Woke and weak? Don't you believe it!
The Gen Zers getting their A Level results today may be end up being the strongest cohort of all the generations . . .
Today, 18-year-olds across the UK will find out their ‘A’ Level results - but what can they expect in their futures? And I don’t mean the next 5 years, but let’s look ahead for the next 30 plus years . . . Taking the arbitrary age of 55 (as that is where I am at time of writing), what will these 18-year-olds see between now and 2063?
The future is not set
Firstly, of course we can’t predict who will be in government or what the state of the global economy will be. But one thing is certain – at 55, a huge number of today's 18-year-olds may only be just over halfway through their lives. Even if we take the 2016 ONS statistic of one in three babies born at that time living to be 100 we are still looking at a massive increase to an already ageing population.
There will also be far more people ageing without children, and likely to be more marriages and relationships across a life course coupled with individuals having multiple family connections. The notions of a lifetime commitment and 2.4 children will be consigned to history, if it’s not there already.
All of this will place increasing strain on our health systems – more people, living longer and with less support from their offspring will undoubtedly stretch our health and social care systems way past the problems we are facing now. At the moment according to the National Centre for Social Research report of 2024 on the attitudes of Gen Z, they are keen to have social care paid for in full, but also less deferential to authority than other generations. Which tells us that if the state is unable to deliver for Gen Z they are unlikely to take it lying down . . .
Gen Z’s working lives are going to be very fluid too – a Resolution Foundation report of 2023 found that a typical millennial or Gen Z worker reaches the same number of employers by age 30 as a baby boomer did across their entire working life. The rise of the side hustle is worth noting as well, but the tone of this phrase has changed. Whilst it used to have the feel of something slightly shifty done for beer money on top of a regular job, it now represents a more varied work scenario. The portfolio career may become the norm not the exception.
Gen Z digital native status means they will be more than up to the challenge posed by AI and other new technologies. But if the pace of change we have seen in the past 10 years is anything to go by, they will need to constantly train, retrain and adapt to stay in the workplace.
Finances, housing, community and leisure will all be different because of these factors, but let’s also throw in some geo-political elements as well.
Climate change is likely to mean that conflict and international tension will be more around resources than territory. Energy, food and water may all become weaponised; we are already seeing the indications of it now, with those grocery items we always expected to be on the shelves suddenly not being available. Our future shopping and essentials will become increasingly uncertain unless we change how we use them or where we source them.
All of this means that our 18-year-old getting their results today will lead far different lives to previous generations. Despite incidents like the 2008 global crash, 9-11 and Covid, I would argue that the relative stability of the last 45 years is coming to an end for every aspect of life, with less certainty and change happening at a faster and more impactful pace.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
I’m not going to start giving more specific advice to an 18-year-old about their future, especially not on the day when that horizon may only be the next few hours, days or months. But there are a few things that governments and businesses can be doing.
Firstly, government really needs to grab hold of social care and future proof it for the next 50 years. Nothing else will avoid us lurching from crisis to initiative to crisis in the NHS and social care. And the focus needs to be on preventative health across a 100 year life, not on deciding in November to do something about winter deaths.
Businesses need to lose the ageism that still exists in how they market to different generations. Only last week I saw an online survey that asked my age range – 18 to 55 was in 5-year age bands, and then everyone else was labelled as 55+. Unacceptable - and will ultimately lose them business.
But how we finance our lives also needs to change – we need financial products that can support a 100-year life now, but Gen Z will want and need to grow old with them. Current products and approaches do not give the flexibility on equity, future equity, career changes and retraining, credit and pensions that future generations will need. Redesigning our financial services products and how we access them across a 100 year life must be a priority for all businesses.
So in the next 37 years I think Gen Z will become the generation that are more agile, resilient and opportunistic about how they live their lives than any previous generation – and how we help them get fulfilling lives has to start today.