and grad­u­a­tion rates have stag­nat­ed . Gen Zers are increas­ing­ly tak­ing uncon­ven­tion­al path­ways through high­er edu­ca­tion, such as chang­ing schools, mov­ing across state lines, adjust­ing course loads and/​or paus­ing and restart­ing enroll­ment. It remains to be seen how Gen Z uncer­tain­ty about col­lege afford­abil­i­ty may affect future atten­dance rates.

Rec­og­niz­ing the range of issues fac­ing Gen Z, lead­ers in high­er edu­ca­tion and oth­er sec­tors can pri­or­i­tize a holis­tic approach to stu­dent well-being that address­es their finan­cial, men­tal and phys­i­cal health needs, as well as racial, gen­der and LGBTQ + equity.

Read more about Gen­er­a­tion Z and Education

4 . Eco­nom­ic Security

Eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty mat­ters to Gen Z. Mul­ti­ple stud­ies have report­ed that per­son­al finances, jobs, debt, the cost of liv­ing and hous­ing inse­cu­ri­ty are major sources of stress for Gen Z. In 2023 , almost two-thirds ( 64 %) of Gen Zers ages 12 to 26 said finan­cial resources were a bar­ri­er to their future goals. They want to have sta­ble, well-pay­ing jobs, afford­able hous­ing and to avoid crip­pling col­lege debt. Many also see a role for gov­ern­ment in sup­port­ing the eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty of Amer­i­cans. More than two-thirds ( 70 %) of Gen Zers think the U.S. gov­ern­ment should pro­vide a uni­ver­sal basic income for all indi­vid­u­als, com­pared to 61 % of the over­all pop­u­la­tion, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Gen­er­a­tional Kinet­ics’ 2023 State of Gen Z report .

Gen Z has been through con­sid­er­able tur­moil, eco­nom­ic and oth­er­wise, in their young lives to date — a glob­al pan­dem­ic and eco­nom­ic down­turn, cli­mate dis­as­ters, numer­ous polit­i­cal and soci­etal crises, his­tor­i­cal­ly fast inter­est rate hikes, high infla­tion and more. But they are resilient and con­tin­ue to adapt. When asked in 2023 about their finan­cial goals, Gen Z over­whelm­ing­ly report­ed that they are cur­rent­ly focused on sav­ing and earn­ing mon­ey, with old­er Gen Zers also focused on pay­ing off debt. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, two in five ( 41 %) mem­bers of Gen Z say they have no mon­ey saved for an emer­gency, accord­ing to the State of Gen Z report.

When it comes to earn­ing mon­ey, Gen Zers are career-focused, com­pet­i­tive and inter­est­ed in forg­ing their own paths. They have an entre­pre­neur­ial mind­set and are open to chal­leng­ing the tra­di­tion­al rat race. Quite a few of these youth believe that col­lege isn’t the only path to reach their goals, with near­ly one in five say­ing col­lege is not that impor­tant , and near­ly half hav­ing an infor­mal or for­mal job on the side (a ​ “ side hustle”).

When it comes to choos­ing career paths, only 29 % of Gen Zers plan to pur­sue an occu­pa­tion relat­ed to sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math ( STEM ), which are wide­ly con­sid­ered the jobs of the future. STEM sec­tors are already expe­ri­enc­ing labor short­ages, and jobs in these areas are expect­ed to grow sub­stan­tial­ly in the com­ing decades. U.S. lead­ers are grap­pling with how to pre­pare today’s young peo­ple for tomorrow’s work­force needs. 

5 . Civic Engagement

Mem­bers of Gen­er­a­tion Z are pas­sion­ate about advo­cat­ing for social change.

They are polit­i­cal­ly engaged and believe that the gov­ern­ment should do more to address­ society’s prob­lems. Recent sur­veys show that the top pri­or­i­ties for Gen Z include: cli­mate change, access to repro­duc­tive health care, cost of liv­ing (and hous­ing), jobs that pay a liv­ing wage, gun vio­lence and racial jus­tice. A  2022 poll also found that about three-quar­ters of Gen Z young adults (includ­ing polit­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive young peo­ple) sup­port gov­ern­ment poli­cies to reduce the wealth gap between the rich­est and poor­est Americans.

Gen Zers see vot­ing as a respon­si­bil­i­ty and a way to achieve change . Accord­ing­ly, in the Novem­ber 2022 elec­tion, Gen Z vot­ers turned out at a high­er rate than mil­len­ni­als and Gen Xers at the same age. This is part of an ongo­ing trend in which Gen Z’s 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion turnout was almost a  10 -point increase from their 2016 rate, and they are cred­it­ed with help­ing to shape the 2020 elec­tion results. Since 2022 , Gen Z has added 8 . 3 mil­lion eli­gi­ble vot­ers, and they are on track to have more than 40 mil­lion total eli­gi­ble vot­ers in 2024 .

Gen Zers are also com­fort­able dri­ving change. A  2023 report on Gen Z found that they are 92 % more like­ly than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions to engage in pub­lic protests. Using plat­forms like Snapchat, Insta­gram, Twit­ter and Tik­Tok, these youth have helped move activism into the dig­i­tal age. And, along the way, they’ve offered the world a mas­ter class in har­ness­ing the pow­er of social media to spot­light a spe­cif­ic cause or an issue that they want to see change. Gen Z is 68 % more like­ly to engage in polit­i­cal issues through social media than mil­len­ni­als, Gen Xers or oth­er gen­er­a­tions, accord­ing to the same report.

Some exam­ples to date: Mem­bers of Gen­er­a­tion Z orga­nized march­es nation­wide after a gun­man killed 17 peo­ple at Mar­jo­ry Stone­man Dou­glas High School in Park­land, Flori­da. Swedish teen and envi­ron­men­tal activist Gre­ta Thun­berg lever­aged social media to cap­ti­vate the world and chal­lenge lead­ers to take action against cli­mate change. And 23 -year-old Malala Yousafzai, who blogged about her right to edu­ca­tion, kicked off a fem­i­nist move­ment in the Mid­dle East en route to win­ning a Nobel Peace Prize.

Gen Z rec­og­nizes the pow­er of social media to mobi­lize the pub­lic, and near­ly all U.S. mem­bers of Gen Z — 98 % — report dai­ly use of at least one major social media plat­form .

6 . Racial Equity

Racial equi­ty is a key social issue for Gen­er­a­tion Z.

Gen Zers are more racial­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly diverse than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, with near­ly half of the group’s mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ties of col­or . Fit­ting­ly, this group strong­ly val­ues inclu­sion, cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and racial and eth­nic equal­i­ty. Today’s young peo­ple are also acute­ly aware of the nation’s steep racial divides.

One recent poll — con­duct­ed by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Med­ical Col­leges Cen­ter for Health Jus­tice with Gen Zers ages 18 to 24 — found that three in five respon­dents believe racial jus­tice should be a top pri­or­i­ty for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther, the poll found that:

• Two in three Gen Zers think sys­temic racism is a pub­lic health cri­sis and makes it hard­er for peo­ple of col­or to access health care.
• More than three-quar­ters believe that racial res­i­den­tial seg­re­ga­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion in hous­ing should be a pri­or­i­ty for the fed­er­al government.
• Three in five have lit­tle to no con­fi­dence in the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice system’s abil­i­ty to treat indi­vid­u­als equal­ly. Trust in the police is par­tic­u­lar­ly low among those who have per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced discrimination.

Gen Z does not stop at racial equi­ty, though. They val­ue fair­ness and equal­i­ty in all facets of life , and they are pas­sion­ate about LGBTQ + rights, as well. To date, they are the gen­er­a­tion most like­ly to have mem­bers who iden­ti­fy as non-bina­ry or third gen­der . More than one in five U.S. Gen Z adults iden­ti­fies as LGBTQ + , accord­ing to a  2023 survey.

7 . Envi­ron­ment

The wors­en­ing effects of cli­mate change are impact­ing the lives of Gen Z, spurring deep anx­i­ety but also activism .

Gen Zers around the world are expe­ri­enc­ing ​ “ eco-anx­i­ety.” A recent inter­na­tion­al study of 10 , 000 young peo­ple ages 16 to 25  in 10 coun­tries found that over 80 % were wor­ried about the cli­mate cri­sis, with many report­ing feel­ings of sad­ness, anx­i­ety, anger, pow­er­less­ness, help­less­ness and guilt. In the Unit­ed States, more than 70 % of Gen Zers ages 18 to 24 believe cli­mate change is an imme­di­ate and long-term threat to the planet’s safe­ty and that the gov­ern­ment should strength­en poli­cies to reduce CO 2 emissions.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Gen Zers believe that insti­tu­tions and busi­ness­es have an oblig­a­tion to take a stand on envi­ron­men­tal issues, accord­ing to a  2023 Gen Z study . And these young peo­ple will sup­port those that do. For exam­ple, one in five Gen Zers said that a brand’s posi­tion on issues would affect whether or not they buy from them. Addi­tion­al­ly, near­ly a third said they would buy more sus­tain­able goods if brands had clear­er labels or bet­ter infor­ma­tion on the product’s cli­mate impact. 

Beyond expect­ing com­pa­nies to fall in line, young peo­ple are also com­mit­ted to lead­ing by exam­ple. Sev­er­al recent stud­ies have found that Gen Z is will­ing to pay more for sus­tain­able prod­ucts, with one find­ing that 90 % of Gen Zers pur­chased such prod­ucts, while the same was true for 85 % of mil­len­ni­als, 84 % of Gen Xers and 78 % of Baby Boomers.

8 . Gun Violence

Gen Z con­sid­ers gun vio­lence a major issue. As a gen­er­a­tion grow­ing up with mass shoot­ings and active shoot­er drills in schools, they are more like­ly than mil­len­ni­als to rank gun vio­lence among their top three pri­or­i­ties , accord­ing to a  2022 nation­al sur­vey by Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty. Anoth­er poll that year found that sev­en in 10 Gen Z young adults see this as a pub­lic health issue .

Trag­i­cal­ly, the data bear out their con­cerns. A  2023 analy­sis by the Johns Hop­kins Cen­ter for Gun Vio­lence Solu­tions found that firearm deaths are at an all-time high: 48 , 830 Amer­i­cans died as a result of gun vio­lence in 2021 (the most recent data in the report), more than 2020 ’s record-break­ing num­ber. The rate of gun deaths also increased by 22 % between 2019 and 2021 . This increase has been fueled by both gun homi­cides and sui­cides. Gen Z’s focus on gun vio­lence, includ­ing sui­cides, close­ly con­nects to their con­cern about the men­tal health crisis.

Guns are also the lead­ing cause of death for chil­dren, youth and young adults, as report­ed in the Johns Hop­kins analy­sis. Black young peo­ple expe­ri­ence gun vio­lence at espe­cial­ly alarm­ing rates. For instance, in 2021 , more than half ( 51 %) of all Black Gen Zers ages 15 to 19 who died were killed by firearms. Fur­ther, Black kids and teens were about five times as like­ly as their white peers to die from gun vio­lence that year, accord­ing to the Pew Research Cen­ter . The dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact of firearm vio­lence on peo­ple of col­or inter­sects with Gen Z’s strong focus on racial justice.

Rec­og­niz­ing Gen­er­a­tion Z’s pas­sion and will­ing­ness to engage in social activism, they will no doubt con­tin­ue to make their voic­es heard on this issue.

Learn More About Gen­er­a­tion Z

Under­stand­ing Gen­er­a­tion Z is crit­i­cal for shap­ing the future of the nation in a pos­i­tive way. Explore addi­tion­al Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion resources to learn more about America’s younger gen­er­a­tions, includ­ing Gen­er­a­tion Z and Gen­er­a­tion Alpha:

• What the Sta­tis­tics Say About Gen­er­a­tion Z
• Sta­tis­tics Snap­shot: Gen­er­a­tion Z and Education
• Core Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Gen­er­a­tion Z
• The Chang­ing Child Pop­u­la­tion of the Unit­ed States
• KIDS COUNT Adds New Dataset on Youth and Young Adults Ages 14 to 24 , Cap­tur­ing Most Gen Zers 
• Gen­er­a­tion Z and Men­tal Health
• Social Medi­a’s Con­cern­ing Effect on Teen Men­tal Health

KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter indi­ca­tors on Gen Z and oth­er generations:

• Pop­u­la­tion size by Gen Alpha, Gen Z, mil­len­ni­als, Gen X and baby boomers, by race and ethnicity
• Peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty by generation
• Peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty by gen­er­a­tion and race and ethnicity
• Peo­ple liv­ing in low-income house­holds by generation
• Peo­ple liv­ing in low-income house­holds by gen­er­a­tion and race and ethnicity

Sign up for our newslet­ters to get the lat­est data and oth­er resources.

This post is related to:

• Assets and Savings
• COVID-19 Responses
• Generation Z
• Health and Child Development
• Youth and Work

Popular Posts

View all blog posts    |    Browse Topics

blog   |   January 12, 2021

What Are the Core Characteristics of Generation Z?

blog   |   June 3, 2021

Defining LGBTQ Terms and Concepts

blog   |   August 1, 2022

Child Well-Being in Single-Parent Families

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our data, reports and news in your inbox.

How Generation Z can help solve today's greatest challenges

Gitanjali rao, inventor and time kid of the year, beeline reader.

BeeLine Reader , a 2021 Digital Inclusion Solver team , uses subtle color gradients to help you read more efficiently

Share this article

Inventor and TIME Kid of the Year Gitanjali Rao with Solver and Founder of Timeless Emma Yang at Virtual Solve at MIT 2020

A young boy in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya wakes up at 8am to go to school in the morning, and then walks 45 minutes to meet the rest of his classmates. After today’s lesson, he is planning to meet with an American technology company to discuss their latest developments in the industry. He brainstorms novel ideas around these new concepts, pitches them to the company, and eventually gets the opportunity to mass produce his products and receive real feedback from field testing. This is an example of the world in which we would all love to create and grow up.  

We have an opportunity for Gen Z students to approach modern issues more critically and creatively. I believe that Gen Z students can identify and tackle problems differently from previous generations. We are growing up in an era where massive, worldwide problems like climate change are occurring in real time. We’re experiencing them firsthand and viewing them through a student's perspective. Young people have the unique mindset to create solutions with more freedom than adults, but also face specific barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential.    While working with students in refugee camps in Kenya and schools in Ghana, I was inspired  to look more broadly at innovation and problem-solving. I recognized that even if partnerships can be formed and connections can be made, the lack of experience with particular skills is what continues to hold youth back, like knowing how to conduct a feasibility study with the latest technologies.    Many of the challenges that students face revolve around a lack of access to resources, a dearth of mentors and experts, and the scrutiny of age versus ability. The processes of design-thinking and problem-solving must be supported by technological resources, funding, and further tools for marketing. K-12 students, who do not have the advantage of higher education and industry experience, lack access to these resources to develop their ideas further, keeping them out of conversations where they could make a difference.    In addition, students do not have access to a network of established tech and business communities, such as experts in the field and mentors that can guide their path with direct feedback.    In order to support the younger generation who is looking to bring its ideas to reality, those with more experience in the workforce can make a lasting impact by mentoring students. Mentorship can come in many forms: encouraging youth to use the tech available to them to solve issues, breaking down barriers to access, or even taking a couple of hours to collaborate on ideas. Guidance and encouragement early on is critical.  Initiatives like MIT Solve, which helps social good tech entrepreneurs scale their solutions and its new program for budding entrepreneurs 24 and under, and Solv[ED] give youth the opportunity to design, build, and elevate their ideas for a chance to create meaningful change. With the support of educators and mentors in the MIT Solve community, youth are able to develop their own ideas from scratch, foster them using the latest technology, receive funding, and gain access to a platform to pitch their ideas to the real world. Investing in new technologies and partnerships for Gen Z will make real change for the future of our society.  Solv[ED] is investing in a unique set of talent, viewpoints, and skill sets and expanding opportunities for Gen Z to solve some of the most pressing issues facing society today. Often the best solutions start small and local. Once proven to work, these solutions can be adapted and scaled to solve similar problems in other parts of the world. That is what the youth are able to do — come up with creative approaches locally that can eventually help solve problems worldwide. I can’t wait to see our young generation realize their full potential as changemakers.

Related Challenge

Youth innovation, 2022 solv[ed] youth innovation challenge, related articles, using green nanotech to extend the shelf life of produce: a q&a with karpolax founders, menstrual product innovation for our generation, mit solve announces inaugural class of solv[ed] innovators, we use cookies.

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our website and to understand where our visitors are coming from. By browsing our website, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

• Open Search Search
• Information for Information For

Gen Z, Aware of its Power, Wants to Have Impact on a Wide Range of Issues

Lead author: Ruby Belle Booth Contributors: Alberto Medina, Sara Suzuki

The 2022 midterms were the first national election in which Gen Z made up the majority of the ages 18-29 electorate—the age group CIRCLE and others define as “young voters”—and 9% of all voters . In just a few years, Gen Z will make up all of that age group. Millennials, now ages 26-41, make up the remainder of the 18-29 year old cohort and they made up 26% of the electorate in 2022. While divisions by generations can be partially arbitrary groupings—and there are important differences among members of the same generation—they provide opportunities to consider the unique environments in which youth of different ages, at different times, become active in democracy.

For Gen Z, those political, social, and economic conditions have included a global pandemic, an epidemic of school shootings, and major political shifts. Using CIRCLE’s post-election youth survey, we can hone in on some of the views and experiences of the oldest members of Gen Z, including some differences between them and the youngest  Millennials. (Throughout this analysis, we use Gen Z to refer only to youth ages 18-25 in our sample, and Millennial to refer to youth ages 26-29 in our sample.) We can also shine a light on some of the challenges to engaging the youngest eligible voters, who are new to elections and are often neglected by organizations and campaigns.

Among our major findings:

• Among Gen Z respondents in our poll who didn’t register to vote, about 1 in 7 said they didn’t know how or had trouble with the application
• Among youth who did not cast a ballot in 2022, Gen Zers were more likely than Millennials to say they didn’t have time, and less likely to say they thought it didn’t matter
• Millennials are more likely to prioritize economic concerns like inflation and housing costs; Gen Z is more focused than Millennials on racism and gun violence
• Family and school can be key sources of political information for Gen Z, as well as online media and social networks like YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok

Gen Zers Less Likely to Know How to Register, Have Time to Vote

For the majority of Gen Z, this may have been the first or second national election in which they were eligible to vote; for most it was their first midterm cycle. When young people are relatively new to elections they need more information and support; unfortunately they are often less likely to get it from campaigns and organizations that focus their outreach on past or likely voters.

Our data on youth who did not participate in the 2022 midterms reflect some of those challenges. 

Among young people who said they did not register to vote, 16% of Gen Zers said it was either because they did not know how or had trouble with their application . That was slightly higher than the 10% of Millennials in our sample who cited either of those two issues.

Similarly, among youth who didn’t cast a ballot—whether or not they were registered—42% of Gen Z and 30% of Millennials said they forgot or were too busy. That suggests the youngest potential voters may not have been getting reminders, information about early voting options, or other support to overcome barriers to electoral participation.

Gen Z Cares About Elections, Wants to Have an Impact

Notably, despite some stereotypes about youth apathy, Gen Zers in our survey who didn’t vote were actually less likely to say that it was because it wasn’t important to them or they did not think their vote mattered. In fact, this proved to be one of the largest differences between the two generations: among youth who didn’t vote, 40% of Millennials and 28% of Gen Z said they didn’t think it mattered . 

Both young Millennials and Gen Zers believe in the importance of elections and in their own power: they report, at similar rates, that they think voting is a way to have a say about the country’s future, and that young people have the ability to effect change. Gen Zers are especially aware that their vote is a tool for impact: after “it’s my responsibility,” wanting to shape the outcome was their most cited reason for casting a ballot in 2022.

Our survey also found that Gen Zers (60%) were less likely than Millennials (67%) to say that their political beliefs are somewhat or very important to their personal identity. Given Gen Z’s concern and focus on myriad issues affecting their peers and communities, that may not suggest disinterest, but a different generational lens that is less focused on personal identity and more focused on the tangible impact youth can have.

Beyond Inflation and Abortion: Gen Z Concerned about Climate, Guns, Racism

About 2 in 5 (39%) of Gen Z respondents ranked inflation and gas prices as one of their top three issues, followed by abortion (30%), jobs (26%), and climate change (23%). Both Gen Zers and Millennials in our survey cited the same top two issues: inflation and access to reproductive healthcare. However, there were some slight generational differences in the issues young people consider their main priorities. Millennials were more likely than Gen Zers to cite economic concerns like inflation/gas prices (46% vs. 39%) and housing costs (23% vs. 17%) among their top-three issue priorities.

On the other hand, Gen Zers, many of whom developed their political consciousness and aged into the electorate during years shaped by school shootings and movements for racial justice, were slightly more likely than Millennials to say that gun violence (21% vs. 16%) and racism (18% vs. 13%) were among their top three issues. However, Gen Z is not less attentive to economic concerns across the board: inflation still ranked first among Gen Z, and jobs that pay a living wage was their third highest priority, whereas Millennials ranked climate change third. 

On other major issues that were central to the 2022 election cycle, like abortion, there was no major difference between Millennials and Gen Z.

Family First, but TikTok and Twitter Vital for Gen Z

Gen Zers’ political priorities, views, and attitudes may also be influenced by where they get information about issues and elections. As our research has consistently tracked, for all youth, family is the biggest source of information, though even more so for Gen Z (59% vs. 52% for Millennials) who are more likely to still be living at home. Likewise, Gen Zers, who are more likely to still be in school, were also much more likely to report that they got information about political issues from their teachers or classmates: 21% vs. 8% On the other hand, Millennials were more likely to say they heard about politics from their neighbors or coworkers.

Other differences point to the changing media and social media landscape that is critical to understand in order to effectively reach all young people. Millennials in our survey were more likely to say they got information about issues from Facebook. Members of Gen Z were more likely than Millennials to favor Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram as sources of information.

That said, reaching and fully engaging youth is about more than being on the right platform. It requires listening to their diverse concerns, speaking to the issues they care about, providing key information about where and how to vote, and building opportunities for them to develop and wield political power. As Gen Z becomes an even larger force in the electorate in 2024 and beyond, the work organizations and communities do now to grow them into lifelong voters is likely to shape elections and democracy for decades to come.

CIRCLE Growing Voters

Released in 2022, the CIRCLE Growing Voters report introduces a new framework to transform how communities and institutions prepare youth for democracy. It includes major recommendations for organizations across sectors to do this work more equitably and effectively.

About the Survey:  The survey was developed by CIRCLE at Tufts University, and the polling firm Ipsos collected the data from their nationally representative panel of respondents and a sample of people recruited for this survey between November 9 and November 30, 2022. The study involved an online surveyed a total of 2,018 self-reported U.S. citizens ages 18 to 29 in the United States. The margin of error is +/- 2.2 percentage points. Unless mentioned otherwise, data are for all 18- to 29-year-olds in our sample.

More from the CIRCLE 2022 Post-Election Survey

Essay on Gen Z

Students are often asked to write an essay on Gen Z in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Gen Z

Who is gen z.

Generation Z is the group of people born from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. They are the kids who grew up with smartphones and the internet. Unlike their parents, they’ve always had the world’s information just a tap away.

Technology and Gen Z

These young people are known for being very good with technology. They use it for learning, playing, and talking with friends. Social media is a big part of their lives, and they often use it to express themselves.

Education and Work

Gen Z cares a lot about education and is known for being smart and hardworking. Many are still in school, while others are just starting their jobs. They want to do work that makes a difference.

Values and Beliefs

This generation is very open-minded. They believe in fairness and are not afraid to speak up for what is right. They care about the planet and are active in fighting for a better future.

Challenges They Face

Gen Z faces many challenges, like stress from school and worries about the future. They also deal with a lot of information all the time, which can be overwhelming. But they are strong and keep pushing forward.

250 Words Essay on Gen Z

Gen Z is a group of young people born between 1997 and 2012. They are the kids who came after Millennials and are known for growing up with the internet, smartphones, and social media. This has made them very comfortable with technology.

Since they were small, Gen Z has had gadgets like tablets and smartphones in their hands. This makes them very good at using apps, playing online games, and finding information quickly. They often like to shop, watch shows, and talk to friends online.

Gen Z values learning and is known for being smart and creative. They like to think of new ways to solve problems. When it comes to work, they want jobs that are not just about making money but also about making a difference in the world.

This generation cares a lot about issues like protecting the environment and treating everyone fairly. They want to make the world a better place and often support causes that are important to them.

Challenges for Gen Z

Even though they are young, Gen Z faces challenges. They can feel stressed by things like school, the future, and what they see on the internet. But they are also strong and ready to work hard to make their dreams come true.

In short, Gen Z is a group of young, tech-savvy people who are preparing to make their mark on the world. They might face some problems, but their skills and passion could lead to great things.

500 Words Essay on Gen Z

Imagine a group of young people who have always known what a smartphone is. They probably cannot remember a time before the internet. These are the people we call Generation Z, or Gen Z for short. They were born between the late 1990s and early 2010s. Unlike their parents or older siblings, Gen Z has grown up in a world full of advanced technology and social media.

For Gen Z, technology is like air; it’s everywhere, and they can’t imagine living without it. They use smartphones, tablets, and computers effortlessly. They learn new apps quickly and are always connected to their friends and the world through the internet. This tech-savvy nature makes them very good at finding information and learning new things online.

Education and Career

When it comes to school and jobs, Gen Z is very different from older generations. They like to learn by doing things rather than just reading about them. They are creative and enjoy working on projects that matter to them. Many of them want to have jobs that help people or the environment. They are not afraid to start their own businesses and share their ideas with the world.

Social Media and Communication

Gen Z loves social media. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are where they hang out, share stories, and express themselves. They use emojis, memes, and short videos to talk to each other. For them, sending a quick message online is just as good as talking face to face.

This generation cares a lot about important issues like climate change, equality, and being kind to others. They want to make the world a better place and are not shy about standing up for what they believe in. They support brands and companies that are honest and do good things for people and the planet.

Challenges Faced by Gen Z

Even though they have many skills and good intentions, Gen Z faces challenges too. They often feel pressure to be perfect because of what they see on social media. They worry about the future, especially with problems like climate change and finding jobs. But they are also strong and ready to work hard to overcome these challenges.

In conclusion, Gen Z is a unique and interesting group of young people. They are the first true digital natives, growing up in a world that is always connected. They learn differently, communicate through screens, care deeply about the planet, and face their own set of challenges. As they grow up, they will surely change the world with their fresh ideas and brave actions. It’s exciting to think about what they will do and how they will shape the future.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Expectation In Online Class
• Essay on Garbage Problem Solution
• Essay on Expectation In Teacher

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Understanding Gen Z

Generation Z, the first generation never to know the world without the internet, value diversity and finding their own unique identities, says Stanford scholar Roberta Katz.

Read the full story

Essay Sample on Generation Z's Mental Health Issues

J.K. Rowling once stated that, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and while this certainly can be true, the light can be nonexistent to those who are blinded. Gen-Z is acknowledged as the generation from 1997-2012 and with this generation in the cusp of adulthood it is notorious that their mental health has deteriorated extensively in comparison to other generations. To some they are lazy. Unaware. Outspoken. Disrespectful. The light which is supposed to be radiating upon this generation is being obscured by detriments fabricating a blindfold. Mental health has been a rising issue in Gen-Z due to the neglect of receiving the help they require, broken social standards, and  the constant bombardment of technology and social media. 

In one's life parents are the foundation of who their children are and will become later on in their lives. Children are extremely influenced by their surroundings and their parents being involved in their daily lives, or not, is impactive. When it comes to mental wellness there is a plethora of parents that are oblivious to what their children are experiencing. In many cases some parents struggle with mental health issues as well but are unaware. Michael Shapiro a psychiatrist stated that, “Studies have noted that between 12-26 percent of parents reported not wanting or needing help, or being unwilling to seek help for a child’s depression.” This demonstrates that a child's needs are being denied because a parent lacks the willingness to provide their kids with mental support. Parents cannot protect their children from everything but they can try to be there for them when they need moral support.

Over the past 20 years Gen-Z has encountered an insane amount of backlash from other generations because of the broken social standards that have been in this society. Members of this generation have counteracted so many of the “moral” principles that older generations have set in stone. Racial movements have taken place before but within this generation there is this passion for change that is not to be seen in other places. Other vital subjects such as sexual orientation are also being endorsed. The Pew Research Center states that, “Roughly half of Gen Zers (48%) and Millennials (47%) say gay and lesbian couples being allowed to marry is a good thing for our society.” in comparison to boomers in which only 27 percent of them think that it will be beneficial. They also state that Republican 43% of Gen-Zers in comparison to 20% Boomers think that there is a racial issue occurring. This demonstrates how older generations and Gen-Z do not coincide with most social issues occurring. Seeing the negativity in this world especially because of social media can further impact mental health. This can cause them to be considered disrespectful when in reality Gen-Z has found their voice and is using it for the greater good. 

Social media is the biggest component to the deterioration of a teens mental health. The life that a Gen-Z teen lives is sadly severely influenced by this component. In this world of technology the generation is on a day to day basis compelled to be on social media for at least 4.5, if not more. Gain weight. Lose it. Wear this. Have this body type. Wear makeup. Stay natural. It is a constant cycle of having to be accepted by society and this generation seems to seek validation. A ten year long study Proffesor Sarah Coyon states that, “Girls who used social media for at least two to three hours per day at the beginning of the study--when they were about 13 years old--and then greatly increased their use over time were at a higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults” This highlights that social media can cause mental health issues so severe that suicide can be an outcome. The fact that even two hours of social media use a day can end up harming a person so gravely is concerning to another level. 

In summary, mental health issues in Gen-Z have been an excruciatingly concerning issue in comparison to other generations. The world is already a dark place and these detriments do not contribute any light especially to this young generation. Parents need to make sure that they are providing the necessary support to children in need as well as older generations should not make them feel as though they owe anything to them. Social media is so harmful in today's society yet it plays a prodigious role on a daily basis. No one deserves to have a mind drowning in so much darkness and anguish; Gen-Z should be allowed to see the light that J.K. Rowling is trying to emphasize there is.

Related Samples

• Effects Autism Has On Communication Psychology Essay Example
• Protective Headgear Should Be Mandatory in Soccer Essay Example
• Essay Sample about Mandatory Vaccines
• Essay on Coronavirus : The Unlucky 19
• Essay on Students Smartphone Addiction
• Essay Sample on Effects of Amphetamines
• The Causes of Depression Essay Sample
• Reflective Essay on Mental Health
• Biography of Doctor Victor Chang (Essay Sample)
• Psychological Effects of Activism on Greta Thunberg

Didn't find the perfect sample?

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

You may opt out or contact us anytime.

Zócalo Podcasts

The New Faces of Climate Justice

My environmental students are diverse, motivated, and love humanity, but the more they learn, the more they despair.

Illustration by Be Boggs .

by Sarah Jaquette Ray | July 22, 2020

According to polls, Generation Z—people born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s—share some startling characteristics. Surveys show that they are more lonely, depressed, and suicidal than any previous generation. They are more likely than earlier generations to be economically poorer than their parents, and they are the first generation expected to live shorter lives than their parents. As the most ethnically diverse generation of Americans, they care deeply about racial justice and are leading the George Floyd protests . They also led the largest climate strikes in 2019. Indeed, this generation seems to combine their efforts for both racial and climate justice for the first time in history.

But my experience of this generation, as a college professor of environmental studies, centers on another salient quality: Young people aren’t just motivated by climate change, they are downright traumatized by it. They are freaked out about the future of our planet, with a sense of urgency most of the rest of us haven’t been able to muster. This has profound political implications: Young people like my students are committed to making our world a better place. It’s my job, I’ve begun to think, to make sure that people in this “climate generation” don’t get swallowed up in an ocean of despair along the way.

The Gen Z students I am teaching now are different from those I’ve taught for 12 years. The students who used to choose environmental studies as a major, even as recently as five years ago, were often white outdoorsy types, idealistic, and eager to righteously educate the masses about how to recycle better, ride bikes more, eat locally, and reduce the impact of their lifestyles on the planet. They wanted to get away from the messiness of society and saw “humanity” as destroying nature.

By contrast, my Generation Z students care a lot more about humans. They flock to environmental studies out of a desire to reconcile humanity’s relationship with nature, an awareness that humanity and nature are deeply interconnected, and a genuine love for both. They are increasingly first-generation, non-white, and motivated to solve their communities’ problems by addressing the unequal distribution of environmental costs and benefits to people of color. They work with the Movement for Black Lives, Indigenous sovereignty groups fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and organizations that dismantle barriers to green space, such as Latino Outdoors. Unlike my students from earlier days of teaching, this generation isn’t choosing environmental studies to escape humanity; on the contrary, they get that the key to saving the environment is humanity.

It’s a vision of wholeness and hope—but it comes with a dark side. Digging into environmental studies introduces young people to the myriad ways that our interconnectedness in the world leads to all kinds of problems. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports predict that climate change and habitat destruction will increase the spread of infectious disease; climate also exacerbates health disparities between white and African American people in the U.S., including Black women’s pregnancy risks . Studying these sources makes it clear that the devastations of climate change will be borne unequally.

Some of my students become so overwhelmed with despair and grief about it all that they shut down. Youth have historically been the least likely to vote; but I’ve also seen many stop coming to lectures and seminars. They send depressed, despairing emails. They lose their bearings, question their relationships and education, and get so overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness that they barely pass their classes. One of my students became so self-loathing that she came to think the only way to serve the planet was to stop consuming entirely: reducing her environmental impact meant starving herself. Most young people I know have already decided not to have children, because they don’t want their kids growing up on a doomed planet. They barely want to be alive themselves. They often seem on the brink of nihilism before we even cover the syllabus.

The young people I am teaching say they will bear the worst consequences of processes they did not initiate, and over which they have little or no control. They speak of an apocalypse on the horizon. My students say they do not expect to enjoy the experiences older adults take for granted—having children, planning a career, retiring. For many youth, climate disruption isn’t a hypothetical future possibility; it is already here. They read the long predicted increases in extreme weather events, wildfires, sea level rise, habitat destruction, worsening health outcomes related to pollution, and infectious disease as clear signs that their worst fears will be realized not just in their lifetime, but right now .

This sense of doom is more widely felt, beyond college classrooms. Psychologists and environmental scholars are coming up with a whole new vocabulary to describe these feelings of despair, including solastalgia , climate anxiety , eco-grief , pre-traumatic stress , and psychoterratic illness .

Whatever one calls it, all of this uncertainty can immobilize young people when they feel they can do nothing to fix it. Their sense of powerlessness, whether real or imagined, is at the root of their despair. I have found that many young people have limited notions of how power works. My students associate “power” with really bad things, like fascism, authoritarianism, or force; or slightly less bad things like celebrity, political power, or wealth. They have little imagination about how to engage in social change, and even less imagination about the alternative world they would build if they could.

Without a sense of efficacy—the feeling of having control over the conditions of their lives—I fear some may give up on the difficult process of making change without even trying. Psychologists call this misleading feeling of helplessness the “ pseudoinefficacy effect ,” and it has a political dimension that may keep individuals from working to help others. This feeling may also sync up with Americans’ recent cultural and economic history of seeing ourselves as consumers. Some scholars have argued that limiting our ability to imagine ourselves as having agency beyond being consumers has resulted in the “ privatization of the imagination .” The combination of the feeling of misplaced despair and the feeling that they can only make changes through lifestyle choices creates a sort of ideological box that blocks real democratic political change.

Meanwhile, there is very little in the mass media to suggest that young people have real power over changes in the climate at large—or even our political system. The 24/7 news cycle thrives when it portrays a world on fire . And mainstream media offers few stories about solutions or models for alternative, regenerative economies. The stories that are covered often only tackle technological or market solutions that have yet to be invented or produced. By portraying climate change as a problem that is too big to fix, and suggesting that the contributions of any single individual are too small to make a difference, these messages leave young people with little sense of what can be done. Amid the clamor of apocalyptic coverage, few are talking about what it would take to thrive in, instead of fear, a climate-changed future.

We cannot afford for the next generation of climate justice leaders’ dread to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their psychological resources of resilience, imagination, efficacy, and, against all odds, their fierce capacity for joy, are just as necessary for the future of a viable planet as natural resources like clean air and water. Activists and teachers of my generation must help Gen Z learn to push on the levers of technical, political, cultural, and economic change, and to draw on existential tools or “ deep adaptation ” in times of crisis.

There’s hope in the images on the streets and on social media: Today’s protests against police brutality are a testament to young people’s power and evidence of their commitment to their future. It isn’t an especially large leap from fighting a racist justice system to improving the planet; indeed, many in this generation see them as inextricably connected—that’s the point. And the rapid and radical changes that society has undertaken in response to COVID-19 is further evidence that change is possible. Humans can sacrifice and make collective changes to protect others—hopefully, in these difficult weeks, my students will be able to see that.

The trauma of being young in this historical moment will shape this generation in many ways. The rest of us have a lot to learn from them. And we would do well to help them see that their grief and despair are the other side of love and connection, and help them to channel that toward effective action. For their sake and that of the planet, we need them to feel empowered to shape and desire their future. They have superpowers unique to their generation. They are my antidote to despair.

Send A Letter To the Editors

Please tell us your thoughts. Include your name and daytime phone number, and a link to the article you’re responding to. We may edit your letter for length and clarity and publish it on our site.

(Optional) Attach an image to your letter. Jpeg, PNG or GIF accepted, 1MB maximum.

By continuing to use our website, you agree to our privacy and cookie policy . Zócalo wants to hear from you. Please take our survey !-->

Get More Zócalo

No paywall. No ads. No partisan hacks. Ideas journalism with a head and a heart.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations”

By Louis Menand

The discovery that you can make money marketing merchandise to teen-agers dates from the early nineteen-forties, which is also when the term “youth culture” first appeared in print. There was a reason that those things happened when they did: high school. Back in 1910, most young people worked; only fourteen per cent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were still in school. In 1940, though, that proportion was seventy-three per cent. A social space had opened up between dependency and adulthood, and a new demographic was born: “youth.”

The rate of high-school attendance kept growing. By 1955, eighty-four per cent of high-school-age Americans were in school. (The figure for Western Europe was sixteen per cent.) Then, between 1956 and 1969, college enrollment in the United States more than doubled, and “youth” grew from a four-year demographic to an eight-year one. By 1969, it made sense that everyone was talking about the styles and values and tastes of young people: almost half the population was under twenty-five.

Today, a little less than a third of the population is under twenty-five, but youth remains a big consumer base for social-media platforms, streaming services, computer games, music, fashion, smartphones, apps, and all kinds of other goods, from motorized skateboards to eco-friendly water bottles. To keep this market churning, and to give the consulting industry something to sell to firms trying to understand (i.e., increase the productivity of) their younger workers, we have invented a concept that allows “youth culture” to be redefined periodically. This is the concept of the generation.

The term is borrowed from human reproductive biology. In a kinship structure, parents and their siblings constitute “the older generation”; offspring and their cousins are “the younger generation.” The time it takes, in our species, for the younger generation to become the older generation is traditionally said to be around thirty years. (For the fruit fly, it’s ten days.) That is how the term is used in the Hebrew Bible, and Herodotus said that a century could be thought of as the equivalent of three generations.

Around 1800, the term got transplanted from the family to society. The new idea was that people born within a given period, usually thirty years, belong to a single generation. There is no sound basis in biology or anything else for this claim, but it gave European scientists and intellectuals a way to make sense of something they were obsessed with, social and cultural change. What causes change? Can we predict it? Can we prevent it? Maybe the reason societies change is that people change, every thirty years.

Before 1945, most people who theorized about generations were talking about literary and artistic styles and intellectual trends—a shift from Romanticism to realism, for example, or from liberalism to conservatism. The sociologist Karl Mannheim, in an influential essay published in 1928, used the term “generation units” to refer to writers, artists, and political figures who self-consciously adopt new ways of doing things. Mannheim was not interested in trends within the broader population. He assumed that the culture of what he called “peasant communities” does not change.

Nineteenth-century generational theory took two forms. For some thinkers, generational change was the cause of social and historical change. New generations bring to the world new ways of thinking and doing, and weed out beliefs and practices that have grown obsolete. This keeps society rejuvenated. Generations are the pulse of history. Other writers thought that generations were different from one another because their members carried the imprint of the historical events they lived through. The reason we have generations is that we have change, not the other way around.

There are traces of both the pulse hypothesis and the imprint hypothesis in the way we talk about generations today. We tend to assume that there is a rhythm to social and cultural history that maps onto generational cohorts, such that each cohort is shaped by, or bears the imprint of, major historical events—Vietnam, 9/11, COVID . But we also think that young people develop their own culture, their own tastes and values, and that this new culture displaces the culture of the generation that preceded theirs.

Today, the time span of a generational cohort is usually taken to be around fifteen years (even though the median age of first-time mothers in the U.S. is now twenty-six and of first-time fathers thirty-one). People born within that period are supposed to carry a basket of characteristics that differentiate them from people born earlier or later.

This supposition requires leaps of faith. For one thing, there is no empirical basis for claiming that differences within a generation are smaller than differences between generations. (Do you have less in common with your parents than with people you have never met who happen to have been born a few years before or after you?) The theory also seems to require that a person born in 1965, the first year of Generation X, must have different values, tastes, and life experiences from a person born in 1964, the last year of the baby-boom generation (1946-64). And that someone born in the last birth year of Gen X, 1980, has more in common with someone born in 1965 or 1970 than with someone born in 1981 or 1990.

Everyone realizes that precision dating of this kind is silly, but although we know that chronological boundaries can blur a bit, we still imagine generational differences to be bright-line distinctions. People talk as though there were a unique DNA for Gen X—what in the nineteenth century was called a generational “entelechy”—even though the difference between a baby boomer and a Gen X-er is about as meaningful as the difference between a Leo and a Virgo.

You could say the same things about decades, of course. A year is, like a biological generation, a measurable thing, the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. But there is nothing in nature that corresponds to a decade—or a century, or a millennium. Those are terms of convenience, determined by the fact that we have ten fingers.

Yet we happily generalize about “the fifties” and “the sixties” as having dramatically distinct, well, entelechies. Decade-thinking is deeply embedded. For most of us, “She’s a seventies person” carries a lot more specific information than “She’s Gen X.” By this light, generations are just a novel way of slicing up the space-time continuum, no more arbitrary, and possibly a little less, than decades and centuries. The question, therefore, is not “Are generations real?” The question is “Are they a helpful way to understand anything?”

Bobby Duffy, the author of “The Generation Myth” (Basic), says yes, but they’re not as helpful as people think. Duffy is a social scientist at King’s College London. His argument is that generations are just one of three factors that explain changes in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The others are historical events and “life-cycle effects,” that is, how people change as they age. His book illustrates, with a somewhat overwhelming array of graphs and statistics, how events and aging interact with birth cohort to explain differences in racial attitudes, happiness, suicide rates, political affiliations—you name it, for he thinks that his three factors explain everything.

Link copied

Duffy’s over-all finding is that people in different age groups are much more alike than all the talk about generations suggests, and one reason for all that talk, he thinks, is the consulting industry. He says that, in 2015, American firms spent some seventy million dollars on generational consulting (which doesn’t seem that much, actually). “What generational differences exist in the workplace?” he asks. His answer: “Virtually none.”

Duffy is good at using data to take apart many familiar generational characterizations. There is no evidence, he says, of a “loneliness epidemic” among young people, or of a rise in the rate of suicide. The falling off in sexual activity in the United States and the U.K. is population-wide, not just among the young.

He says that attitudes about gender in the United States correlate more closely with political party than with age, and that, in Europe, anyway, there are no big age divides in the recognition of climate change. There is “just about no evidence,” he says, that Generation Z (1997-2012, encompassing today’s college students) is more ethically motivated than other generations. When it comes to consumer boycotts and the like, “ ‘cancel culture’ seems to be more of a middle-age thing.” He worries that generational stereotypes—such as the characterization of Gen Z-ers as woke snowflakes—are promoted in order to fuel the culture wars.

The woke-snowflake stereotype is the target of “Gen Z, Explained” (Chicago), a heartfelt defense of the values and beliefs of contemporary college students. The book has four authors, Roberta Katz, Sarah Ogilvie, Jane Shaw, and Linda Woodhead—an anthropologist, a linguist, a historian, and a sociologist—and presents itself as a social-scientific study, including a “methodological appendix.” But it resembles what might be called journalistic ethnography: the portrayal of social types by means of interviews and anecdotes.

The authors adopt a key tenet of the pulse hypothesis. They see Gen Z-ers as agents of change, a generation that has created a youth culture that can transform society. (The fact that when they finished researching their book, in 2019, roughly half of Gen Z was under sixteen does not trouble them, just as the fact that at the time of Woodstock, in 1969, more than half the baby-boom generation was under thirteen doesn’t prevent people from making generalizations about the baby boomers.)

Their book is based on hour-long interviews with a hundred and twenty students at three colleges, two in California (Stanford and Foothill College, a well-regarded community college) and one in the U.K. (Lancaster, a selective research university). The authors inform us that the interviewees were chosen “by word of mouth and personal networking,” which sounds a lot like self-selection. It is, in any event (as they unapologetically acknowledge), hardly a randomized sample.

The authors tell us that the interviews were conducted entirely by student research assistants, which means that, unless the research assistants simply read questions off a list, there was no control over the depth or the direction of the interviews. There were also some focus groups, in which students talked about their lives with, mostly, their friends, an exercise performed in an echo chamber. Journalists, or popular ethnographers, would at least have met and observed their subjects. It’s mystifying why the authors felt a need to distance themselves in this way, given how selective their sample was to begin with. We are left with quotations detached from context. Self-reporting is taken at face value.

The authors supplemented the student interviews with a lexical glossary designed to pick out words and memes heavily used by young people, and with two surveys, designed by one of the authors (Woodhead) and conducted by YouGov, an Internet polling company, of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds in the United States and the U.K.

Where there is an awkward discrepancy between the survey results and what the college students say in the interviews, the authors attempt to explain it away. The YouGov surveys found that ninety-one per cent of all persons aged eighteen to twenty-five, American and British, identify as male or female, and only four per cent as gender fluid or nonbinary. (Five per cent declined to answer.) This does not match the impression created by the interviews, which suggest that there should be many more fluid and nonbinary young people out there, so the authors say that we don’t really know what the survey respondents meant by “male” and “female.” Well, then, maybe they should have been asked.

The authors attribute none of the characteristics they identify as Gen Z to the imprint of historical events—with a single exception: the rise of the World Wide Web. Gen Z is the first “born digital” generation. This fact has often been used to stereotype young people as screen-time addicts, captives of their smartphones, obsessed with how they appear on social media, and so on. The Internet is their “culture.” They are trapped in the Web. The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” emphatically reject this line of critique. They assure us that Gen Z-ers “understand both the potential and the downside of technology” and possess “critical awareness about the technology that shapes their lives.”

For the college students who were interviewed (although not, evidently, for the people who were surveyed), a big part of Gen Z culture revolves around identity. As the authors put it, “self-labeling has become an imperative that is impossible to escape.” This might seem to suggest a certain degree of self-absorption, but the authors assure us that these young people “are self-identified and self-reliant but markedly not self-centered, egotistical, or selfish.”

“Lily” is offered to illustrate the ethical richness of this new concern. It seems that Lily has a friend who is always late to meet with her: “She explained that while she of course wanted to honor and respect his unique identity, choices, and lifestyle—including his habitual tardiness—she was also frustrated by how that conflicted with her sense that he was then not respecting her identity and preference for timeliness.” The authors do not find this amusing.

The book’s big claim is that Gen Z-ers “may well be the heralds of new attitudes and expectations about how individuals and institutions can change for the better.” They have come up with new ways of working (collaborative), new forms of identity (fluid and intersectional), new concepts of community (diverse, inclusive, non-hierarchical).

Methodology aside, there is much that is refreshing here. There is no reason to assume that younger people are more likely to be passive victims of technology than older people (that assumption is classic old person’s bias), and it makes sense that, having grown up doing everything on a computer, Gen Z-ers have a fuller understanding of the digital universe than analog dinosaurs do. The dinosaurs can say, “You don’t know what you’re missing,” but Gen Z-ers can say, “You don’t understand what you’re getting.”

The claim that addiction to their devices is the cause of a rise in mental disorders among teen-agers is a lot like the old complaint that listening to rock and roll turns kids into animals. The authors cite a recent study (not their own) that concludes that the association between poor mental health and eating potatoes is greater than the association with technology use. We’re all in our own fishbowls. We should hesitate before we pass judgment on what life is like in the fishbowls of others.

The major problem with “Gen Z, Explained” is not so much the authors’ fawning tone, or their admiration for the students’ concerns—“environmental degradation, equality, violence, and injustice”—even though they are the same concerns that almost everyone in their social class has, regardless of age. The problem is the “heralds of a new dawn” stuff.

“A crisis looms for all unless we can find ways to change,” they warn. “Gen Zers have ideas of the type of world they would like to bring into being. By listening carefully to what they are saying, we can appreciate the lessons they have to teach us: be real, know who you are, be responsible for your own well-being, support your friends, open up institutions to the talents of the many, not the few, embrace diversity, make the world kinder, live by your values.”

I believe we have been here before, Captain. Fifty-one years ago, The New Yorker ran a thirty-nine-thousand-word piece that began:

There is a revolution under way . . . It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions, and social structure are changing in consequence. Its ultimate creation could be a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. This is the revolution of the new generation.

The author was a forty-two-year-old Yale Law School professor named Charles Reich, and the piece was an excerpt from his book “The Greening of America,” which, when it came out, later that year, went to No. 1 on the Times best-seller list.

Reich had been in San Francisco in 1967, during the so-called Summer of Love, and was amazed and excited by the flower-power wing of the counterculture—the bell-bottom pants (about which he waxes ecstatic in the book), the marijuana and the psychedelic drugs, the music, the peace-and-love life style, everything.

He became convinced that the only way to cure the ills of American life was to follow the young people. “The new generation has shown the way to the one method of change that will work in today’s post-industrial society: revolution by consciousness,” he wrote. “This means a new way of living, almost a new man. This is what the new generation has been searching for, and what it has started to achieve.”

So how did that work out? The trouble, of course, was that Reich was basing his observations and predictions on, to use Mannheim’s term, a generation unit—a tiny number of people who were hyperconscious of their choices and values and saw themselves as being in revolt against the bad thinking and failed practices of previous generations. The folks who showed up for the Summer of Love were not a representative sample of sixties youth.

Most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs, or protest the war in Vietnam. In a poll taken in 1967, when people were asked whether couples should wait to have sex until they were married, sixty-three per cent of those in their twenties said yes, virtually the same as in the general population. In 1969, when people aged twenty-one to twenty-nine were asked whether they had ever used marijuana, eighty-eight per cent said no. When the same group was asked whether the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam, three-quarters said no, about the same as in the general population.

Most young people in the sixties were not even notably liberal. When people who attended college from 1966 to 1968 were asked which candidate they preferred in the 1968 Presidential election, fifty-three per cent said Richard Nixon or George Wallace. Among those who attended college from 1962 to 1965, fifty-seven per cent preferred Nixon or Wallace, which matched the results in the general election.

The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” are making the same erroneous extrapolation. They are generalizing on the basis of a very small group of privileged people, born within five or six years of one another, who inhabit insular communities of the like-minded. It’s fine to try to find out what these people think. Just don’t call them a generation.

Most of the millions of Gen Z-ers may be quite different from the scrupulously ethical, community-minded young people in the book. Duffy cites a survey, conducted in 2019 by a market-research firm, in which people were asked to name the characteristics of baby boomers, Gen X-ers, millennials (1981-96), and Gen Z-ers. The top five characteristics assigned to Gen Z were: tech-savvy, materialistic, selfish, lazy, and arrogant. The lowest-ranked characteristic was ethical. When Gen Z-ers were asked to describe their own generation, they came up with an almost identical list. Most people born after 1996 apparently don’t think quite as well of themselves as the college students in “Gen Z, Explained” do.

In any case, “explaining” people by asking them what they think and then repeating their answers is not sociology. Contemporary college students did not invent new ways of thinking about identity and community. Those were already rooted in the institutional culture of higher education. From Day One, college students are instructed about the importance of diversity, inclusion, honesty, collaboration—all the virtuous things that the authors of “Gen Z, Explained” attribute to the new generation. Students can say (and some do say) to their teachers and their institutions, “You’re not living up to those values.” But the values are shared values.

And they were in place long before Gen Z entered college. Take “intersectionality,” which the students in “Gen Z, Explained” use as a way of refining traditional categories of identity. That term has been around for more than thirty years. It was coined (as the authors note) in 1989, by the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. And Crenshaw was born in 1959. She’s a boomer.

“Diversity,” as an institutional priority, dates back even farther. It played a prominent role in the affirmative-action case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, in 1978, which opened the constitutional door to race-conscious admissions. That was three “generations” ago. Since then, almost every selective college has worked to achieve a diverse student body and boasts about it when it succeeds. College students think of themselves and their peers in terms of identity because of how the institution thinks of them.

People who went to college in an earlier era may find this emphasis a distraction from students’ education. Why should they be constantly forced to think about their own demographic profiles and their differences from other students? But look at American politics—look at world politics—over the past five years. Aren’t identity and difference kind of important things to understand?

And who creates “youth culture,” anyway? Older people. Youth has agency in the sense that it can choose to listen to the music or wear the clothing or march in the demonstrations or not. And there are certainly ground-up products (bell-bottoms, actually). Generally, though, youth has the same degree of agency that I have when buying a car. I can choose the model I want, but I do not make the cars.

Failure to recognize the way the fabric is woven leads to skewed social history. The so-called Silent Generation is a particularly outrageous example. That term has come to describe Americans who went to high school and college in the nineteen-fifties, partly because it sets up a convenient contrast to the baby-boom generation that followed. Those boomers, we think—they were not silent! In fact, they mostly were.

The term “Silent Generation” was coined in 1951, in an article in Time —and so was not intended to characterize the decade. “Today’s generation is ready to conform,” the article concluded. Time defined the Silent Generation as people aged eighteen to twenty-eight—that is, those who entered the workforce mostly in the nineteen-forties. Though the birth dates of Time’s Silent Generation were 1923 to 1933, the term somehow migrated to later dates, and it is now used for the generation born between 1928 and 1945.

So who were these silent conformists? Gloria Steinem, Muhammad Ali, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Noam Chomsky, Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billie Jean King, Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Berry Gordy, Amiri Baraka, Ken Kesey, Huey Newton, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol . . . Sorry, am I boring you?

It was people like these, along with even older folks, like Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Pauli Murray, who were active in the culture and the politics of the nineteen-sixties. Apart from a few musicians, it is hard to name a single major figure in that decade who was a baby boomer. But the boomers, most of whom were too young then even to know what was going on, get the credit (or, just as unfairly, the blame).

Mannheim thought that the great danger in generational analysis was the elision of class as a factor in determining beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. Today, we would add race, gender, immigration status, and any number of other “preconditions.” A woman born to an immigrant family in San Antonio in 1947 had very different life chances from a white man born in San Francisco that year. Yet the baby-boom prototype is a white male college student wearing striped bell-bottoms and a peace button, just as the Gen Z prototype is a female high-school student with spending money and an Instagram account.

For some reason, Duffy, too, adopts the conventional names and dates of the postwar generations (all of which originated in popular culture). He offers no rationale for this, and it slightly obscures one of his best points, which is that the most formative period for many people happens not in their school years but once they leave school and enter the workforce. That is when they confront life-determining economic and social circumstances, and where factors like their race, their gender, and their parents’ wealth make an especially pronounced difference to their chances.

Studies have consistently indicated that people do not become more conservative as they age. As Duffy shows, however, some people find entry into adulthood delayed by economic circumstances. This tends to differentiate their responses to survey questions about things like expectations. Eventually, he says, everyone catches up. In other words, if you are basing your characterization of a generation on what people say when they are young, you are doing astrology. You are ascribing to birth dates what is really the result of changing conditions.

Take the boomers: when those who were born between 1946 and 1952 entered the workforce, the economy was surging. When those who were born between 1953 and 1964 entered it, the economy was a dumpster fire. It took longer for younger boomers to start a career or buy a house. People in that kind of situation are therefore likely to register in surveys as “materialistic.” But it’s not the Zeitgeist that’s making them that way. It’s just the business cycle. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

• How we became infected by chain e-mail .
• Twelve classic movies to watch with your kids.
• The secret lives of fungi .
• The photographer who claimed to capture the ghost of Abraham Lincoln .
• Why are Americans still uncomfortable with atheism ?
• The enduring romance of the night train .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Most Popular

11 days ago

Into vs In to

10 days ago

How to Reference a Movie in an Essay

How to write a position paper, is gen z actually lazy this admission consultant doesn’t think so.

12 days ago

How Do You Spell?

Who are generation z essay sample, example.

But what are these differences? This is the first generation that cannot imagine a life without having a mobile gadget with an access to the Internet. Z people never lived in times without Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social media services. Whatever they need, they can easily find on the Internet right at their fingertips (thanks to smartphones), and mostly for free.

This has its good and bad sides. From one point of view, Generation Z is native to the Internet: they are more savvy with it, and they navigate it with an ease that their Y predecessors, the millennials, could only dream of; in the age of digital technologies, it is a valuable trait. On the other hand, Generation Z no more have a need to use their long-term memory and to be perceptive: all knowledge they need is saved on the cloud or on distant servers. This has lead to a drastic result: the average attention span of a Generation Z teen is only 8.25 seconds! This means they are unable to focus on something for more than eight seconds. Even a goldfish has a larger attention span of nine seconds ( The Telegraph ).

Considering the enormous daily flow of information, Generation Z cannot afford paying attention to everything around them; they have to be picky, to fish out valuable information from the flow. Their attention span is shorter, but they can sort the information out easier and faster , so one cannot say Generation Z is less effective when working, or less capable than millennials. Besides, when they find something truly worth their attention, they demonstrate commitment and the ability to instantly focus on what they find interesting ( Co.Exist ).

The ability to quickly navigate through a large amounts of information allows the representatives of Generation Z to develop more diverse personalities. Generation Z representatives often have unusual hobbies and interests (sometimes not typical for teenagers and young people—astrophysics, for example), and obtain knowledge from a wider range of disciplines compared to their predecessors, although this knowledge may be superficial (IFR).

At the same time, there is a number of difficulties and drawbacks typical for this generation. One of them is having unrealistic expectations for themselves and for other people. This is often fueled by a rampant celebrity culture. Chloe Combi, a consultant on youth issues for the Mayor of London, and the author of research dedicated to Generation Z, explains it by the fact that, “Gen Z has grown up with reality TV stars, social media celebrities and world-famous twenty-something billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg.” What is more important and dangerous is that the accessibility of any Internet content—including porn—has negatively affected the way Generation Z representatives treat personal and sexual relationships. Generation Z is obsessed with sex, and sexual insults. Harassment is also becoming more common among its representatives (The Telegraph). Women are more objectified within this generation, and abnormal sexual behavior—like in porn movies—is often imitated and considered normal.

Generation Z is a new generation that sociologists are actively studying at the moment. Consisting of digital natives, Generation Z heavily relies on the Internet and other technologies in their daily lives. This makes its representatives more diverse personalities with knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, with unusual hobbies and interests, and with a superior ability to instantly sort out information and find something worth attention. At the same time, Generation Z representatives have alarmingly-short attention spans on average (less than a goldfish), and demonstrate unrealistic expectations towards themselves and surrounding people. They are also more sexually active, and because of an easy accessibility of pornography, they tend to misinterpret sexual relationships, and imitate abusing sexual behavior demonstrated in porn movies. Therefore, American society needs to find ways to make use of Generation Z’s positive traits, and at the same time somehow neutralize the negative ones.

“What is Generation Z, And What Does It Want?” Co.Exist. N.p., 04 May 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

“Look Out, Generation Z is about to Enter Your Workplace.” The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Doe, John. “Something You Didn’t Know about Gen Z.” IFR. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Follow us on Reddit for more insights and updates.

Comments (0)

Welcome to A*Help comments!

We’re all about debate and discussion at A*Help.

We value the diverse opinions of users, so you may find points of view that you don’t agree with. And that’s cool. However, there are certain things we’re not OK with: attempts to manipulate our data in any way, for example, or the posting of discriminative, offensive, hateful, or disparaging material.

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

More from Expository Essay Examples and Samples

Nov 23 2023

Why Is Of Mice And Men Banned

Nov 07 2023

Pride and Prejudice Themes

May 10 2023

Remote Collaboration and Evidence Based Care Essay Sample, Example

Related writing guides, writing an expository essay.

Remember Me

What is your profession ? Student Teacher Writer Other

Forgotten Password?

Username or Email

Discussion of Gen Z’s Core Beliefs Essay

Introduction.

In an increasingly growing skills gap across many industries in the United States, it is direr than ever for companies and institutions to replace their talent pipelines. While executives have tried to comprehend and work coherently with millennials in recent few decades, they must now accustom to even a younger and larger demographic of Generation Z (Gen Z). From this perspective, Millennials are a population group born from around the early 1980s to 2000 (Feingold, 2019).

The generation experienced vast technological revolutions as most of these advancements started from the era they were born. Contrarily, Gen Z refers to individuals born from around 1997 to 2012, translating to more members than millennials in the United States (Feingold, 2019). The essay provides deepened analysis of the core beliefs that guide Gen Z’s daily lives while also reflecting how this generation differs from others.

Core Beliefs of Gen Z and the Differences from Millennials and Other Generations

First, Gen Z principally believes in turning to the web for practically everything, from news and lifestyle to entertainment. Just like Millennials, Gen Z has been nurtured in the era of social media, and most of them acquire smartphones as early as ten years old. Recent generational research conducted by Fullscreen reveals that Gen Z devotes roughly fifty hours each week surfing social networking channels (Bond, 2020). Social media and such similar outlets make them feel motivated and empowered coupled with availed opportunities to make instant connections through stories, reposting content, or direct messaging. Therefore, Gen Z has natural relations with technology more than any other demographic cohort.

Second, Gen Z is pragmatic when matched with Millennials who appear idealistic. Millennials are an optimistic generation regularly seen to be pandered by their parents as ostensibly reflected in the axiomatic millennial involvement trophy. Gen Z experiences the challenge of being raised during the global financial recession but can withstand and comprehend the economic pressure, which communities and even most of their parents encountered. The group saw their parents struggle with financial and employment issues but have remained rational about the situation. Millennials are idealists nurtured during a period of economic boom (Bond, 2020).

Consequently, the global economic meltdown positively impacted Gen Z by becoming exceptionally practical with money. They are more oriented to saving money compared with Millennials during that age who are inclined in having wholesome experiences. Gen Z would love to make acquisitions that maximize the value of the money spent, perhaps a direct consequence of growing up during economic turmoil where conspicuous consumption looks unattractive.

In conclusion, I believe Gen Z is an interesting demographic cohort that manifests positive values. The analysis shows the core beliefs that guide this generation’s daily lives while also reflecting how it differs from others. Born from around 1997 to 2012, Gen Z has been natured at the heart of the social media epoch that has positively impacted their lives. They principally believe in consulting online resources for practically everything.

However, they are also a pragmatic group that believes in saving money and venturing into things that can optimally maximize their value compared with Millennials who are keen on product experience. Moreover, both Millennials and Gen Z were raised in different periods, but the latter has a stronger connection with technology, a different standpoint on money, and show resiliency despite harsh economic situation at childhood.

Bond, C. (2020). There’s a big difference between Millennials and Generation Z . Huffpost. Web.

Feingold, L. (2019). Not sure if you’re a Millennial or part of Gen Z? We want to hear from you . NPR. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 3). Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-gen-zs-core-beliefs/

"Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs." IvyPanda , 3 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-gen-zs-core-beliefs/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs'. 3 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs." November 3, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-gen-zs-core-beliefs/.

1. IvyPanda . "Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs." November 3, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-gen-zs-core-beliefs/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Discussion of Gen Z's Core Beliefs." November 3, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-gen-zs-core-beliefs/.

• Navigating the Bentley Brand’s Gen Z Journey
• “Are Gen Z More Pragmatic About Love and Sex?” by Klein
• The Gettysburg Battle of 1863
• Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards, Power and Imbalanced Exchange
• Agency vs. Stratification in Social Sciences
• Generation Z Through George Orwell’s “1984” Lens
• Theories Different and Similar to Transtheoretical Model and Pender’s Model of Health
• The Concept of Mentoring

Reports and Webinars are limited to the Region terms of your Pro and Prime subscription, as shown in “Purchased Regions”.

• To filter all content types to individual Region(s) you have purchased, apply your Region(s) under “Purchased Regions.”

Articles, Video Updates, and News across all Regions are open to all Pro and Prime subscribers.

• To see this content for any Region, use the “Content Filter”.

The Biggest Problem Gen Z & Millennials Say They Are Facing in 2021

• Jul 06 2021

We asked young people to tell us the biggest problem their generation faces today. Here’s what they told us…

Each year, we ask young consumers what they think the biggest problems they face are to get a better understanding of what the top worries are for these generations. I n 2019,  climate change made the top of the ranking for the first time, underscoring these generations’ serious concerns about the environment. But in 2020, during a year defined by the pandemic and political upheaval, racism and discrimination topped the list, capturing the frustrations and fears of young people on the precipice of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests.

A year later, we’ve asked them again, and found their top concerns have remained the same: 

The Biggest Problem Their Generation Faces Now Among 13-39-year-olds

• Racism / Discrimination
• Technology addiction
• Financial concerns / Debt
• Unemployment / Low paying jobs / Job insecurity
• Economic issues
• Climate change
• Social media
• Mental health problems
• Too sensitive / Cancel culture
• Lack of motivation / laziness
• Hate / Intolerance
• Drug / alcohol / sex addiction
• Lack of morals / values
• Violence / Terrorism / Conflict
• Police Brutality

Our survey was fielded between May 5th, 2021 and May 12th, 2021, and COVID-19 topped the list for them this year. While we’ve documented how many young consumers are starting to get back to “normal” in the month since, fears around the pandemic are still strong. Many named the vaccine and social distancing as the solutions to the problem, and we also found that YPulse’s data showed that  over half of 13-39-year-olds planned to be or would be vaccinated before the summer . But the impacts of the pandemic are far reaching for them, and also affected Gen Z and Millennials’ milestones and finances—something many are most likely still trying to recover from. The fact that Unemployment / Low paying jobs / Job instability is in the top five this year is likely linked to the pandemic as well. 

But Racism/Discrimination was a close second place on the ranking—and COVID and Racism/Discrimination were far more likely to be named by Gen Z and Millennials than the other problems on the list. A year after the Black Lives Matter protests and amid the ongoing #StopAsianHate movement , awareness around racism and discrimination has only grown since we asked this question last year. And even though a majority (68%) of 13-39-year-olds believe that brands have been following through with their anti-racism promises , it’s clear that they think a lot of work still needs to be done. We recently told you how Gen Z and Millennials say that racism has actually gotten worse in the U.S .—with 60% saying it’s getting worse in 2021, compared to 46% in 2020

Interestingly, “Technology addiction” made their top five responses on the list. While it’s certainly been a concern in years’ past, the last year might have intensified their view of tech addiction as a problem. Young people spent more time on their phones, screens, and social media more than ever before in the last year and a half, it shouldn’t come as a total surprise that overreliance on their devices is a growing issue for them. Smartphones and the internet were most commonly mentioned technology they feel their generation is addicted to. Social media also came in the top 10 list, with “too much focus on social media” a variation of this response. According to one 15-year-old female, “Social media is a big thing. Since almost all our lives is “online” it can be hard for us to connect with the outside world. Plus social media also brings its negative impact and we can clearly see how that affects us teens these days.”

COVID, Racism, and Tech addiction were in the top five ranking for teens, twentysomethings, and thirtysomethings: 

While there were many commonalities between responses from these age groups, a few differences stand out. Gen Z teens were more likely than any other group to say that being too sensitive and Cancel Culture are problems for their generation. A 16-year-old female explained, “We are easy to judge and easy to cancel,” and a 17-year-old male told us “Extreme sensitivity against anything remotely offensive.” Is the biggest problem for his generation. Interestingly though, YPulse’s Not Waiting For the World to Change research found that 52% 13-19-year-olds agree that cancel culture has been effective at creating social change—so young people may be split on whether it is a problem. However, that research also found 59% agree, “My generation is too sensitive and creates issues that are not there.” Gen Z teens were also more likely than other groups to say that mental health problems are the biggest problem, another piece of evidence that mental wellness is a major driver for this generation.

YPulse Business users can access the full 4th of July and America Views behavioral report and data here . 

Don’t have a YPulse Business account? Find out more here .

Related content

What Does Fall & Holi...

The Real-Time Data on...

The Return of Logoman...

Will You Go to Prom W...

4 Trends in Gen Z Kid...

Reports referenced in this article.

Enjoy your free YPulse article! Want to see more? Just sign up for 3 free articles a month

Sign up for our Daily Intelligence plan and receive unlimited access to all articles

Continue reading

Upgrade your account to have access to the best marketing content

Create your free account or log in to keep reading

• 39 Broadway, Suite 2010 New York, NY 10006
• 646-797-2779
• Terms & conditions
• Privacy Policy

Enter your colleagues' emails (max 10) to invite them to sign up for a YPulse account. We'll send them a message and let them know you invited them.

Are these emails correct? If so, click Submit Invitation(s)?

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Gen Z — What Generation Comes after Millennials? Meet Generation Z

What Generation Comes after Millennials? Meet Generation Z

• Categories: Gen Z Generation

About this sample

Words: 390 |

Published: Dec 5, 2018

Words: 390 | Page: 1 | 2 min read

Generation Z by Nicole Villarreal

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Sociology

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1240 words

4 pages / 1876 words

1 pages / 391 words

3 pages / 1353 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Gen Z

Throughout the evolution of technology, there has been ongoing debate regarding its impact on the intellectual capacities of successive generations. Mark Bauerlein's assertion that Millennials constitute the "dumbest generation" [...]

This dissertation investigates how content posted on Instagram related to the beauty industry affects the self-images of Millennials and Generation Z females. It also aims to determine whether there are differences between these [...]

Mothers and daughters, generally, clash in the adolescent and teenage years; imagine going through those years trying understand who one is and being a second generation immigrant. Aimee Nezhukumatathil gives a glance into what [...]

We’re going to talk about Generation Gap, and to start my presentation we’re going to do a brief introduction in the history of these generation’s conflicts. The Generational Gap is and was a term popularized in Western [...]

Television has significantly influenced socio-political debate for generations, challenging pre-established notions of race, gender, and our shared societal norms and values. However, despite the social significance of [...]

The birth of new media offers a lot of opportunities, but at the same time it has significant consequences that should not be ignored. One of the biggest effects is the changing process of news consumption among the digital [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Hospitality and Tourism Management
• Operations and Information Management
• Sport Management
• Prospective Undergraduate Students
• Master of Finance
• MS Accounting/Forensics Certificate
• MSBA/Analytics Certificate Students
• MS Sport/MBA Dual
• On-Campus MBAs
• Online MBAs
• MBA/MSBA Duals
• MPPA/MBA Duals
• Graduate Prospective Students
• BIPoC Students
• First Generation Students
• International
• LGBTQIA+ Students
• Students with Disabilities
• Cover Letters
• Interview Prep
• Job/Internship Search
• Professionalism
• Career Coaching for Undergrads
• Executive Coaching for Grad Students
• Career Peers for Undergrads
• Make an Appointment
• Featured Jobs & Internships
• All Handshake Jobs & Internships
• Gain Insights Into Your Career & Industry
• Internship & Co-op Process
• Campus Recruiting Policies
• Employer Recruitment & Offer Acceptance
• Undergraduate Student Organizations
• Graduate Student Organizations
• Student Organizations Hub

‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them

• Share This: Share ‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them on Facebook Share ‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them on LinkedIn Share ‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them on X

‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them was originally published on Forage .

Generation Z, or people born between 1997 and 2012, has a bad reputation in the workplace. We’re often labeled “difficult” or “hard to work with.” According to Resume Builder , nearly 3 in 4 managers believe Gen Z is more difficult to work with than other generations. This attitude about Gen Z workers extends to hiring; 38% of employers avoid hiring recent college graduates in favor of older employees, according to Intelligent.com .

>>MORE: Generation Z Workplace Statistics

As a Gen Zer, I won’t deny that Gen Z is shaking up the workplace . We have different communication styles and strong opinions about work-life balance and salary. We’ve lit a fire under employers to stay true to their mission statements. Yet these differences don’t have to be problems — they can actually be an asset to the workplace if we let them. Here are some stereotypical “problems” with Gen Z in the workplace and how professionals can “fix” them for everyone’s benefit, regardless of age.

1. Gen Z Wants to Close Their Laptops at 5 p.m.

Gen Z wants to log off when the workday ends, often not a second longer.

Our views on work focus on output, not hours, and prioritize work-life balance above almost everything else. According to Deloitte , less than half (49%) of Gen Zers say work is central to their identity, compared to 62% of millennials. Instead, Gen Z admires people whose work-life balance is their top trait rather than their passion for work , job title, or seniority. 

How to ‘Fix’ It

Accepting Gen Z’s attitude toward work-life balance and work might not come quickly to people who hold traditional values about work. However, acknowledging that this desire to log off comes not from a disdain for work but rather a need for the separation of work and life can be helpful. Instead, focus on Gen Z’s results instead of their hours. Does the Gen Zer exceed expectations even if they log off at 5 p.m.? Would the team and company benefit if the Gen Zer worked longer hours?

To work with Gen Zers, have open conversations about boundaries. If regular meetings require them to work unconventional hours, be open and upfront about expectations, when they’re supposed to be online, and why. 

Boundaries can benefit everyone at work, not just Gen Zers. Work-life balance can help increase job satisfaction and prevent burnout, which can lead to lower-quality work and attrition, according to Deloitte .

“As a Gen Zer diving into the workplace, a couple of bumps in the road really grabbed my attention — one biggie is finding that sweet spot between work and life,” says Luke Lintz, Gen Z CEO of HighKey Agency. “You know how it goes — those late-night emails and constant messages can seriously blur the lines between office hours and personal time. Especially in the remote world, it seems that tasks are nonstop being delegated throughout the workday, and it can be difficult to plan ahead of time and properly allocate time to your priorities when your To-do list is constantly changing. Setting boundaries and respecting personal time could work wonders in preventing burnout.” 

2. Gen Z Struggles With Mental Health

Mental health can be one of the most taboo problems with Gen Z in the workplace, as Gen Z struggles with mental health conditions at higher rates than other generations. According to McKinsey , over half (55%) of Gen Zers report having either been diagnosed or receiving treatment for a mental health condition, compared to 31% of people aged 55 to 64, who have had decades longer to seek and get treatment. 

Like other generations, Gen Z has had its fair share of challenges as they were growing up, from mass shootings to the pandemic. Social media, which many Gen Zers have used for most of their teenage and adult life, exacerbates these issues — no other generation has had such immediate and unfiltered access to the news for most of their lives, which can lead to stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues. According to McKinsey , Gen Zers are more likely than other generations to say social media affects their mental health; 27% of Gen Zers say social media has a negative effect. This negative effect is particularly relevant for members of Gen Z who spend more than two hours a day on social media (which is more than a third of Gen Zers). 

Mental health challenges can affect how Gen Z works; about one in four Gen Zers say their mental health impacts their ability to work effectively. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hire Gen Zers. Instead, it means we can shift workplace policies to help adjust for mental health challenges, which benefits everyone, regardless of age. 

According to Zippia , more than half of employees (56%) who participate in company wellness programs say they have fewer sick days because of them, and 60% say they’re more productive at work. These programs also positively impact the bottom line; 84% of employers reported higher employee productivity and performance and, on average, saw a six-to-one return on investment when they invested in wellness programs. 

3. Gen Z Wants to Be the CEO

Gen Z’s drive to be in the C-suite is one of the more ironic problems with Gen Z in the workplace. Employers want Gen Z to be engaged and driven at work, but they can become hesitant when Gen Zers want to grow. 

Perhaps it’s because Gen Z wants to move up in the workforce quickly. Seventy percent of Gen Zers expect to get promoted at work within 18 months, according to RippleMatch . We have big ambitions, too: Gen Z is more than twice as likely to want to be CEO compared to Gen X. 

Ambitions of moving up in the workplace are generally good: it shows Gen Zers are engaged at work and want to succeed. However, this generation differs from others on why they think they should move up at work. According to Ripplematch, Gen Z often expects a promotion after being in a role for a certain amount of time. Millennials, however, think promotions are about how much work they contribute. Gen X believes promotions are merit-based; Baby Boomers believe promotions are based on experience. 

Employers can help Gen Zers achieve their ambitions by laying out clear paths to promotion. Discuss expectations, timelines, and what success looks like within the organization. Setting guidelines ensures Gen Zers understand what’s needed to move up while allowing them to do so.

4. Gen Z Wants a Higher Salary

Yes, Gen Z cares about salary. It’s one of our generation’s top priorities; according to Handshake , 70% of Gen Zers put pay/salary as a top aspect they want in their next role. Better yet, Gen Z is hoping that salary is in the job description — 65% of Gen Zers say salary transparency in the job description is their greatest motivator when applying for a position. 

>>MORE: How to Negotiate Salary for Beginners (With Examples)

While Gen Z gets a bad rap about salary, our generation faces some of the lowest average starting salaries in history — plus higher inflation and housing prices. In 2023, U.S. college graduates’ average annual starting salary was $61,088. Adjusted for inflation, in 2011, it was $69,515; in 1980, $71,343; and in 1969, $79,868. 

While money can be a touchy subject at work, it shouldn’t be one of the top problems with Gen Z in the workplace. Gen Z isn’t asking for outrageous salaries; they’re asking employers to pay them fairly. Understanding the actual cost of living and providing wages and benefits that cover that allow for a level playing field — so Gen Zers don’t have to live with their parents or have savings to be able  to afford a role with a lower starting salary. 

Offering a competitive salary is also a good retention strategy. According to Resume Lab , seven in ten Gen Zers say a competitive salary is important or very important when deciding whether to stay with an employer.

5. Gen Z Won’t Put Up With Company BS

Gen Z has a much lower tolerance for companies that don’t follow through on missions and promises than other generations, and they’re not afraid to leave if things aren’t what they seem.

According to LinkedIn , most Gen Zers (87%) say they’re willing to leave their current role if they find another one at a company with values that more closely align with theirs. Values are a top consideration when Gen Zers think about changing roles; 60% say they prioritize values in these decisions.

What values does Gen Z care about?

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion : 83% of Gen Zers say a company’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is important when they choose an employer.
• Sustainability: 55% of Gen Zers research a company’s environmental impact and policies before accepting a job.
• Salary transparency: 65% of Gen Zers are more likely to apply to a company that has a salary range in the job description.
• Flexibility: 70% of undergrads say they’re more likely to apply to a job that offers flexibility in work hours.

Walking the walk is essential for recruiting, attracting, and retaining Gen Zers. This generation is looking for more than a mission statement on a website; they are looking for employers to truly live and breathe their values. 

So, how can employers put their money where their mouth is and address one of the infamous problems with Gen Z in the workplace?

First, there are large-scale changes that can make an impact across the organization. Does the company have a sustainability policy? Do employers have numbers to report about their impact? Is there a diversity, equity, and inclusion team, and what initiatives have they started? Are there benefits that support caregivers, parents, and people with disabilities? 

There are smaller ways to signal this commitment, too. Is there inclusive language in job descriptions? Does the company’s social media feature employees of all races and ethnicities? Are there reasonable accommodations available in the interview process? 

6. Gen Z Is Disengaged

According to Gallup , only 31% of Gen Zers say they’re engaged at work; 54% say they’re not engaged, while 15% say they’re actively disengaged. 

This disengagement comes from more than Gen Z’s attitude toward work and its place in our lives. Gallup also reports that disengagement can stem from burnout and stress (which Gen Z experiences more than other generations), not feeling connected to coworkers, and lack of motivation.

>>MORE: ‘Gen Z Has No Work Ethic’ and 5 Other Gen Z Stereotypes We Need to Break

To address disengagement, one of the main problems with Gen Z in the workplace, it’s essential to understand where it comes from. Solving disengagement means getting authentic, honest feedback from employees that they feel safe giving. If Gen Z is feeling disengaged because of burnout and stress, managing workload and boundaries is a great next step. If they’re not feeling connected to coworkers, having meaningful connection points — whether collaborating on a project or promoting social activities — can get them more engaged.

7. Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Come Into the Office

Many Gen Zers are entering the workforce remotely or in hybrid structures. I logged onto my first day of full-time work in July 2020, a few months after finishing online school. I only met my coworkers over a year later. In my current remote job , I have the opportunity to go into an office — but overall, I still prefer to work from home. I’m more productive and efficient, and it’s much easier to set boundaries around my personal life when I don’t have to commute or can get chores around the house done during work breaks.

While my view is definitely shaped by how I started my career, as is true for many other Gen Zers, the work-from-home debate doesn’t have an age. Gen Z is just as likely to want to work remotely as other generations, if not less. According to JobList , 57% of Gen Zers want in-person jobs; about a quarter want a fully remote job, which is half the share of millennials who say the same.

The work location debate isn’t just a problem with Gen Z in the workplace . Effective “return to work” policies are a great way to retain all employees. 

So, what do employees want? Choice and reason. 

According to Deloitte, Gen Zers and millennials prefer having autonomy in choosing where they work instead of having their employer mandate when they need to come in. This autonomy can help each person solidify their working preferences. For example, choice allows Gen Zers who may like remote work because they’re used to the flexibility to work from home, while Gen Zers who feel like they’ve missed out on social interaction can commute more. 

Employees also want a reason to go back to the office — they don’t want to be in person just for the sake of sitting at an office desk. Instead, they’re most motivated by connection. According to Microsoft , 85% of employees would be motivated to go into the office to rebuild team bonds, and 84% would go if they could socialize with their coworkers. Working in person can more easily foster collaboration and socialization — if employers offer that, people of all generations can be motivated to return.

Problems With Gen Z in the Workplace: The Bottom Line

Gen Z is coming into the workplace with different styles, ideals, and demands. While employers and coworkers might initially see these as “problems” with Gen Z in the workplace, there’s a lot we can learn from them that can actually make the workplace better for all.

For example, “money-hungry” Gen Z can help promote salary transparency and fair wages. Our attitudes about work and work-life balance can help set better boundaries and decrease burnout. When Gen Z talks about mental health, it can encourage everyone to get the support they need.

“Problems” with Gen Z in the workplace are only “problems” if we’re stuck in the traditions of the workplace. To forge ahead and create a future-proof workplace, we must listen and adapt to the ideas of the workforce’s next-biggest generation . We might just create a better workplace for all.

Image credit: Canva

The post ‘Problems’ With Gen Z in the Workplace (From a Gen Zer) — And How to Fix Them appeared first on Forage .

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

A Huge Gender Gap Is Emerging Among Young Voters

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

It has become clear that one constituency — young voters, 18 to 29 years old — will play a key, if not pivotal, role in determining who will win the Biden-Trump rematch.

Four years ago, according to exit polls, voters in this age group kept Trump from winning re-election. They cast ballots decisively supporting Biden, 60 to 36, helping to give him a 4.46-point victory among all voters, 51.31 percent to 46.85 percent.

This year, Biden cannot count on winning Gen Z by such a large margin. There is substantial variance in poll data reported for the youth vote, but to take one example, the NBC News national survey from April found Trump leading 43 to 42.

Young voters’ loyalty to the Democratic Party has been frayed by two distinct factors: opposition to the intensity of the Israeli attack on Hamas in Gaza and frustration with an economy many see as stacked against them.

Equally important, a large gender gap has emerged, with young men far less likely to support Biden than young women.

Bill McInturff , a co-founder of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies — which conducts surveys for NBC along with the Democratic firm Hart Research — provided The Times with data covering a broad range of recent political and demographic trends.

Tracking the partisan identification and ideology of 18-to-34-year-olds, the McInturff analyses show that from 2012 to 2023, women became increasingly Democratic, going from 55 percent identifying as Democratic and 29 percent Republican in 2012 to 60 and 22 in 2023. The shift was even more striking in the case of ideology, going from 32 percent liberal and 29 percent conservative to 51 percent liberal and 17 percent conservative in 2023.

Among young men, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification fell from nine points in 2012 to five points in 2023.

What gives?

I asked the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake , who recently joined the Biden campaign’s polling team, a job she also held in 2020. She sent a detailed reply by email:

Three reasons. First and foremost is the abortion issue and all the aspects of reproductive health, including medication abortion, I.V.F., birth control and criminalizing abortion. Young men are very pro-abortion and birth control, but young women really vote the issue. Second is style and respect. Young men are not as troubled by the chaotic and divisive style of Trump, while young women want people to be respected, including themselves, want stability and are very concerned about division and the potential for violence. Young women think Trump’s style is an embarrassment abroad, a poor role model for their children and dangerous for the country. Younger men, especially blue-collar, have a grudging respect for his strength and “tell it like it is” attitude. Third is the economy. Young men, especially blue-collar and people of color, feel left behind in this economy. They do not feel things have been delivered to them. They do not know anything about what this administration has done. Younger women are much more committed to a role for government to help people like themselves as a foundational view. They don’t know much more about the economic programs than young men, but they tend to respond more favorably to Democrats in general on the economy. Younger men also feel more left behind on the economy and more sense of grievance than young women do who are also increasingly dominating college and higher education.

The Times/Siena poll conducted April 7 to 11 asked voters “How much do you think Donald Trump respects women?” A majority of men, 54 percent, replied that Trump does respect women (23 percent “a lot” and 31 percent “some”), while 42 percent said he does not (14 percent “not much” and 28 percent “not at all”).

Women replied quite differently, with 68 percent saying Trump does not respect women (24 percent “not much,” 44 percent “not at all”) and 31 percent saying Trump does respect women (15 percent “a lot” and 16 percent “some”).

Jean Twenge , a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of “ Generations : The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents and What They Mean for America’s Future,” wrote by email that the question of why there is such a gender divide “is tough to answer,” but she made some suggestions: “It could be that the changes on the left have driven young men away from the Democratic Party. For example, the idea that identities can be divided into ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ may have alienated some young men.”

Another likely factor, according to Twenge, is:

Fewer young men get college degrees than young women, and in the last 10 to 15 years the parties have split by education, with more of those without a college degree conservative and Republican. This appears even among high school seniors, where young men who do not plan to attend a four-year college are 30 percent more likely to identify as conservative than young men who are planning to get a college degree.

Richard Reeves , who wrote the book “ Of Boys and Men : Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do about It,” argued in a January essay posted on his Substack :

In the centrifugal dynamic of culture-war politics, the more the right goes to one extreme, the more the left must go to the other, and vice versa. The left dismisses biology; the right leans too heavily on it. The left see a war on girls and women; the right see a war on boys and men. The left pathologizes masculinity; the right pathologizes feminism.

In this context, Reeves wrote, “Young men see feminism as having metastasized from a movement for equality for women into a movement against men, or at least against masculinity.”

In an article published in January on the Business Insider website, “ The War Within Gen Z ,” Daniel A. Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute , wrote:

Something strange is happening between Gen Z men and women. Over the past decade, poll after poll has found that young people are growing more and more divided by gender on a host of political issues. Since 2014, women between the ages of 18 and 29 have steadily become more liberal each year, while young men have not. Today, female Gen Zers are more likely than their male counterparts to vote, care more about political issues and participate in social movements and protests.

Cox noted that “at no time in the past quarter-century has there been such a rapid divergence between the views of young men and women,” suggesting that “something more significant is going on than just new demographic patterns, such as rising rates of education or declining adherence to a religion — the change points to some kind of cataclysmal event.”

After interviewing young voters, Cox and his colleagues at the A.E.I. survey center concluded:

Among women, no event was more influential to their political development than the #MeToo movement. In 2017, women around the world began speaking out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Gen Zers were then in high school and college, and for them, the movement came at a formative moment.

But, Cox continued:

while women were rallying together, many Gen Z men began to feel like society was turning against them. As recently as 2019, less than one-third of young men said that they faced discrimination, according to Pew, but today, close to half of young men believe they face at least some discrimination. In a 2020 survey by the research organization P.R.R.I., half of men agreed with the statement: “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like men.”

For a growing percentage of young men, Cox wrote:

Feminism has less to do with promoting gender equality and more to do with simply attacking men. A 2022 survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 agreed that feminism has done more harm than good, and even more Republican men agreed.

More young men, he added, “are adopting a zero-sum view of gender equality — if women gain, men will inevitably lose.”

How does this translate into politics?

According to Cox:

While women have turned to the left for answers to their problems, men are finding support on the right. Trump helped redefine conservatism as a distinctly masculine ideology, stoking grievances and directing young men’s frustration toward liberals and feminists. There are signs the message is resonating: Republican affiliation among white men aged 18 to 24 jumped from 28 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2023, according to a Harvard Youth Poll .

On April 8, McInturff published a report, “ Key Data by Generation ,” on his firm’s website:

“We are witnessing a profound generational break,” he wrote, “between Generation Z versus the baby boomers that is already reshaping our country, its values, media habits and its politics.”

At the outset, McInturff compared the values of Gen Z respondents ages 18 to 26 with those of the baby boomers, now 59 to 77.

Some 76 percent of baby boomers placed a high value on patriotism; for Gen Z, it was 32 percent. Nearly two-thirds of baby boomers, 65 percent, highly valued religion and their belief in God; Gen Z, 26 percent. Having kids: baby boomers, 52 percent; Gen Z, 23 percent. Asked if they agreed that “America is the best place to live,” 66 percent of boomers said yes, double the 33 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds.

In other words, the youngest voters are, at least for the moment, disaffected from traditional notions of family, country and religion.

Even so, young voters as a whole are decidedly more liberal on specific policies and issues than their elders.

On gay marriage, according to McInturff’s data, 84 percent of voters 18 to 34 were in favor, compared with 51 percent of voters 65 and over. Ending transgender discrimination: young, 55 percent; old, 24 percent. Climate change: 64 to 39. Cutting the defense budget, 48 to 24.

One particular issue is currently working against Biden and Democrats among young voters.

“The Israel/Hamas war in Gaza reflects one of the sharpest policy differences by age we have seen over a 40-year period,” McInturff wrote. “President Biden’s support for Israel has collapsed his standing with one of his key and previously most supportive subgroups, 18-to-29-year-old voters.”

McInturff compared data on voters 18 to 34 in two categories: surveys conducted from January to September 2023, before the war began, and surveys conducted after it started, from November 2023 to January 2024.

The shift among these young voters is terrible news for the Biden campaign. In the pre-Gaza polling, young voters backed Biden by 29 points, 61 to 32. In the post-Gaza surveys, Biden’s advantage over Trump fell to four points, 45 to 41.

If the decline in young people’s support for Democrats holds through Election Day, it will be a major setback for Democratic strategists who, before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, were banking on what appeared to be a secure partisan commitment by Gen Zers and millennials to the Democratic Party.

One of the key findings in the Harvard Youth Poll of 2,010 18-to-29-year-olds, conducted March 14 to 21, is that support for Biden among young voters fell far short of his support four years ago:

If the presidential election were held today, President Biden would outperform former President Trump among both registered (50 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump) and likely young voters under 30 (56 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump). When there is no voter screen (i.e., all young adults 18 to 29), the race narrows to single digits, 45 percent for President Biden, 37 percent for Trump, with 16 percent undecided.

At the same point in 2020, the Harvard Youth Poll “showed Biden leading Trump by 23 points among all young adults (51 percent to 28 percent),” compared with an eight-point lead in 2024. Among “likely” young voters in 2020, Biden led Trump by 33 points (60 percent to 27 percent), compared with 19 points in the current survey.

Young men account for virtually all the drop in support for Biden.

Joe Biden leads among both men (+6) and women (+33). Compared with this stage in the 2020 campaign, Biden’s lead among women is nearly identical (was +35 in 2020), but his lead among likely male voters has been dramatically reduced from +26 in 2020 to +6 today.

The same pattern emerged in partisan identification:

In 2020, 42 percent of young men in our poll identified as Democrats, and 20 percent were Republicans (+22 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 32 percent are Democrats, and 29 percent are Republicans (+3 Democratic advantage). Over the same period, the Democratic advantage among women expanded by six points. In 2020, 43 percent of young women in our poll identified as Democrats, and 23 percent were Republicans (+20 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 44 percent are Democrats, and 18 percent are Republicans (+26 Democratic advantage).

The Harvard survey corroborates McInturff’s analysis of the damage inflicted on the Biden campaign by the Israel-Hamas war. The Harvard study found that anger over the conflict has produced a substantial bloc of young voters — although not a majority — opposed to Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

The Harvard Youth Survey found that when asked if the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas justified Israel’s continuing response, “a plurality indicates that they don’t know (45 percent). About a fifth (21 percent) report that Israel’s response was justified, with 32 percent believing it was not justified.”

According to the Harvard survey, “Young Americans support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza by a five-to-one margin (51 percent support, 10 percent oppose). No major subgroup of young voters opposes such action.”

If Biden is struggling to restore his majorities among young voters, how is it that he remains competitive with Trump, running behind by 1.4 percentage points , according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls?

One reason is that the share of the electorate made up of the white working class, the core of Trump’s support, is steadily declining, while the number of college-educated white people, an increasingly strong source of Democratic support, is growing.

A second factor is that defections to the Republican Party that had been emerging among a small percentage of Black and Hispanic voters appear to have stopped, if not reversed. Matthew Blackwell , a political scientist at Harvard who tracks polling trends, posted graphics on X last month, noting, “Biden mildly trending better among Black and Hispanic subgroups in the last few weeks of polling.”

In an email, Blackwell expanded on his post: “The big takeaways are that Biden has been polling worse with Black and Latino voters compared to 2016 and 2020, but over the course of April, we did see some movement of these groups back to the 2020 levels, even if they haven’t quite gotten there yet.”

Blackwell predicted that “we can probably expect many prior Biden voters to ‘return to the fold’ as the campaign goes on,” before adding that many surveys may underestimate support for Biden:

Most of the polls are of registered voters without likely- voter screens . Many pollsters have found that regular voters are more supportive of Biden than nonregular voters. As we get closer to Election Day, we will probably see more likely-voter polls that may be more accurate.

Biden has improved on his 2020 margins with several very large blocs of voters: white people with college degrees (plus 1.3 points), white people without degrees (plus 0.6 points), 50-to-64-year-olds (plus 4 points) and voters 65 and older (plus 1.8 points). While the percentages are small, the groups are huge, making even a half a percentage point shift significant.

The closeness of the contest between Trump and Biden puts especially heavy pressure on Biden to negotiate a cease-fire, if not a conclusion to hostilities in Gaza. Nothing would do more to restore at least some of the crucial support he received from young men and women four years ago.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here's our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. @ edsall