This week’s cover looks at reasons to feel optimistic about Generation Z, or the group of people born between 1997 and 2012. The popular view is that smartphones have made them miserable and they will live grimmer lives than their elders. However, this makes an important omission: roughly four-fifths live in emerging economies. They are richer, healthier and more educated than their parents were; those who have smartphones are better informed and connected.
In the rich world, wages for Gen Z are rising at a much faster pace than they are for older workers, and the youth-unemployment rate across the rich world is at its lowest in decades. Thanks to Gen Z-ers’ stronger wage growth, house prices as a multiple of earnings are roughly where they were for millennials a decade ago.
It is only natural for the old to worry about the young. Gen Z has been at the sharp end of a technological revolution. Social media have brought benefits—and costs. If worries about Gen Z’s lot lead to better mental-health treatment, or fewer restrictions on building homes, well and good. But celebrate Gen Z’s resourcefulness, and its successes, too.
