HANOVER: A majority of Generation Z Europeans believe they will be less well off than their parents, according to a study commissioned by German-based leisure group TUI published on Thursday, reported German news agency (dpa).
The YouGov market research firm surveyed 7,085 young people, aged 16 to 26, on behalf of the TUI foundation in March this year and found that 52 per cent were pessimistic about their futures. The annual survey took in participants from Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Poland.
Just 22 per cent believed they would be better off than their parents. While only 10 per cent had faith in political parties, 73 per cent nevertheless saw it as their civic duty to vote.
Whereas young Germans and Poles had shown themselves more optimistic than their European neighbours in previous surveys, they were now more pessimistic, YouGov found.
Social scientist Thorsten Faas of Berlin’s Free University, who supervised the study, described the outcomes as reflecting a gradual trend, rather than a reaction to particular factors, such as the coronavirus pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Young Europeans’ attitudes to life have been darkening constantly over the longer term. Looking ahead, that means that a sudden reversal of the trend is not very likely,“ he said.
Generation Z refers to people born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. - Bernama
