Why everything you assumed about young people is wrong

Telegraph

02-04-2025

Generation Z, that enigmatic demographic of men and women born between 1997 and 2012 or so, have been presumed to hold wildly progressive views. In the stereotype of public imagination this is – or has been – a group that will go to the wall for net zero, dump a partner if their views on gender politics give them the 'ick', or leave any job that has the temerity to demand their presence in the office.
Except it may not be true. A growing mass of evidence suggests that far from the leftie snowflake cohort of lore, Gen Z are disparate in their politics and care about the same things older generations do – jobs, houses, security – more than culture wars or social issues.
A landmark report from the John Smith Centre at Glasgow University, published this week, has added to this feeling. Working with the polling company Focaldata, the institute conducted 260 interviews with people aged 18 to 29, using those conversations to inform a 40-question poll of 2,039 young people across the country. Contrary to what may have been expected, it found that Gen Z are more worried about crime than the environment, surprisingly split on the benefits of migration, and focused on jobs, housing and family above all.
'It goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs,' says Eddie Barnes, the director of the John Smith Centre. 'The bottom of that triangle is basics (including food, water, shelter, sleep, housing, health, finances). That's where the younger generation are. This is a generation that has not had much in the way of wage growth, they've had extremely high housing costs, and financial insecurity. Those, not culture war issues, are the top priorities. What do people care about? It's the financial stuff. Crime ranks much more highly than the environment, which was a big surprise.'
When asked what the biggest contributors were to them feeling 'nervous, anxious or on edge', respondents replied: 'financial worries' (37 per cent), 'work pressures' (23 per cent) and 'job security or unemployment' (20 per cent). Climate change languished on 10 per cent. Another question asked: 'When you think about community, which of the following groups or places come to mind?' Some 42 per cent said family, 38 per cent said their 'local town or city', and 36 per cent said their 'friends and social circles'. Gender, by comparison, was only 7 per cent. The 'most important issues facing the UK today' were inflation and the cost of living, health care, housing and crime. Only 20 per cent said climate change and the environment. The figure is down on a global survey from 2019, which found that 41 per cent of young people thought climate change was more pressing than anything else. The poll carried out for the John Smith report did not ask a specific question about the pandemic, but Barnes says it came up in focus groups conducted as part of the research.
'There was a feeling Covid was yet another thing that had damaged young people's upbringing,' he says. 'One young person said, 'We'll never get that time back again.' There wasn't bitterness or anger, but a feeling of lament.'
Whatever the various causes, the result is a generation apparently more hardened to economic reality than millennials. 'Home ownership and the economy are far more important than climate change,' says 25-year-old Oliver Freeston, a Reform councillor from Lincolnshire. 'Climate change is natural, it's been happening for thousands of years. If we have this crazy drive to net zero it's going to bankrupt the country. It's not lowering bills, it's increasing them. For young people it's already tough with stagnating wages and a high tax burden. We don't need it to be made any harder.'
In his constituency, he says, young people echo fears from older generations about excess migration, too. 'People say it's only the older people concerned about migration,' he says. 'I know so many people my age who are becoming politically motivated because they're not happy with the way the high street is changing, how they can't get on the property ladder, how rents are going up, they can't get a GP appointment. This affects young people just as much as it affects older people.' Some 51 per cent of respondents surveyed for the John Smith Centre research agreed immigration has changed their communities for the better, but 32 per cent disagreed. Immigration had more support among better-educated and higher-earning groups, as it does in older generations.
But a concern with economic basics is not confined to young people on the political Right. Saira Banu, also 25 and completing a master's degree at King's College London, contributed to a focus group for the report. Originally from Dubai, she voted Labour at the last election, but agrees the priority for her peers is financial. 'I'm constantly worrying about money because I live in London and it's expensive and there's a housing crisis,' she says. 'I have friends who commute in from Birmingham because they can't afford to live in London. It's a privilege to be able to worry about the climate and culture wars and things like that.'
On politics itself, the survey found that Labour retained a lead, with 30 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for it, but the Greens and Reform were tied in second place, at around 15 per cent each. The Tories would get only 9 per cent of the vote. But more broadly the report found respondents were 'disillusioned with traditional parties' and that Labour and the Conservatives could no longer count on their vote.
'Why are we talking about Gen Z as these hyper-progressive or hyper-regressive people who are super interested in social issues and identity issues, when very clearly their concerns are about cost of living, getting a house and getting a good job?' says James Kanagasooriam, of Focaldata. 'Gen Z is being parsed by other people in a way that isn't, I think, potentially that accurate. [The study] is a great sense check on what is actually important.'
He adds that Gen Z are less homogeneous in their voting intentions than previous generations: 'People who are trying to divine the next generation need to remind themselves that they are not like the generation before them. Prior to the 2019 general election, boomers were almost unilaterally voting for the Right and millennials were unilaterally voting for the Left. It's clear that Gen Z people will go their own way.'
Donald Trump's re-election in the US, helped by a stronger-than-expected performance among young men, had prompted fears that young people in the UK similarly crave a powerful leader. A study commissioned by Channel 4 earlier this year found that 52 per cent of Gen Z thought 'the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with elections'. The John Smith report found that they support democracy by 57 per cent to 27 per cent, but agree that 'democracy in the UK is in trouble' by 63 per cent to 24 per cent.
More generally, the picture painted in the John Smith report is surprisingly sunny. Despite their fears about housing, the cost of living and job insecurity, nearly two thirds of respondents said they felt 'optimistic' about their own futures, although again this figure skewed higher among those with higher levels of education and income.
Barnes, who was formerly the head of strategy for Ruth Davidson, the ex-leader of the Scottish Conservatives, says that the report points to a simple path to improving trust in politics. 'To show that politics is working it's pretty simple,' he says. 'Build more houses, get an economy growing. That's the big message coming from this poll.
'There has been a lot of doom and gloom about Gen Z, and that 'oh, God, it's going to hell',' he adds. 'But perhaps we should be wary of catastrophising them when they seem to be broadly positive about the country.' With a yawning pensions deficit and a murky economic outlook, Britain's ageing population is counting on Gen Z to provide for them. It is lucky that the kids seem – perhaps surprisingly – all right.