Gen Z vs Gen Alpha: Opportunities in Worldwide Trends

This is part of a series on Gen Z

Gen Z, the generational cohort of those born 1996–2011will be the the majority of the world’s population in the very near future. Gen Z is already a third of the global population.Their younger members will see the 22nd century. The people who will shape the next few decades — Generation Z — are now teenagers and young adults. Wherever they are in the world, these ‘Millennium babies’ face a heavy burden. It will fall to them to find solutions to problems that their parents, grandparents and Gen Y peers have been unable to solve, and pave a way for Gen Alpha to a better world.

They were born at exactly the moment when the world went online in the final years of the last century; the first generation of digital natives who have grown up living the profound human experiment of social media — in which our attitudes towards information, relationships, and privacy have greatly shifted.

Gen Alpha, those born 2012 to 2027, is still very young, and has not yet reached adolescence, which makes it difficult to predict its generational consumption habits going into the future.

Gen Z is very diverse, in the west as well as worldwide. Gen Alpha is even more so. In addition to being diverse, many are raised in unconventional households; single parents, unmarried parents, mixed-race parents or same-sex parents, sometimes all four. This will have mental health implications, which will in turn influence consumption habits into and through adolescence into adulthood. Between 2000 and 2010 the number of Americans who identify as mixed white and black has grown by 134% and those of both white and Asian extraction by 87%.

Gen Zers are slightly less likely than Millennials to be immigrants: 6% were born outside of the U.S., compared with 7% of Millennials at the same age. But they are more likely to be the children of immigrants: 22% of Gen Zers have at least one immigrant parent (compared with 14% of Millennials). Split cultural identities will be ripe for capitalization.

Gen Z is on track to be better educated than millennials, 57% Gen Z enrolled in university vs 52% millennials at the same age. Gen Z has seen millennials grapple with the student loan crisis, as well as their unemployment despite possessing credentials. Gen Z may skip college entirely, suggesting opportunity for direct-to-employment bootcamps to market to Gen Z. Community colleges have seen an influx of Gen Z coming in from high school at the same time they’re seeing millennials attending to pivot careers. There is a significant opportunity for edtech partnering with community colleges to offer online remote education services as well as augmenting hybrid educational models.

Gen Z use their summers for education more than work or leisure, suggesting there’s opportunity for helping teenagers balance both, regardless of season. Blurring the line between entertainment and gaming and education will be one of the greatest feats of the 21st century.

On the question of gender, Gen Z is not adverse to usage of gender pronouns in comparison to prior generations. Aiding in identification of people with their proper pronouns is an opportunity. Three-quarters of young people globally believe that transgender people should have the same rights as non-transgender people. Nearly two-thirds of young people globally believe that same-sex marriage should be legal.

Young people are divided on free speech. Only around half believe people should have the right to this even when it is offensive to a religion (56%) or offensive to minority groups (49%). Support for free speech even if offensive to a religion is highest in Turkey (78%) and Argentina (70%) — countries where historically there have been struggles with authoritarian governments that have sought to curtail free speech. It is lowest in Nigeria (35%) and, unsurprisingly, in China (39%). But support is surprisingly low even in those countries which are historical champions of free speech — France (52%), the UK (58%) and even the US (62%). This is a sign that, while support for other liberal values has become stronger, support for the fundamental value of free speech is extremely soft. We perhaps know this anecdotally through the growth of ‘safe spaces’ at universities — in which speakers that are not judged sufficiently liberal are banned from speaking (or ‘no-platformed’). It is a concern that, with a growth in authoritarian governments that seek to clamp down on free speech, support for the value among young people seems so weak. This implies that offerings that allow communication without social faux pas may be helpful.

Gen Z is “stressed, depressed, and exam obsessed” while being well-behaved, abstemious, and risk-averse. Mental health already is a massive opportunity, and targeting the individual factors of depression will be necessary. Additionally, anything that mitigates academic stress from school is an opportunity. Unfortunately, Gen Z men are responsible largely for this statistic, and have been left behind by a digital liberalization of female sexuality. They have taken refuge in pornography and transvestism. Offerings that aid in pornography and fetishism detoxification may do well.

Despite being depressed in the west, worldwide Gen Z is happy. The unhappiest are in South Korea, France (57%), Australia (56%) the UK (57%) and Japan, happiest Nigeria, India, and Indonesia. There is a clear correlation between youth happiness and the development stage of the economy, emerging economies having higher happiness. This suggests that economic stagnation, even in prosperous nations, is responsible for the weltschmerz often exhibited by millennials and Gen Z in developed countries. Young adults were less likely to be happy than teenagers, and females less likely to be happy than males.

France (53%) and Italy (53%) have the highest proportion of young people who think that the world is becoming a worse place. China (53%) and India (49%) had the highest proportion that thought the world was becoming a better place.

On the significance of religion in the lives of young people, less than half (42%) say religious faith is an important part of their lives and two-fifths claim religion is of no significance to them at all (39%). However, there is large variation, with young people in Africa most likely to say religious faith is ‘important in their life’ (77%), while high proportions in Japan (61%), Australasia (50%) and Europe (46%) say that religion is “of no significance to them at all”. Again, emerging economies and developed economies exhibit differences.

More than half of young people around the world think their country is a good place in which to live, with South Koreans being the exception.

They are entering puberty earlier, while having less teenage pregnancies.Puberty is a big opportunity, but given Gen Z’s interest in biohacking, stemming from their concern about appearance in an increasingly appearance-centric world, Gen Z may wish to hack their hormonal changes. Given the recent legalization of steroids, this may see huge growth with Gen Z.

Gen Z drinks less, does drugs more. This will likely increase with legalization. There is opportunity for mental health innovation with neurotropics, and Gen Z will be on the leading edge of adoption.

Investors are starting to bet big on psychedelic medicine

Gen Z is more allergic than prior generations due to improper parenting protocols regarding allergen exposure. There is a big opportunity to help with this.

Gen Z are sleep deprived. There is a huge opportunity to help with this.

How Beddr and other tech start-ups hope to help millions of Americans get a good sleep

Half of worldwide Gen Z cite money as one of their top 3 concerns, but lest one imagine it’s for selfish purposes, only 3% of young people considered celebrity and fame to be important to their life goals. Anything that makes things more affordable or increase Gen Z’s financial well-being will be popular, although that can be said about any generation.

89% of young people globally say their parents influenced their values a little or a lot. Young men place more weight on the influence of sports people compared to young women (42% vs. 24%) and are also more likely to claim that their values have been influenced by politicians (19% vs. 14%). By comparison, young women are more likely to report being influenced by books or fictional characters (56% vs. 52%). Young people in Asia and the African countries surveyed are more likely than those in other regions to say celebrities have influenced the values they hold (40% and 42% respectively). Celebrity influence is particularly pronounced in Nigeria (71%) and China (60%). Those in Turkey and Argentina are least likely to say the values they hold have been influenced by celebrities (19% compared to 30% at a global level).

Religious faith is an important part of less than half of young people’s lives globally. Two-fifths (39%) claim religion is of no significance to them at all.

84% of young people globally say that technical advancements make them hopeful, yet pessimistic about the future: in 16 out of 20 countries, more young people believe the world is becoming a worse place to live than believe it is becoming a better place to live.

Extremism and global terrorism, (83%) and conflict and war (81%) are thought to be the greatest threat for the future by young people around the world. Perhaps Gen Z will support counter-terrorism efforts.

Gen Z fears climate change, but are tackling environmental issues head on. Anything that helps Gen Z help with the environment will do well, as long as there’s awareness of it.

Both Z and Alpha have had lives surrounded by technology. Older Gen Z may remember dial up modems, but younger Gen Z will find it difficult to remember life without fast internet. Gen Alpha will not know of a time before smartphones. This means that UX designers can take liberties with design, offering affordances that may be too subtle for adults. Snapchat offered many features secretly, and Gen Z caught on quickly. Gen Z and Gen Alpha likely consume digital video more often than television due to the mobility of the medium. Many parents of Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z give their children their smartphone to watch Youtube. Gen Z prefers video lessons and barely read. They have shorter attention spans, smaller vocabularies, and suffer academically for it. Gen Alpha will likely take after Z in this, unless there’s progress in this area. Replacing reading with film need not detract from any of these, but only if there are educational offerings. Gen Z want to become Youtubers.

Cable is losing to streaming with kids television.

in 2020, Gen Z faces a similar economy as millennials did in 2008. However, the pandemic did little but exacerbate an immensely difficult economic situation.

In the West, they are the first generation that may be worse off than their parents due to a squeeze on earnings, the downgrading of pensions, and the increasingly unmanageable cost of housing. The earning squeeze is due to the behavior of the central banks. The pandemic is blamed for the collapse of public pensions, but the management of pensions has long spelt doom, and again, innovation saves the day. The cost of housing is again an artificial problem, and a sector where there is significant innovation. Point being, these obstacles facing Gen Z are not insurmountable and innovation will likely solve these issues in the near future.

Gen Z has been exposed to the full blast of global competition as the world has become more interdependent. They will have to face the upheaval of constant retraining and searching for new jobs in a world where the skills required by the economy will change faster than ever before. The World Economic Forum estimates that 28 per cent of the skills required by the economy will change in the next four years due to automation — making huge numbers of jobs obsolete at all levels of the workplace. Again, these aren’t insurmountable obstacles, and as research delves into machine learning, we will learn more about how the brain learns, and retraining and reskilling will be less cumbersome. Current trends suggest that developments in artificial intelligence and robotics will not result in mass unemployment but can actually create high-skilled jobs. However, in order to take advantage of this situation, one needs a culture and an education system that promote lifelong learning. Honing skills that machines have not yet mastered, such as teamwork and effective communication, will be crucial.

Despite the competition they face, in 14 out of 20 countries, young people are in favour of making it easier for migrants to legally live and work in their country, and that their governments are doing too little to solve the global refugee crisis: 43% thought they are doing too little, compared to just 12% who thought they were doing too much.

Anything that aids Gen Z in finding a job, or reskilling will be a success. How Gen Z responds and adapts to the 2020 economy has yet to be seen, but politically in the US we saw strong support for the Democratic US Presidential Candidate as well as the Republican incumbent, in contrast to the overwhelmingly Democratic support from millennials in 2008, and 2012. Much of the interest in Gen Z comes from political analysts, but there’s enough to discuss of Gen Z’s political stances it would warrant its own article.

Gen Z will likely support a basic income to mitigate this economic hardship, but may temper on the universal distribution after observing billionaires receive financial assistance at the expense of small businesses. Anything that offers Gen Z a no strings attached means of income will be massive, such as Twitch streaming.

Prior to this economic downturn, Gen Z had solid employment numbers in service sector industries, but due to the instability of that sector, often found themselves at risk of layoffs. The demoralizing nature of service sector employment is reflected in their mental health. Improving the enjoyability of service work will be an opportunity.

Worldwide, Gen Z is intensely family oriented. Gen Z wants to support their families and employers should keep this in mind.

Young people want museums and galleries to “modernize” and cater to their interests. Gen Z doesn’t often visit museums, but are fond of them. In light of the pandemic, museums have been shut down, but upon reopening, will likely find they make for good social hubs. Targeting the museum niche will likely be lucrative.

Spotify ranked first for music listening among Gen Z, terrestrial radio ranked second, while YouTube was reported to be the preferred platform for music discovery. I conjecture this preference for Youtube is due to the comment feature, and there are new offerings catering to this.

Gen Z is also in no rush to grow up and get a driver’s license. Ridesharing will likely benefit.

Several African countries (Niger 15.2, Mali 16.3, Chad 16.6, Somalia, Uganda, and Angola all 16.7, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 17.0, Burundi 17.3, Mozambique and Zambia both 17.6) have more than half their populations born in the first two decades of the 21st century.

19 of the world's 20 youngest countries are in Africa

This suggests that Africa will have substantial youth energy for either immense conflict or immense innovative growth. Africa’s emerging markets overlap with their young ones.

The gender ratio of Africa is not nearly as disproportionate as Asia. There are several African countries where the gender ratio of Gen Z is almost 1:1. On the other hand Asian countries such as China and India have been significantly skewed by one-child policies. In 2018, there were 112 Chinese males aged 15 to 29 for every hundred females in that age group. That number in India was 111. Relationships and dating will be a large part of Gen Z’s cultural evolution.

Gender ratio and fertility rate are some of the largest problems facing Gen Z. East Asia and Europe are experiencing population plateaus from declining fertility rates of native populations. Immigration and immigrants have bolstered the population decline, but this demographic change has contributed to the rise of populism. The US and Canada have long had diverse populations, but nevertheless are experiencing similar population declines. Anything that supports families will do well with Gen Z. Given that only 13% of young people worldwide saying that working for an organisation that makes a positive and tangible difference to the world is most important to their future career, employers would do much better being family-oriented to attract talent.

Gen Z is 1/5 of both the US and Canada’s population, and with Millennials comprise 40% of China’s population, but only 15% of Japan’s. In Asia, educators in the 2000s and 2010s typically seek out and nourish top students whereas in Western Europe and the United States, the emphasis is on low-performers. Bringing this support of high performers to the west will be a feature of the exodus from brick-and-mortar education.

Next article we will discuss Gen Z and politics.