Will the next generation do better than the one that came
before? To young people in wealthier nations, that dream of upward mobility
seems more like a story about the past than modern-day reality, according to a
large new survey taken in 21 countries.
اضافة اعلان
In poorer countries, though, there is still hope that young
people’s lives will be better than those of their parents, and that the world
is becoming a better place.
“In a lot of the developing world, there is a bit more optimism
that yes, with each generation our living standards are improving,” said
Laurence Chandy, director of the office of global insight and policy at UNICEF,
which conducted the survey with Gallup. “But there’s a recognition in the West
that’s stopped happening.”
In the United States, 56% of young people and 64% of older people
said that children today would be worse off, economically, than their parents —
a view that comports with the economic realities for many in recent years.
The survey was of 21,000 people in two age groups — 15 to 24,
and 40 and up — and included nationally representative samples from all regions
of the world. The younger group said that children today were better off in
basic ways, like education, health care and physical safety. In the median
country, 57% of them said the world was becoming a better place with each
generation, compared with 39% of older people.
And the best part of being a young person today? Technology,
according to respondents in follow-up interviews.
“Young people these days have access to information and new
technologies that other generations haven’t even come close to having,” said
Victor Paganotto Carvalho Freitas, 24, from Sao Paulo, Brazil. “With the advent
of the internet, it is possible to learn different skills from within your
bedroom.”
But young people also have significant concerns. In the surveys,
about 9 in 10 said they sometimes or often have anxiety. Six in 10 said
children today have more pressure from adults to succeed than their parents
did. Seven in 10 say the actions of their parents’ generation have contributed to
climate change.
The survey, conducted from February to June, did not directly
ask about the pandemic (the researchers weren’t confident that answers could be
compared because COVID has hit countries at different times). But young people
said countries would be safer if they cooperated more to fight threats like
COVID. A majority said they struggled with mental health. And the institutions
in which they had the highest levels of trust were medicine and science (social
media and religious institutions were lowest).
“I just think about COVID when I think about the future,” said
Landen Otaka, 16, from Hawaii. “We’re trying to adapt to what has become.”
In the six richest countries in the survey, about one-third of
young people said they thought today’s children would be economically better
off than their parents. They were particularly pessimistic in Japan, France,
Britain and Spain.
In low-income countries, though, about two-thirds of young
people said they thought today’s children would do better financially than
their parents, especially in Africa and South Asia. They were also more likely
than those in high- or middle-income countries to say the world was becoming a
better place with each generation.
Wealth accumulation and improvements in living standards may be
slowing for many in the global North, said Sharlene Swartz, a sociologist at
the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria, South Africa, whose research
focuses on young people. “But in almost all of the global South, that is not
true,” she said. “Living standards have been improved across the board. People
have been lifted out of poverty. Malaria treatment, HIV medication — all those
things are leading to people living longer lives.”
Still, the optimism was not universal in the developing world.
“The worst part are destroyed economics, negative effects of
capitalism and climate change, which our generation will have to deal with,”
said Valeriia Drabych, 19, from Kyiv, Ukraine. “Lust of money, which our
ancestors did not know how to overcome, brought us to the state we are in
today. We have to sort it all out, and we have to do it ASAP!”
In the West, particularly the United States, many young people
surveyed said that not everyone is born at the same starting line, and that
success is not entirely within their control. The American dream has often been
defined as a belief that those who work hard will live a “better, richer and
happier life,” regardless of the circumstances in which they’re born. But this
generation appears to have doubts — which matches a recent economic finding
that since 1980, Americans are no longer likelier than not to earn more than
their parents.
Young Americans still said hard work was most important to
success, but the second-largest share said it was family wealth and
connections. Older people in the United States were 40% more likely than young
people to say hard work was most important, and half as likely to say it was
family wealth or connections.
Makeila Ward, 16, from Nevada, is taking classes at community
college during high school, and plans to become a flight nurse in the Air
Force. “People who start off with a better life than others have higher chances
of getting more successful more easily,” she said. “But even with a hard
background, if you put the work in and save up the money, most of the time you
get what you deserve.”
Young people in low- and middle-income countries were more
likely to say that things within their control — education and hard work — were
most important. In South America, India and some African nations, they said
education was the strongest factor in success. This was also the case in
Germany, which was an outlier among rich countries in this way.
“We do not get to choose our families or social status, but that
has never been a hindrance for anyone to succeed,” said Lorraine Nduta, 21, from
Nairobi, Kenya. “In fact, I think when you have less, it fuels you to seek
more. The power to change any situation lies with us — hard work, consistency
and discipline.”
Md. Rafaiat Ullah, 24, a university student in Chittagong,
Bangladesh, said he thought he would be in a better financial position than his
parents because of education. “My parents didn’t get a chance to be educated
that much,” he said. “But even though they didn’t, they did educate me.
Education creates opportunity.”
Throughout the world, the dream of a better life for the next
generation persists, even if it’s increasingly out of reach in certain places.
“I want to be an optimist and think that someday the world will
open its eyes and let everyone be whatever they want to be, helping to have
better access to school and work opportunities,” said Angela Bahamonde Ahijado,
24, from Cetina, Spain. “That is what I would ask for my daughter, and I know
that my parents in their day asked for it for me.”
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