Half of Generation Z would prefer to have grown up when their parents were children

The report provides a comprehensive outline of what we know currently about Generation Z based on long-term and high-quality data sources that allow us to track changing attitudes and values over time.

Key headlines include:

• Public awareness of generations in the UK is high, with over nine in ten familiar with at least one cohort. However, Generation Z have much lower brand awareness than the Millennial or Baby Boomer generations at present. Despite this, the sense of belonging to their cohort is far stronger among Gen Z and the Millennials than it is for older generations.
• Generation Z appear to be more financially optimistic than Millennials when they were the same age. They are less likely to consider themselves low income and our data suggests their incomes are less distant from the average compared with Millennials when they were younger. Gen Z also appear to be slightly more likely to save and less favourable towards borrowing than Millennials were.
• Politically there is little to distinguish Generation Z from the Millennials: both are much more likely to vote for Labour over the Conservative party. This reflect the fact that age is the best predictor of voting intention in Britain at present – a situation which has emerged quickly over the past decade.
• Generation Z do have the most ‘liberal’ values – sometimes: We find that Generation Z are notably less in favour of censorship and more strongly against long sentences for criminals compared with Millennials when they were the same age. However on other factors there is no difference, or British society has moved as one: for instance, all generations have become less supportive of the death penalty.
• Generation Z are not the “greenest generation” – instead we have seen environmental concerns rise sharply for all generations. However they are perceived as such by the British public and we find that Gen Z and Millennials are far more likely to feel guilty about their impact on the environment than older groups.
• Generation Z are also the most changeable: We find that Gen Z are the most likely to have changed their mind recently on a range of factors, ranging from whether they think God exists, down to which supermarket they like to use.

Technical note
Ipsos UK interviewed a representative quota sample of 2,246 UK adults 16-75 in the United Kingdom. Survey fieldwork though the Ipsos online Omnibus was from 21 – 22 September 2022. Data has been weighted to the known offline population proportions. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.
This survey refers to the six key generational groupings that are held to be present in the UK population. The details of how each are defined by Ipsos are provided below:

• The pre war generation: those born in 1944 and before (aged 78 and older in 2022)
• The Baby Boomers: those born between 1945 and 1965 (aged 57-77 in 2022)
• Generation X: those born 1966 – 1979 (aged 43-56 in 2022)
• The Millennial Generation: those bon 1980 – 1995 (aged 26-42 in 2022)
• Generation Z: those born 1996 until either 2010 or 2012 (aged 10 or 12-26 in 2022)
• Generation Alpha: there is no agreed definition but likely to have been born 2010 or 2012 onwards (and therefore aged under 10 in 2022)

The upper age limit for participation in this survey is 75. This means that when the data refers to those in the Baby Boomer generation it is talking about results for those aged 57 – 75 (rather than the full 57 – 77 range).
Similarly, the lower bound is 16, meaning that data for the Generation Z grouping reflects those aged 16-26, rather than the full range of 10 or 12 – 26 years old.