GENERATION Z
The first global generation?
GENERATION Z
The first global generation?
GENERATION Z
The first global generation?
In search of cohort effects
People born since 1996 – regardless of their country of origin – share a certain number of common characteristics.
They were born at a time when 'emerging economies' (the so-called BRICs) started to ‘catch up’ with North America, Europe, and Japan.
This economic convergence brought some degree of social convergence, as living standards rose, education levels improved, and healthcare provision became more universal.
Meanwhile, there is the shared experience provided by mass access to new technologies of all kinds, including the internet, gaming and social media platforms. The ‘oldest’ Gen Zers were only seven years old when Facebook was launched. We can thus say they are ‘social media natives’, not just ‘digital natives’, as was said of Millennials, who were born with the PC.
Perhaps today’s Generation Z are the first truly global generation, having more in common across borders than with people in their own country?
Here are some of the key themes we found as we researched the topic for this report. First up, we find some clear areas of convergence:
Area of convergence
1: Feeling stressed
Whatever the country, people born since 1996 show striking similarities when it comes to both how stressed and how lonely they feel.
Perhaps this is because they were all impacted by the Covid pandemic at the same time, at the very moment when they were reaching adulthood.
But other factors, such as uncertainty about their future economic security and the standard of living which their educational attainments should guarantee, such as access to housing, as well as social media-fed fears of missing out and over-expectation, could also be playing a role. Either way, the chart below is striking.
The data appears strong enough for us to suggest that there is truly something distinctive going on here.”
Although we do not have longitudinal data to tell us how Gen Xers felt in 1995 or Boomers in 1970, the age gradient in the data appears strong enough for us to suggest that there is truly something distinctive going on here.
Area of convergence
2: Making friends
Of the many stereotypes about Gen Z, the most likely to be true and easily generalisable on a global level is that they’re more likely to spend time interacting with friends online than offline, and more likely to form relationships online than any other generation.
But ‘more likely’ doesn’t mean that they don’t value in-person relationships. Circumstances (including life stage effects, as they’re sometimes studying or working far away from family and friends) can also explain this, probably more so than just a generational mindset.
Area of convergence
3: Social attitudes
While loneliness and a tendency to make friends online rather than in person can, to a greater or lesser extent, be explained by context and life stage effects, when it comes to general outlook on life and underlying values, things are not so straightforward. This is where cohort effects can be looked for.
The similarity of information received by this generation across the world might actually be much higher than for previous generations and this could play a role here.
A good example of the kind of attitude unlikely to be attributed to life stage and context only is the agreement with the idea that same-sex couples should have the same rights to adopt children as heterosexual couples do.
So, do we have a cohort effect?
The evidence presented so far shows that we may well have a Gen Z cohort effect when it comes to feelings, reported behaviours and general outlook.
From a methodological point of view, the most important thing to understand is the extent to which a cohort effect can exist beyond and independently of other factors, such as life stage or period effects (such as the pandemic).
But it’s also clear that there are important mitigating factors, such as gender, geography, education, and social class (all of which are strongly interrelated).
These mitigating factors should be taken into account when designing marketing strategies or public policies.
Mitigating factor
1: Geography
Geographical differences are interesting because they mitigate cohort effects without completely suppressing them.
To illustrate this, let’s look at attitudes towards gender roles. These are often rooted in local cultures – and the transgenerational transfers of values and attitudes which underpin them.
And yet, as can be seen in our chart, the differences between generations can be just as great in countries where an attitude is in the minority (e.g. Thailand) vs countries where it is far more widely shared (e.g. Great Britain). However, it remains the case that US Gen Zers are almost twice as likely to disagree that the role of women in society is to be good mothers and wives than Thai Gen Zers.
For more on generational differences in attitudes towards gender, see our 2024 International Woman's Day report.
Mitigating factor
2: Mind the gender gap
Even within national (or 'cultural') borders, cohort effects can interplay with gender effects and mitigate each other, as has been recently highlighted by careful analysis of political attitudes across the world, but can also be inferred from recent Ipsos data.
In 2024, we are seeing particular patterns within Generation Z. If we simply describe the views of Gen Z as a whole, we risk losing sight of the bigger picture.
In Britain, for example, we see an emerging tension between young men and women around gender positions in society.
Where do we end up?
Our tentative conclusion here is that cohort effects are likely, but not definite. Generation Z is more uniform globally than previous cohorts were in the way they:
- Feel (including stress and loneliness);
- Form relationships;
- Consider gender identities and roles, etc.
But the question remains: what explains these effects?
Firstly, the context at crucial times in life plays a significant role in shaping one cohort’s outlook in the long term. In 2023, Gen Z seemed to be more positive about their country’s state of affairs than Millennials were ten years ago, when they were the same age.
Another possible explanation, all other things remaining equal, is that 2013 was a worse time to start a career than 2023 was, particularly in places like the US, Mexico, Italy, or India which we lumped up together for the sake of data analysis. It remains to be seen how long Gen Z will continue with this more positive experience.
In any case, as we stressed earlier in this report, this generation was globally more homogeneous than previous ones in terms of its average level of educational attainment and its access to information and knowledge.
Characteristics to watch
1. Life stage
The jury is still out as to whether Gen Zers will, for example, remain more committed to socially conscious buying when a majority of them are in a different life stage, for instance, with several kids and a mortgage to pay for. But social consciousness, cultural liberalism and egalitarianism are not primarily determined by an individual’s personal economic position.
Education plays a far more important role. These values could therefore ‘stick’ to this generation beyond its current life stage. And yet, it would also be unwise to infer specific behaviours from these general attitudes. In many instances, Gen Z have demonstrated a large say-do gap.
2. Conformity vs diversity
It remains to be seen whether the apparent gender divide among them is going to resorb or widen further.
It is often said (though not necessarily proven) that Gen Z show more indifference towards certain gender stereotypes and are more likely to reject being boxed into pre-defined identities than previous generations were. If this is demonstrated at a global level, it should still be mitigated by the effects of the greater gender divide mentioned above.
An important direction for further research is indeed the inner diversity of Gen Z, in spite of this global convergence which is tangible in the data points presented in this report. Gen Z’s inner diversity could actually be a faithful reflection of the larger trend in social development which combines global convergence (convergence between countries and regions of the globe) and local divergence (deeper inequalities and ideological or cultural divides within societies).
3. Joining the mainstream?
It can be inferred that since Gen Zers tend to settle in life far later than people of the same age several decades ago, the behaviours they adopt in their current life stage are also more likely to stick. Their lower fertility rates also point to different family sizes in the long run, and this could durably affect their behaviours as well.
The example of Boomers, especially in North America and Europe, shows that as people grow older, they tend to cherish fond memories of their youth and that nostalgia can play a role in preserving and cultivating the specificities of a given generation.
But, in North America and Western Europe, Boomers exerted a very strong influence on the societies they lived in because of their heavy demographic weight. Gen Z won’t be able to leverage their demographic weight to the same extent as previous generations.
Instead of exerting a cultural influence as strong as previous generations did, they might remain outside the mainstream for longer in the places where they live and where they are not in a majority. At the same time, they may form transborder 'global tribes' with a specific and lasting generational culture that both unites them globally and sets them apart locally.
If Gen Z is never to be the most determinant factor in what the mainstream is in the societies in which they live, then they may feel the need to reassert their particular generational identity.
They might remain outside the mainstream for longer in the places where they live... At the same time, they may form transborder 'global tribes'."
