A recent Mail on Sunday poll of 18- to 27-year-olds found 67% supported chemical castration for sex offenders and 45% backed the death penalty. Meanwhile, a Channel 4 study reported that 52% of Generation Z (born mid-1990s to early 2000s) agreed that “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”. The same study found 33% of 13- to 27-year-olds thought the UK would be better off “if the army was in charge”, and 47% agreed that “the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”.
Professor Linda Woodhead, co-author of Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age, said her research found 40% of UK and US respondents believed the political system needed major reform, and 15% felt it was entirely broken. She attributed this disillusionment to a perceived failure of the political establishment to tackle existential crises like climate breakdown, and to a contrast between the freedom young people experience online and the frustrations of dealing with traditional institutions. “Democracies are slow and inefficient,” she said. “This generation is not used to that. They have a sense of urgency because the world is burning up.”
Dr Daniel Evans, a sociologist at Swansea University, said the findings reflected a generation “desperate for change” amid high living costs and poor employment prospects. He noted that middle-class young people, who previously supported Jeremy Corbyn, now see neither a centrist Labour nor a Reform-lite Conservative party as offering the urgent reform they desire. “As Leon Trotsky said, ‘the feverish petty bourgeoisie can turn to the right or to the left’,” Evans added. “In 2017, they had a populist-left alternative. But they don’t have that now.”
However, Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, cautioned against demonising Gen Z. He said the World Values survey showed higher support for democracy among Gen Z than among millennials at the same age, and predicted this support would increase as they aged. Some sociologists, including Dr Chris Prosser of the British Election Study, have questioned the methodology of surveys like Channel 4’s, warning they may exacerbate generational divisions.
