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The idea behind the concept of generations is that people born at a certain time share similar experiences, which in turn form common attitudes.
The “older” and “silent” generations, born in the first decades of the 20th century, witnessed economic disasters and global conflicts, forming relatively leftist views. Baby boomers grew up accustomed to growth and prosperity, and continued to lean heavily conservative.
It was a similar story for millennials, who entered adulthood in the wake of the global financial crisis to be greeted by high unemployment, anemic income growth and high housing price-to-income ratios, continuing to support very progressive politics.
Much analysis and discourse treats millennials and Gen Z as close cousins, united in their struggle to achieve the prosperity of previous generations. But the validity of this elimination depends a lot on where you look.
Millennials throughout the Western world were truly united in their economic condition. From the US and Canada to Britain and Western Europe, the cohort born in the mid-to-late 1980s lived out their formative adult years against a backdrop of weak or stagnant wage growth and cratering rates of home ownership. houses.
Absolute upward mobility – the rate at which members of a generation earn more than their parents’ generation at the same age – fell steadily. In the US, by the time someone born in 1985 turned 30, their median income was only a few percent higher than that of their parents at the same age, a far cry from clear and visible generational gains over the 50 to 60 percent generation made up of those born in the 1950s.
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On both sides of the Atlantic, the tale of the thousand-year-old disease is no myth. They can be considered the most economically unlucky generation of the last century.
But then we hit a fork in the road. For young adults in Britain and much of Western Europe, conditions have worsened since then. If you thought the sub-1 percent annual growth in living standards endured by millennials was bad, try sub-zero. Britons born in the mid-1990s have seen living standards not just stagnate, but decline. Across Europe, there is precious little for younger adults to be happy about.
But in America, Gen Z is moving forward. Living standards in the U.S. have risen an average of 2.5 percent a year since the cohort born in the late 1990s entered adulthood, blessing this generation not only with much higher mobility than their millennial elders, but with living standards improving faster than young adults. at the same age. And it’s not just income: Gen Z Americans are also outpacing millennials in climbing the housing ladder.
All signs are that in the US, the decades-long slowdown in generational economic progress has not only stopped, it has gone into reverse. Americans born in 1995 enjoy even more upward mobility relative to their parents than those born in 1965. Zoomers by name, zoomers by socio-economic nature.
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Both the change in the economic trajectories of American youth and the divergence from their European counterparts raise interesting questions.
From a sociological perspective, in an age of boundless social media stories and algorithms that reward negativity, can the meme of youth misadventures survive being in touch with the reality of America’s Gen Z? And with a stream of negative social comparisons just a smartphone away, how will the growing realization that American youth are on a higher trajectory affect European youth?
Turning to politics, will the newest group of American voters go their own way? The fact that it was not only younger men, but also young women who moved behind Donald Trump in the US elections, suggests that this may already be happening. A group that sees itself as one of life’s winners may not develop the same instinct for social solidarity that its oppressed ancestors had.
In an age of “shifting vibes,” the shift from a sense of declining mobility to one of increasing prosperity may be the biggest yet. A divergence in musical moods on both sides of the Atlantic will also inject a new urgency into Europe’s quest for its own growth.
Any way you look at it, the restart of America’s economic conveyor belt could be a hugely significant moment.
john.burn-murdoch@ft.com, @jburnmurdoch
