What Sets Gen Z Apart
While there are certainly many similarities between Gen Zers and Millennials, we’ve noted five key values that are significantly more prominent among this younger group:
As we look more closely at the motivations and beliefs that are so prominent among Gen Zers, it’s not hard to see how the changing world has impacted their values. This is a generation that spent its formative years embracing the reality of climate change. While past generations have heard debates over its legitimacy, and reports about the science not being settled, for Gen Z the debate is long over; and climate change deniers exist well outside the mainstream. Not only that, but they’re witnessing the impacts climate change has on their world, in the form of increasingly devastating storm seasons, and rising water levels and global temperatures. The media Gen Z consumes has greater representation of recent immigrants and BIPOC than any previous generation, giving them a more inclusive view of who can achieve success. And this new generation has seen, first-hand, the power of activism when it comes to challenging the status quo, in the form of worldwide movements such as climate action, protests to end gun violence and the #MeToo movement. While Millennials can be credited with participating in or even being at the forefront of many of these movements, Gen Zers have never lived in a world without them.
This is a generation that has spent its whole life with access to smartphones, and an ever-growing library of apps and digital tools.
All of these factors are of course compounded by the largest differentiator from their predecessors – their overwhelmingly easy access to information and connection across the globe. This is a generation that has spent its whole life with access to smartphones, and an ever-growing library of apps and digital tools that provide the ability learn, connect, watch and participate in movements around the world. With all that in mind, it’s perhaps not surprising that Gen Zers index so highly on these specific values when compared to older generations.
All of that being said, similarities between Gen Zers and Millennials can certainly be found. Our research has shown that many of the values characteristics shared by these two generations are also what set them apart so distinctly from Gen Xers or Boomers. Values such as Pursuit of Novelty, Personal Optimism, Need for Status Recognition, Ostentatious Consumption, Attraction to Crowds, Pursuit of Originality, Multiculturalism and Penchant for Risk are all held strongly by both Millennials and Gen Zers, yet were found to have much lower salience among older generations. It’s likely that these large values shifts can be attributed a vastly changed world – one that was a very different place to grow up in for Millennials and Gen Zers than it was for Boomers and Gen Xers.
As our research into the Gen Z cohort continues, we’ll continue to answer questions, not only about how this generation came to be who they are, but who they will become. How will the world shape their future? Will Gen Z forever become the Pandemic Generation due to massive disruptions in their education and early career opportunities? How will they respond?
Primacy Of Environmental Protection
Ecological Lifestyle
Rejection Of Authority
Ethical Consumerism