What We Know About Generation Z

Originally Published at Workforce Monitor.

Why It Matters: With more than 68 million GenZers in the U.S., it’s imperative to understand who they are, what they want, and the challenges they face.  

Abstract: Every generation has unique characteristics. This article covers the distinctiveness of Generation Z, currently aged 10 to 25, in comparison to previous generations, by synthesizing a good deal of information culled from a variety of resources.

Learn More: We start with 2021 generation population numbers from Statista:

• GenZers, born between 1997 and 2012, 68.6 million.
• Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, 72.9 million.
• GenX, born between 1965 and 1980, 65.8 million.
• Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, 70.23 million.
• The Silent Generation, born between 1928 and 1945, 19.13 million
• The Greatest Generation, born before 1928, .89 million

According to McCrindle, a social- and demographics-analysis company based in Australia, the population of individuals born between 2010 and 2024 are called Generation Alpha. More than 2.5 million GenAers (our term) are born globally every week. “When they have all been born (2025) they will number almost 2 billion – the largest generation in the history of the world.”

How GenZers are Different: According to the Pew Research Center, GenZers “look very much like Millennials” but also have their own unique characteristics. For example, they are more likely to attend college and have college-educated parents than generations before them.

There are many things about GenZers that set them apart from the other generations. For instance, Pew explained that working-aged GenZers have been hit harder financially during the pandemic than Millennials, GenXers, and Boomers because GenZers are more likely to hold jobs in high-risk service sector industries. 

Pew also characterized GenZers (defined in brief here) as:

• More racially and ethnically diverse.
• On track to be the most well-educated.
• Digital natives.
• Less likely to see the U.S. as superior to other nations.
• Less likely than Millennials to be immigrants but projected to become majority nonwhite by 2026.
• Less likely (second-generation Hispanics) to drop out of high school and more likely to attend college than foreign-born Hispanic youth.
• Less likely to work when they are working age.
• In favor of an activist government, and more likely to look toward government to solve problems rather than businesses and individuals.
• Recognizing that climate change is due to human activity.
• Acknowledging that Blacks are treated less fairly than Whites, which is similar to their Millennial counterparts and unlike GenXers, Boomers, and the Silent Generation.
• Voting Democratic.
• Apt to say (50%) same-sex marriage is good for society.
• Believing that marriage between different races is good for society.
• Most likely (64%) to live with two parents in the labor force.
• In favor of saying that when a form or online profile asks about a person’s gender, it should include options other than “man” and “woman.”
• Feeling “very” or “somewhat” comfortable using gender-neutral pronouns if asked to do so.

Financial Health: According to The College Investor, the financial health of GenZers may be hampered as they enter the workforce during current inflationary conditions. Earning extra income outside of a day job, for instance, “may prove to be a necessity for many members of Gen Z.” 

In a recent Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis article it was explained that GenZers have more student debt than Millennials as the rise in college tuition costs causes them to “borrow more often and in greater amounts . . . Both the average and median (i.e., middle) debt levels were higher for older Gen Zers (in June 2022) than for older millennials (in June 2006).” For example, GenZers averaged $20,900 in student debt or 13% more than Millennials, and the median value of their loans was $12,800 or about 14% higher than Millennials’ medium value. “However, a similar share of Gen Z (7.8%) and millennial (7.1%) borrowers had large student loan balances of over $50,000.” 

That may be the biggest reason why “Gen Zers don’t see the point in getting a degree,” as noted in a recent Fortune article, regardless of the fact that Pew found them to be the most well-educated of all the generations. Cost of a four-year degree and ROI were the main culprits. It was stated that “as the ROI of traditional college gets worse, GenZers are not going to blindly accept the debt that previous generations took on.” The Fortune piece referred to a University Business article where it was pointed out that many 14- to 18-year-old students believe a less costly postsecondary education taking two years or less is a more financially secure option than four-years or more of traditional higher education.

A recent BBC Worklife article expanded on the economic hardships and worries GenZers are experiencing. A third of GenZers “worry about the cost of living above all other concerns; 45% live pay-cheque-to-pay-cheque, and just more than a quarter doubt they’ll retire comfortably.” It was also noted that “despite general wage increases throughout the past five decades, the cost of living has far outstripped the pace of pay rises,” with some analyses showing that GenZers “have about 86% less buying power than Baby Boomers did at the same age.”

Learning Deficits Due to Pandemic: The New York Times recently dubbed GenZers the “Pandemic Generation,” struggling with college readiness primarily in algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus due to their “flawed understandings of basic concepts” triggered by two-years of remote learning during high school. The problem has stretched back to younger fourth and eighth graders who have shown “dismal results from the national exam” in nearly every state, meaning that colleges could face repeated years of newly minted college students in desperate need of broader remedial programs. There’s even been a decline in reading among fourth and eighth graders.

It was also noted that college instructors are seeing GenZers with “higher levels of anxiety and a reduced willingness to find support,” also contributed to the pandemic setting off students into more fully remote and hybrid learning and counseling environments. “The long tail of the pandemic can also be felt in the mental health of adolescents, for whom rates of anxiety, depression and suicide have increased,” the Times wrote. 

Worse yet, all of these learning and health decline issues have been further exacerbated among already disenfranchised Black and Hispanic GenZers. 

Less Religious: Regarding religious affiliations, the Survey Center on American Life of the American Enterprise Institute noted that parents did less to encourage religious practices and worship in their GenZ kids than previous generations. “Many childhood religious activities that were once common, such as saying grace, have become more of the exception than the norm,” the Institute explained, adding that the implications of a less religious generation have “considerable personal and societal consequences. . . Individually, Americans who report leaving their formative religion report more significant personal hardship than those who were raised—and remain—religious.” In addition, “religious Americans are generally more socially and civically active.”

Global View: Wikipedia has an excellent global overview about GenZers with citations from 236 references. Some interesting key takeaways among many: “Compared to previous generations, members of Generation Z from some developed nations tend to be well-behaved, abstemious, and risk-averse. They tend to live more slowly than their predecessors when they were their age, have lower rates of teenage pregnancies, and consume alcohol less often (but not necessarily other psychoactive drugs).”

Marketing to GenZers: Finally, for those seeking to get a better understanding about marketing to GenZers, see a highly informative three-part series from LinkedIn titled Everything Marketers Should Know About the Fastest-Growing Audience Demographic on LinkedIn, which covers GenZ’s common habits, values, and preferences.