Generation Z

Statistical projections from the United Nations in 2019 suggest that, by 2020, the people of Niger would have a median age of 15.2, Mali 16.3, Chad 16.6, Somalia, Uganda, and Angola all 16.7, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 17.0, Burundi 17.3, Mozambique and Zambia both 17.6. (This means that more than half of their populations were born in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.) These are the world's youngest countries by median age. While a booming population can induce substantial economic growth, if healthcare, education, and economic needs were not met, there would be chronic youth unemployment, low productivity, and social unrest. Investing in human capital is crucial in the formation of a productive society.[118]

Population pyramid of China in 2016

China's fertility rate dropped from 5.91 children per woman in 1967 to 1.6 in 2012. The one-child policy is a factor behind this development. According to the Chinese Central Government, the one-child policy prevented approximately 400 million births. Experts continue to debate this figure, however. Some argue that such a drop in fertility is typical for a rapidly industrializing country while others believe it actually accelerates the aging process. According to demographer Zhen Binwen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China's labor force would peak in 2015. Almost 7% of China's population were 65 years or older in 2000, a benchmark after which the United Nations considers a population to be aging. China is in fact aging quite quickly. UN figures show that China's ratio of people aged 60 and over increased 3.8% between 2000 and 2010, higher than the global average of 3% between 1950 and 2010. Therefore, China is one of the developing countries with aging populations. The nation's quickly growing and export-driven economy will slow down, as the advantage of abundant and cheap labor fades away. Life expectancy in China rose from 43 in 1960 to 73 in 2010, thanks to improved standards of living, better nutrition, and access to healthcare and education.[119]

As a result of cultural ideals, government policy, and modern medicine, there have been severe gender imbalances in China and India. According to the United Nations, in 2018, there were 112 Chinese males aged 15 to 29 for every hundred females in that age group. That number in India was 111. China had a total of 34 million excess males and India 37 million, more than the entire population of Malaysia. Together, China and India had a combined 50 million of excess males under the age of 20. Such a discrepancy fuels loneliness epidemics, human trafficking (from elsewhere in Asia, such as Cambodia and Vietnam), and prostitution, among other societal problems.[120]

Like the European Union (and unlike the United States), Japan has a declining population. Coupled with an exceptionally long life expectancy (85 years for women and 78 for men, as of 2005) and one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, this means that by 2050, 30% of Japanese will be over the age of 60. While the government has been introducing various incentives for people to have more children, no return on investment could be expected till the 2030s, when the children born in the early 2000s enter the workforce. (Immigration is politically unpopular in this country.)[121] According to official figures, the number of individuals below 15 years of age in Japan was 13.6% of the population in 2007 and was predicted to fall to 12.3% in 2015, or about half that of the elderly. 2007 was the twenty-sixth consecutive year in which the number of people under the age of 15 dropped in Japan.[122] Japan's birth rate fell from roughly replacement level, 2.1, in the early 1970s to 1.26 in 2005.[123] Government officials estimated that population of Japan would decrease 30% by the 2050s, from 127 million to below 90 million.[122]

Singapore's birth rate has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 since the 1980s before stabilizing during the 2000s and 2010s.[124] (It reached 1.14 in 2018, making it the lowest since 2010 and one of the lowest in the world.[125]) Government incentives such as the baby bonus have proven insufficient to raise the birth rate. Singapore's experience mirrors those of Japan and South Korea.[124] In Taiwan, the average reported ideal family size among women aged 18 to 24 dropped from 2.1 in 1991 to 1.8 in 2003. In Hong Kong, that among women aged 18 to 27 fell from 1.8 in 1991 to 1.5 in 2011.[126]

• Population pyramids of India, Japan, and Singapore in 2016
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European countries by proportions of people aged 65 and over between 2008 and 2018

From about 1750 to 1950, Western Europe transitioned from having both high birth and death rates to having low birth and death rates. By the late 1960s or 1970s, the average woman had fewer than two children, and, although demographers at first expected a "correction," such a rebound never came. Despite a bump in the total fertility rates (TFR) of some European countries in the very late twentieth century (the 1980s and 1990s), especially France and Scandinavia, they never returned to replacement level; the bump was largely due to older women realizing their dreams of motherhood. At first, falling fertility is due to urbanization and decreased infant mortality rates, which diminished the benefits and increased the costs of raising children. In other words, it became more economically sensible to invest more in fewer children, as economist Gary Becker argued. (This is the first demographic transition.) Falling fertility then came from attitudinal shifts. By the 1960s, people began moving from traditional and communal values towards more expressive and individualistic outlooks due to access to and aspiration of higher education, and to the spread of lifestyle values once practiced only by a tiny minority of cultural elites. (This is the second demographic transition.) Although the momentous cultural changes of the 1960s had leveled off by the 1990s, the social and cultural environment of the very late twentieth-century was quite different from that of the 1950s. Such changes in values have had a major effect on fertility that cemented itself in subsequent demographic cohorts. Member states of the European Community saw a steady increase in not just divorce and out-of-wedlock births between 1960 and 1985 but also falling fertility rates. In 1981, a survey of countries across the industrialized world found that while more than half of people aged 65 and over thought that women needed children to be fulfilled, only 35% of those between the ages of 15 to 24 (younger Baby Boomers and older Generation X) agreed.[127]

By the early 2000s, the average reported ideal family size among German-speaking countries has fallen to 1.7, well below the replacement level. Low levels of interest in reproduction is more pronounced among the economically advantaged, in contrast to earlier times, when wealth was correlated with fertility.[126] At the same time, France and Scandinavia retained high fertility rates compared to other developed countries, especially Southern Europe and East Asia. At first sight, it appears that this might be due to their socially progressive values and policies, i.e. making it easier for women to pursue both their careers and reproductive dreams. However, closer scrutiny suggests the argument that "feminism is the new pro-natalism" is untenable, given that there are socially progressive countries with low fertility rates such as Austria and Canada on one hand, and more conservative and traditionalist countries with high fertility rates such as Ireland and the United States on the other.[127]

Population pyramid of the European Union in 2016

At the start of the twenty-first century, Europe has a population aging at an unprecedented rate. It is estimated that by 2050, 40% of Europeans will be over the age of 60. This problem is especially acute in the East whereas in the West, it is alleviated by international immigration. In addition, an increasing number of children born in Europe has been to non-European parents. Because children of immigrants in Europe tend to be about as religious as they are, this could slow the decline of religion (or the growth of secularism) in the continent as the twenty-first century progresses.[128] In the United Kingdom, the number of foreign-born residents stood at 6% of the population in 1991. Immigration subsequently surged and has not fallen since (as of 2018). Researches by the demographers and political scientists Eric Kaufmann, Roger Eatwell, and Matthew Goodwin suggest that such a fast ethno-demographic change is one of the key reasons behind public backlash in the form of nationalist populist revolts against the political establishment across the rich liberal democracies, an example of which being the Brexit Referendum in 2016.[129]

Italy is a country where the problem of an aging population is especially acute. The fertility rate dropped from about four in the 1960s down to 1.2 in the 2010s. This is not because young Italians do not want to procreate. Quite the contrary, having a lot of children is an Italian ideal. But its economy has been floundering since the Great Recession of 2007–8, with the youth unemployment rate at a staggering 35% in 2019. Many Italians have moved abroad – 150,000 did in 2018 – and many are young people pursuing educational and economic opportunities. With the plunge in the number of births each year, the Italian population is expected to decline in the next five years. Moreover, the Baby Boomers are retiring in large numbers, and their numbers eclipse those of the young people taking care of them. Only Japan has an age structure more tilted towards the elderly. One solution to this problem is incentivizing reproduction, as France has done, by investing in longer parental leaves, daycare, and tax exemptions for parents. As of 2019, France has approximately the same population as Italy but 65% more births. Another solution is immigration, which has been alleviating the decline, but it does not come without political backlash.[130]

Greece also suffers from a serious demographic problem as many young people are leaving the country in search of better opportunities elsewhere. This brain drain and a rapidly aging population could spell disaster for the country.[131]

Russia has a falling birth rate and a declining population despite having an improving economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to the United Nations, Russia's population could fall by as much as one third by 2050. Russian government statisticians estimated in 2005 that a boy born in their country that year has a slim chance of seeing his 60th birthday due to various lifestyle-related problems (such as alcoholism). A gap in life expectancy between the West and Russia started becoming noticeable in the 1960s.[132] Russia's population dropped 6% between the mid-1990s and early 2010s.[133]

In the United Kingdom, even though the completed fertility rate changed little, the average age at first birth was increasing during the early 2000s. According to the Royal College of Midwives, this was the main reason why the proportion of births requiring labor inductions or Cesarean sections increased from 31% to 50%.[134]

Between 1990 and 2019, Iceland saw its population grew by 40.7%, Norway by 25.9%, Sweden by 20.0%, Denmark 13.1%, Greenland 0.8%, Finland 10.9%, the Faroe Islands 7.5%, and the Åland Islands 22.9%.[135]

• Population pyramids of France, Greece, and Russia in 2016
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Canada's total fertility rate by province in 2012

Data from Statistics Canada published in 2017 showed that Generation Z comprised 17.6% of the Canadian population.[136] According to Statistics Canada, between 1980 and 2009, the frequency of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) dropped from one per a thousand live births to 0.3, a 71% reduction. Data from the United Nations shows that the mortality rate of newborns between 28 and 364 days of age plummeted 64% and that of toddlers below the age of five fell 9.7% between 1980 and 2015. According to Statistics Canada, the number of households with both grandparents and grandchildren remained rare but has been growing. In 2011, five percent of Canadian children below the age of ten lived with a grandparent, up from 3.3% in the previous decade. This is in part because Canadian parents in early twenty-first century cannot (or think they cannot) afford childcare and often find themselves having to work long hours or irregular shifts. Meanwhile, many grandparents struggle to keep up with their highly active grandchildren on a regular basis due to their age. Between grandparents and parents, potential sources of friction include the diets of the children, their sleep schedule, how to discipline them, and how they may use electronic gadgets. Parents today are more reliant on the Internet for information than their own parents, and many even recommend that they take grandparenting classes. Because Millennials and members of Generation X tend to have fewer children than their parents the Baby Boomers, each child typically receives more attention his or her grandparents and parents compared to previous generations.[137]

In the United States, at the urging of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-Celler Act), which abolished national quotas for immigrants and replaced it with a system that admits a fixed number of persons per year based in qualities such as skills and the need for refuge.[138] During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most immigrants to the United States had come from Europe, but by the late 1990s and early 2000s, Asia and Latin America became the top sources of immigrants to the nation.[139]

A report by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution stated that in the United States, the Millennials are a bridge between the largely Caucasian pre-Millennials (Generation X and their predecessors) and the more diverse post-Millennials (Generation Z and their successors).[140] Frey's analysis of U.S. Census data suggests that as of 2019, 50.9% of Generation Z is white, 13.8% is black, 25.0% Hispanic, and 5.3% Asian. (See figure below.)[141] 29% of Generation Z are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, compared to 23% of Millennials when they were at the same age. As of 2019, 13.7% of the U.S. population is foreign-born, compared to 9.7% in 1997, when the first members of Generation Z had their birth cries.[142]

According to the Census Bureau, the number of people of mixed heritage has risen significantly between 2000 and 2010. More specifically, the number of Americans who identify as mixed white and black has grown by 134% and those of both white and Asian extraction by 87%.[3] Frey's research also suggests that at the national level, Hispanics and Asians are the fastest growing racial minority groups in the United States while the number of Caucasians under the age of 18 has been declining since 2000. This demographic change could have social, cultural, and political implications for the decades ahead.[143]

Members of Generation Z are slightly less likely to be foreign born than Millennials;[144] the fact that more American Latinos were born in the U.S. rather than abroad plays a role in making the first wave of Generation Z appear better educated than their predecessors. However, researchers warn that this trend could be altered by changing immigration patterns and the younger members of Generation Z choosing alternate educational paths.[145] As a demographic cohort, Generation Z is smaller than the Baby Boomers and their children, the Millennials.[146] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Generation Z makes up about one quarter of the U.S. population, as of 2015.[147] Provisional data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that U.S. fertility rates have fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 since 1971. (It was 1.765 in 2017.)[148] There was an 'echo boom' in the 2000s, which certainly increased the absolute number of future young adults, but did not significantly change the relative sizes of this cohort compared to their parents.[149]

The fertility rate of Mexico, once among the highest in the world, was approximately at replacement level in 2010, down from almost seven in 1960. This is due to government birth control policies dating back to the 1970s that made heavy use of sterilization in a country with stringent abortion restrictions except in the capital. By the 2000s, about 40% of married Mexican women were sterilized. Women's increased participation in the workforce and improved educational opportunities also played a role in this development. Although the number of new Mexicans each year in the 2000s was the same as those from the 1970s, the rate of growth has slowed substantially. Mexicans' average age was 28 in 2010, up from 17 in 1980. For comparison, Europe took a century rather than 30 years to make the same demographic transition. Mexicans living in the United States had a higher fertility rate than their counterparts in the old country, however, and this means that the number of people of Mexican heritage would continue to grow North of the border. In fact, in the early 2000s, there was significant Mexican migration, legal and otherwise, into the United States, where standards of living and wages are higher.[150]

• Population pyramids of Canada, the United States, and Mexico in 2016
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Population pyramid of Australia in 2016

Australia's total fertility rate has fallen from above three in the post-war era, to about replacement level (2.1) in the 1970s to below that in the late 2010s. (It was 1.74 in 2017.) However, immigration has been offsetting the effects of a declining birthrate. In the 2010s, among the residents of Australia, 5% were born in the United Kingdom, 2.5% from China, 2.2% from India, and 1.1% from the Philippines. 84% of new arrivals in the fiscal year of 2016 were below 40 years of age, compared to 54% of those already in the country. Like other immigrant-friendly countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Australia's working-age population is expected to grow till about 2025. However, the ratio of people of working age to retirees (the dependency ratio) has gone from eight in the 1970s to about four in the 2010s. It could drop to two by the 2060s, depending in immigration levels.[151] "The older the population is, the more people are on welfare benefits, we need more health care, and there's a smaller base to pay the taxes," Ian Harper of the Melbourne Business School told ABC News (Australia).[152] While the government has scaled back plans to increase the retirement age, to cut pensions, and to raise taxes due to public opposition, demographic pressures continue to mount as the buffering effects of immigration are fading away.[151] Australians coming of age in the early twenty-first century are more reluctant to have children compared to their predecessors due to economic reasons: higher student debt, expensive housing, and negative income growth.[152]

Enrollment in primary schools in developing countries has been rising steadily since the mid-twentieth century. By the 1990s and 2000s, primary-school enrollment rates in these countries approached 100%, sitting just below those of the developed world.[153] According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), countries spent an average of US$10,759 educating their children from primary school to university in 2014.[154]

Over 600,000 students between the ages of eight and nine from 49 countries and territories took part in the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The highest-scoring students in mathematics hailed from Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. In particular, the gap between the lowest scoring East Asian country (Japan, at 593) was 23 points higher than the next nation (Northern Ireland, at 570), which was unchanged from 2011. In science, the top scorers were from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and Hong Kong.[43]

The OECD-sponsored Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is administered every three years to fifteen-year-old schoolchildren around the world on reading comprehension, mathematics, and science. Students from 71 nations and territories took the PISA tests in 2015. Students with the highest average scores in mathematics came from Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Japan; in science from Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Taiwan, and Finland; and in reading from Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Finland, and Ireland.[45]

In 2019, the OECD surveyed educational standards and achievement of its 36 member states and found that while education spending has gone up by an average of 15% over the previous decade, academic performance of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, and science on the PISA has largely stagnated. Students from China and Singapore, both outside of the OECD, continued to outclass their global peers. Among all the countries that sent their students to take the PISA, only Albania, Colombia, Macao, Moldova, Peru, Portugal, and Qatar saw any improvements since joining. Of these, only Portugal is an OECD country. Meanwhile, Australia, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, and South Korea all saw a decline in overall performance since joining. Funding, while important, is not necessarily the most important thing, as the case of Estonia demonstrates. Estonia spent 30% below the OECD average yet still achieved top marks.[34]

Socioeconomic background is a key factor in academic success in the OECD, with students coming from families in the top 10% of the income distribution being three years ahead in reading skills compared to those from the bottom 10%. However, the link between background and performance was weakest in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Japan, Norway, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, meaning these countries have the most equitable education systems.[34] A proposed method of assessing the equality of educational opportunities in a given society is to measure the heritability of academic ability as empirical evidence does support the hypothesis that the heritability of test results is higher in a country with a national curriculum compared to one with a decentralized system; having a national curriculum aimed at equality reduces environmental influences.[155]

A 2020 exam session at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France. COVID-19 has disrupted education worldwide.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the education of around one and a half billion students as schools in 165 countries closed their doors and 60 million teachers were sent home, according to UNESCO. A number of countries tackled the problem by expanding access to the Internet in remote areas or broadcasting more educational materials on national television.[156]

Different nations and territories approach the question of how to nurture gifted students differently. During the 2000s and 2010s, whereas the Middle East and East Asia (especially China, Hong Kong, and South Korea) and Singapore actively sought them out and steered them towards top programs, Europe and the United States had in mind the goal of inclusion and chose to focus on helping struggling students. In 2010, for example, China unveiled a decade-long National Talent Development Plan to identify able students and guide them into STEM fields and careers in high demand; that same year, England dismantled its National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth and redirected the funds to help low-scoring students get admitted to elite universities. Developmental cognitive psychologist David Geary observed that Western educators remained "resistant" to the possibility that even the most talented of schoolchildren needed encouragement and support and tended to concentrate on low performers. In addition, even though it is commonly believed that past a certain IQ benchmark (typically 120), practice becomes much more important than cognitive abilities in mastering new knowledge, recently published research papers based on longitudinal studies, such as the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) and the Duke University Talent Identification Program, suggest otherwise.[42]

Since the early 2000s, the number of students from emerging economies going abroad for higher education has risen markedly. During the 2010s, while the number electing to study in the United Kingdom and the United States largely evened out, more and more opted for Australia and Canada. This was a golden age of growth for many Western universities admitting international students.[157] In the late 2010s, around five million students trotted the globe each year for higher education, with the developed world being the most popular destinations and China the biggest source of international students. But as relations between the West and China soured and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Western universities saw their revenue from foreign students plummet and will have to reconfigure themselves in order to survive. Government assistance might not be available due to the strained ties between universities and many politicians, who are skeptical of the value of higher education because even though admissions has boomed, productivity growth as slowed.[158] Moreover, political battles in the West are increasingly fought between those who have university degrees and those who do not. In any case, universities that are highly dependent on revenue for foreign students face the possibility of bankruptcy. COVID-19 has ended the golden age of universities.[157]

For information on public support for higher education (for domestic students) in various countries in 2019, see chart below.

In South Korea, teaching is a prestigious and rewarding and the education system is highly centralized and focused on testing. Similarly, in Singapore, becoming a teacher is by no means an easy task and the nation's education system is also centrally managed.[154]

In Finland, during the 2010s, it was extremely difficult to become a schoolteacher, as admissions rates for a teacher's training program were even lower than for programs in law or medicine.[154]

The H-bar Physics Building of the Paris-Saclay University in May 2020

According to the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), French students scored last in mathematics and next-to-last in science when compared to other member states of the European Union. French fourth graders (students aged eight to nine) scored an average of 488 points in mathematics and 487 in science, compared to the E.U. average of 527 and 525, respectively. Internationally, France ranked in 35th place out of the 49 participant countries and territories.[43] French mediocrity in mathematics at the level of grade school notwithstanding, the situation in higher education and research was a revelation, as can be seen in the number of Fields Medalists the nation has produced, which is more than any other country except the United States.[159][160]

In early 2020, the Paris-Saclay University opened. It merged some 20 tertiary and research institutions (including the elite grandes écoles and specialized research institutes), employs 9,000 teaching and research faculty members, and serves 48,000 students. It is dedicated to science and is intended to be what President Emmanuel Macron called the "MIT à la française." Although the French were previously indifferent towards international rankings of universities, Paris-Saclay is, as of 2020, one of the best in the world, especially in mathematics.[160]

In France, while year-long mandatory military service for men was abolished in 1996 by President Jacques Chirac, who wanted to build a professional all-volunteer military,[161] all citizens between 17 and 25 years of age must still participate in the Defense and Citizenship Day (JAPD), when they are introduced to the French Armed Forces, and take language tests.[161] In 2019, President Macron introduced something similar to mandatory military service, but for teenagers, as promised during his presidential campaign. Known as the Service National Universel or SNU, it is a compulsory civic service. While students will not have to shave their heads or handle military equipment, they will have to sleep in tents, get up early (at 6:30 am), participate in various physical activities, raise the tricolor, and sing the national anthem. They will have to wear a uniform, though it is more akin to the outfit of security guards rather than military personnel. This program takes a total of four weeks. In the first two, youths learn how to provide first aid, how navigating with a map, how to recognize fake news, emergency responses for various scenarios, and self-defense. In addition, they get health checks and get tested on their mastery of the French language, and they participate in debates on a variety of social issues, including environmentalism, state secularism, and gender equality. In the second fortnight, they volunteer with a charity for local government. The aim of this program is to promote national cohesion and patriotism, at a time of deep division on religious and political grounds, to get people out of their neighborhoods and regions, and mix people of different socioeconomic classes, something mandatory military service used to do. Supporters thought that teenagers rarely raise the national flag, spend too much time on their phones, and felt nostalgic for the era of compulsory military service, considered a rite of passage for young men and a tool of character-building. Critics argued that this program is inadequate, and would cost too much.[162] The SNU is projected to affect some 800,000 French citizens each year when it becomes mandatory for all aged 16 to 21 by 2026, at a cost of some €1.6 billion.[162] Another major concern is that it will overburden the French military, already stretched thin by counter-terrorism campaigns at home and abroad.[161] A 2015 IFOP poll revealed that 80% of the French people supported some kind of mandatory service, military, or civilian. At the same time, returning to conscription was also popular; supporters included 90% of the UMP party, 89% of the National Front (now the National Rally), 71% of the Socialist Party, and 67% of people aged 18 to 24. This poll was conducted after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks.[163]

1909 illustration of Macbeth by Arthur Rackham for Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Many British schoolboys struggled with English classics including the works of Shakespeare.

In the early 2010s, British schoolboys found themselves falling behind girls in reading comprehension. In 2011, only 80% of boys reached the expected reading level at age 11 compared to 88% of girls; the gap widened to 12 points at age 14. Previous research suggests this is due to the general tendency of boys not receiving a lot of encouragement in voluntary reading.[164] Teachers noticed that secondary schoolboys struggled to carry on reading. 25% said interest waned within the first few pages, 22% the first 50 pages, another 25% the first hundred. Almost a third reported that boys lost interest on the cover if the book had more than 200 pages. English-language literary classics most unpopular among boys included the novels of Jane Austen, the plays of William Shakespeare (especially Macbeth, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.[165]

69% of British primary schoolteachers and 60% of secondary schoolteachers reported in 2018 they saw a growing frequency of substandard vocabulary levels in their students of all ages, leading to not just low self-esteem and various other behavioral and social problems, but also to greater difficulty in courses such as English and history and in important exams such as the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), a set of school-leaving exams required for 16-year-olds. 49% of Year 1 students and 43% of children in Year 7 (ages 11 to 12) lacked the vocabulary to excel in school. Many believed that the decline in reading for pleasure among students, especially older teenagers, to be the cause of this trend. Psychologist Kate Nation warned, "Regardless of the causes, low levels of vocabulary set limits on literacy, understanding, learning the curriculum and can create a downward spiral of poor language which begins to affect all aspects of life."[38][39]

In 2017, almost half of Britons have received higher education by the age of 30. This is despite the fact that £9,000 worth of student fees were introduced in 2012. U.K. universities first introduced fees in autumn 1998 to address financial troubles and the fact that universities elsewhere charged tuition. Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced the goal of having half of young Britons earning a university degree in 1999, though he missed the 2010 deadline.[166] Blair did not take into account the historical reality that an oversupply of young people with high levels of education precipitated periods of political instability and unrest in various societies, from early modern Western Europe and late Tokugawa Japan to the Soviet Union, modern Iran, and the United States. Quantitative historian Peter Turchin termed this elite overproduction.[167][168] Turchin estimated that 30% of British university graduates were overqualified given the requirements of their jobs[169] while the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reckoned that one out of five graduates would have been better off had they not gone to university.[158] The IFS also warned that 13 British universities risked bankruptcy as admissions fall precipitously due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally, admissions rise in during an economic recession as people seek to enhance their competitiveness in the workforce, but this did not happen with the one induced by the pandemic due to requirements of social distancing and the availability of online classes.[158] Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made the case for better vocational training. "We need to recognize that a significant and growing minority of young people leave university and work in a non-graduate job," he said.[169]

Nevertheless, demand for higher education in the United Kingdom remains strong, driven by the need for high-skilled workers from both the public and private sectors. There was, however, a widening gender gap. As of 2017, women were more likely to attend or have attended university than men, 55% to 43%, a 12% gap.[166]

2018 PISA test results showed that in reading comprehension, Canadian high-school students ranked above the OECD average, but below China and Singapore. Students from Alberta scored above the national average, from British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia about average, and Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island below average. Nationally, 14% of Canadian students scored below Level 2 (407 points or higher), but with a significant gender gap. While 90% of girls were at Level 2 or higher, only 82% of boys did the same, in spite of the initiatives aimed at encouraging boys to read more. Overall, the Canadian PISA reading average has declined since 2000, albeit with a significant bump in 2015. In mathematics, Canada was behind China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, and Finland that year, when 600,000 students from 79 countries took the PISA tests. There was no improvement in the mathematical skills of Canadian students since 2012 as assessed by PISA, with one in six students scoring below the benchmark.[44]

During the 2010s, investigative journalists and authorities have unveiled numerous instances of academic dishonesty in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ranging from contract cheating (buying an essay, hiring someone to complete an assignment or to take an exam) to bribing admissions officers. In some instances, advertisements for contract cheating were found right next to university campuses. The actual prevalence of plagiarism remains unknown, and early research might have underestimated the true extent of this behavior.[170]

While courses on home economics, also known as family and consumer sciences (FCS), were commonplace in the United States during the twentieth century, they were on the decline in the early twenty-first for a variety of reasons, ranging from a shortage of qualified teachers to funding cuts. This is despite attempts to revise them for life in the contemporary era. FCS courses in the past taught the basics of cooking and housework but now also teach nutrition, community gardening, composting, personal finance, among other topics; they are intended to fill in the gaps of knowledge that parents in the olden days taught their children but in many cases can no longer do because both parents are working. In 2012, there were only 3.5 million students enrolled in FCS courses in secondary schools, a drop of 38% from the previous decade.[171]

In 2013, less than a third of American public schools had access to broadband Internet service, according to the non-profit EducationSuperHighway. By 2019, however, that number reached 99%, which has increased the frequency of digital learning.[172]

According to a 2015 Northeastern University Survey, 81% of Generation Z in the U.S. believes obtaining a college degree is necessary in achieving career goals.[173] As Generation Z enters high school, and they start preparing for college, a primary concern is paying for a college education without acquiring debt. Students report working hard in high school in hopes of earning scholarships and the hope that parents will pay the college costs not covered by scholarships. Students also report interest in ROTC programs as a means of covering college costs.[174] According to NeaToday, a publication by the National Education Association, two thirds of Gen Zers entering college are concerned about affording college. One third plan to rely on grants and scholarships and one quarter hope that their parents will cover the bulk of college costs. While the cost of attending college is incredibly high for most Gen Zers, according to NeaToday, 65% say the benefits of graduating college exceed the costs.[174] As of 2019, the total college debt has exceeded $1.5 trillion, and two out of three college graduates are saddled with debt. The average borrower owes $37,000, up $10,000 from ten years before. A 2019 survey by TD Ameritrade found that over 30% of Generation Z (and 18% of Millennials) said they have considered taking a gap year between high school and college.[175]

Generation Z is revolutionizing the educational system in many aspects. Thanks in part to a rise in the popularity of entrepreneurship and advancements in technology, high schools and colleges across the globe are including entrepreneurship in their curriculum.[176] According to the World Economic Forum, over one in five members of Generation Z are interested in attending a trade or technical school instead of a college or university.[177] In the United States today, high school students are generally encouraged to attend college or university after graduation while the options of technical school and vocational training are often neglected.[178] According to the 2018 CNBC All-American Economic Survey, only 40% of Americans believed that the financial cost of a four-year university degree is justified, down from 44% five years before. Moreover, only 50% believed a four-year program is the best kind of training, down from 60%, and the number of people who saw value in a two-year program jumped from 18% to 26%. These findings are consistent with other reports.[179]

STEM and healthcare grew in popularity while the humanities and the liberal arts have declined.

Members of Generation Z are anxious to pick majors that teach them marketable skills.[180] According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), some 88% consider job preparation to be the point of college. 39% are aiming for a career in medicine or healthcare, 20% in the natural sciences, 18% in biology or biotechnology, and 17% in business.[181] A 2018 Gallup poll on over 32,000 university students randomly selected from 43 schools from across the United States found that just over half (53%) of them thought their chosen major would lead to gainful employment. STEM students expressed the highest confidence (62%) while those in the liberal arts were the least confident (40%). Just over one in three thought they would learn the skills and knowledge needed to become successful in the workplace.[182] Because jobs (that matched what one studied) were so difficult to find in the few years following the Great Recession, the value of getting a liberal arts degree and studying the humanities at university came into question, their ability to develop a well-rounded and broad-minded individual notwithstanding.[183] Moreover, institutions of higher education came under heightened skepticism in the 2010s due to high costs and disappointing results. People became increasingly concerned about debts and deficits. No longer were promises of educating "citizens of the world" or estimates of economic impact coming from abstruse calculations sufficient. Colleges and universities found it necessary to prove their worth by clarifying how much money from which industry and company funded research, and how much it would cost to attend.[184] While the number of students majoring in the humanities have fallen significantly, those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, have risen sharply.[180] About a quarter of American university students failed to graduate within six years in the late 2010s and those who did faced diminishing wage premiums.[158]

Viewers and participants of the 2020 Integration Bee at the University of California, Berkeley.

According to the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 73% of American eighth and twelfth graders had deficient writing skills.[41] There have been numerous reports in the 2010s on how U.S. students were falling behind their international counterparts in the STEM subjects, especially those from (East) Asia. This is a source of concern for some because academically gifted students in STEM can have an inordinately positive impact on the national economy. In addition, while American students are less focused on STEM, students from China and India are not only outperforming them but are also coming to the United States in large numbers for higher education.[46]

Data from the Institute of International Education showed that compared to the 2013–14 academic year, the number of foreign students enrolling in American colleges and universities peaked in 2015–6, with about 300,000 students, before falling slightly in subsequent years. Compared to the 2017–18 academic year, 2018-19 saw a drop of 1% in the number of foreign students. This is a concern for institutions that have become reliant on international enrollment for revenue, as they typically charge foreign students more than their domestic counterparts. As of 2019, these were the first downturn in a decade. However, the number of foreign graduates staying for work or further training has increased. In 2019, there were 220,000 who were authorized to stay for temporary work, a 10% rise compared to fall 2017. Top sources of students studying abroad in the United States were China, South Korea, India, and Saudi Arabia (in that order). While the number of Chinese students on American soil has fallen noticeably—due to a variety of factors, such as reported difficulty of obtaining a U.S. visa amid the ongoing Sino-American trade war, more competition from Canada and Australia, and growing anti-Chinese sentiments due to concerns over intellectual property theft—students coming from elsewhere in Asia (though not South Korea and Japan), Latin America, and Africa have gone up. In particular, the number of Nigerian students climbed 6% while those from Brazil and Bangladesh rose 10%. The most popular majors have shifted, with business, an academic subject extremely popular among Chinese students, falling by 7% in the 2018–19 academic year. Meanwhile, mathematics and computer science jumped 9%, replacing business as the second most popular majors after engineering.[185]

In 2019, there were over 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. However, Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, known for creating the theory of "disruptive innovation" and applying it to a variety of industries, including education, predicted that half of all American colleges will go bankrupt within the next ten to fifteen years because of innovations in online learning.[186] On the other hand, economist Michael Horn, also at Harvard, predicted in 2019 that 25% will close within the next 20 years.[187] Rising administrative costs, sluggish middle-class wages, demographic decline (especially in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States), new forms of learning, stronger competition from better endowed universities, and higher demands for technical training undermine the financial viability of many schools.[187][188] "It's going to be brutal across American higher education," Horn told CBS News.[187] A 2019 analysis by Moody's Investor Services estimated that about 20% of all small private liberal arts colleges in the United States were in serious financial trouble.[188] Historically, this is not unprecedented; the 1970s and the 1980s saw drops in college enrollment, too. But increased enrollment by women halted the decline. Today, higher enrollment by first-generation students and Hispanics could do the same.[189]

Historically, university students were more likely to be male than female. The difference was especially great during the second half of the twentieth century, when enrollment rose dramatically compared to the 1940s. This trend continues into the very early twenty-first century. By the late 2010s, however, the situation has reversed. Women are now more likely to enroll in university than men.[190] As a matter of fact, by the late 2010s, more than half of university students were women.[189] In 2018, upwards of one third of each sex is a university student.[190]

By the late 2010s, education has become Australia's fourth largest exports, after coal, iron ore, and natural gas. For Australia, foreign students are highly lucrative, bringing AU$9 billion into the Australian economy in 2018. That amount was also just over a quarter of the revenue stream for Australian universities. In 2019, Australian institutions of higher education welcomed 440,000 foreign students, who took up about 30% of all seats. 40% of non-Australian students hailed from China. In response to a surge in interest from prospective foreign students, Australian universities have invested lavishly in research laboratories, learning facilities, and art collections. Some senior bureaucrats saw their salaries rise tremendously. But the topic of international students is a contentious one in Australia. Proponents of accepting high numbers of foreign students said this was because the Australian government was not providing sufficient funding, forcing schools to take in more from other countries. Critics argued universities have made themselves too dependent on foreign revenue streams. In 2020, as SARS-CoV-2 spread around the globe, international travel restrictions were imposed, preventing foreign students from going to university in Australia, where the academic year begins in January. This proved to be a serious blow to the higher-education industry in Australia because it is more dependent on foreign students than its counterparts in other English-speaking countries. Australia's federal government excluded universities AU$60bn wage-subsidy scheme because it wanted to focus on domestic students, who, it said, will continue to receive funding. Federal and state governments were likely to provide relief to small regional institutions, but, like the big universities, they might need to shrink in order to survive.[191]

In 2018, as the number of robots at work continued to increase, the global unemployment rate fell to 5.2%, the lowest in 38 years. Current trends suggest that developments in artificial intelligence and robotics will not result in mass unemployment but can actually create high-skilled jobs. However, in order to take advantage of this situation, one needs a culture and an education system that promote lifelong learning. Honing skills that machines have not yet mastered, such as teamwork and effective communication, will be crucial.[192][193]

Parents of Generation Z might have the image of their child's first business being a lemonade stand or car wash. While these are great first businesses, Generation Z now has access to social media platforms, website builders, 3D printers, and drop shipping platforms which provides them with additional opportunities to start a business at a young age. The internet has provided a store front for Generation Z to sell their ideas to people around the world without ever leaving their house.[194]

As technological progress continues, something that is made evident by the emergence of or breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, three-dimensional printing, nanotechnology, quantum computing, autonomous vehicles, among other fields, culminating in what economist Klaus Schwab calls the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution', the demand for innovative, well-educated, and highly skilled workers continues to rise, as do their incomes. Demand for low-pay and low-skilled workers, on the other hand, will continue to fall.[195]

By analyzing data from the United Nations and the Global Talent Competitive Index, KDM Engineering found that as of 2019, the top five countries for international high-skilled workers are Switzerland, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Sweden. Factors taken into account included the ability to attract high-skilled foreign workers, business-friendliness, regulatory environment, the quality of education, and the standard of living. Switzerland is best at retaining talents due to its excellent quality of life. Singapore is home to a world-class environment for entrepreneurs. And the United States offers the most opportunity for growth due to the sheer size of its economy and the quality of higher education and training.[196] As of 2019, these are also some of the world's most competitive economies, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). In order to determine a country or territory's economic competitiveness, the WEF considers factors such as the trustworthiness of public institutions, the quality of infrastructure, macro-economic stability, the quality of healthcare, business dynamism, labor market efficiency, and innovation capacity.[197]

In 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic not only created a health crisis but also triggered a severe economic downturn. While they are less likely to suffer from the disease, many people born between the late 1990s and early 2000s now face rather dim economic prospects, as companies cut back on hiring, cancel internships, and fire their employees in order to stay in business. Low-skilled workers and those who just graduated are affected the most, but professionals who are able to work from home are spared.[198]

Statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reveal that between 2014 and 2019, Japan's unemployment rate went from about 4% to 2.4% and China's from almost 4.5% to 3.8%. These are some of the lowest rates among the top economies.[199]

When he came to power in 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong vowed to abolish capitalism and social classes. 'Old money' ceased to exist in China as a result of a centrally planned economy. But that changed in the 1980s when Deng Xiaoping introduced economic reforms; the middle and upper classes have blossoming ever since. In fact, he considered getting rich to be "glorious." Chinese cities have morphed into major shopping centers. The number of billionaires (in U.S. dollars) in China is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, so much so that butler academies, whose students will serve the 'new rich', and finishing schools, whose students were born to rich parents, have been established. However, according to the World Bank, 27% of Chinese still live below the poverty line. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promised to end poverty by 2020. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign also cracks down on what he considered 'ostentatious displays of wealth'. Moreover, members of China's upper class must align themselves closely with the Communist Party. A number of young Chinese entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the Internet to become social media influencers to sell their products.[200]

Technology companies and startups are booming in China and Southeast Asia. Whereas in the past, Chinese firms copied the business strategies and models from their U.S. counterparts, now, they are developing their own approaches, and Southeast Asian companies are learning from their success and experience, a practice known as "Copy from China." E-commerce has been flourishing. In Singapore, for example, not only is it now possible to place orders online, one may also purchase groceries in person, pay by mobile phone, and have them packed by machines; there are no cashiers. Whereas Westerners were first introduced to the Internet via their personal computers, people in China and Southeast Asia first got online with their mobile phones. Consequently, the e-commerce industry's heavy usage of mobile phone applications has paid off handsomely. In particular, Chinese entrepreneurs invest in what are known as "super-apps," those that enable users to access all kinds of services within them, not just messaging, but also bike rentals and digital wallets. In Indonesia, relying on credit-card payments is difficult because the market penetration of this technology remains rather low (as of 2019). Nevertheless, e-commerce and ride-hailing are growing there, too. But it is Singapore that is the startup hub of the region, thanks to its excellent infrastructure, government support, and abundant capital. Furthermore, Singaporean technology firms are "uniquely positioned" to learn from both the U.S. and China.[201]

China's Generation Z has been taking advantage of the variety of lending options available to them, albeit at the cost of exceedingly high and possibly illegal interest rates. Although authorities have been cracking down on questionable money lenders, there is still a plethora of ways to borrow money. According to Bloomberg, China's household debt-to-GDP ratio jumped from 27% in 2010 to 57% in 2019. For comparison, household debt was 126% of GDP in Australia, 99% in South Korea, and 75% in the United States, according to Bank of America. However, Fitch Ratings estimated that the rate of growth was twice that of nominal GDP. According to the People's Bank of China, the nation's debt-to-disposable income ratio was 99.9% in 2019, up from 93.4% the previous year.[202]

In Europe, although the unemployment rates of France and Italy remained relatively high, they were markedly lower than previously. Meanwhile, the German unemployment rate dipped below even that of the United States, a level not seen since its unification almost three decades prior.[199] Eurostat reported in 2019 that overall unemployment rate across the European Union dropped to its lowest level since January 2000, at 6.2% in August, meaning about 15.4 million people were out of a job. The Czech Republic (3%), Germany (3.1%) and Malta (3.3%) enjoyed the lowest levels of unemployment. Member states with the highest unemployment rates were Italy (9.5%), Spain (13.8%), and Greece (17%). Countries with higher unemployment rates compared to 2018 were Denmark (from 4.9% to 5%), Lithuania (6.1% to 6.6%), and Sweden (6.3% to 7.1%).[203]

In November 2019, the European Commission expressed concern over the fact that some member states have "failed to put their finances in order." Belgium, France, and Spain had a debt-to-GDP ratio of almost 100% each while Italy's was 136%. Under E.U. rules, member nations must take steps to decrease public debt if it exceeds 60% of GDP. The Commission commended Greece for making progress in economic recovery.[204]

Top five professions with insufficient workers in the European Union (late 2010s).

According to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), the European Union in the late 2010s suffers from shortages of STEM specialists (including ICT professionals), medical doctors, nurses, midwives and schoolteachers. However, the picture varies depending on the country. In Italy, environmentally friendly architecture is in high demand. Estonia and France are running short of legal professionals. Ireland, Luxembourg, Hungary, and the United Kingdom need more financial experts. All member states except Finland need more ICT specialists, and all but Belgium, Greece, Spain, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom need more teachers. The supply of STEM graduates has been insufficient because the dropout rate is high and because of an ongoing brain drain from some countries. Some countries need more teachers because many are retiring and need to be replaced. At the same time, Europe's aging population necessitates the expansion of the healthcare sector. Disincentives for (potential) workers in jobs in high demand include low social prestige, low salaries, and stressful work environments. Indeed, many have left the public sector for industry while some STEM graduates have taken non-STEM jobs.[205]

Spanish think-tank Fedea noted that there were not enough young Europeans enrolled in vocational programs that teach them skills favored by the job market. Many new entrants to the workforce lacked the necessary skills demanded by employers.[206]

Even though pundits predicted that the uncertainty due to the Brexit referendum would cause the British economy to falter or even fall into a recession, the unemployment rate has dipped below 4% while real wages have risen slightly in the late 2010s, two percent as of 2019. In particular, medical doctors and dentists saw their earnings bumped above the inflation rate in July 2019. Despite the fact that the government promised to an increase in public spending (£13 billion, or 0.6% of GDP) in September 2019, public deficit continues to decline, as it has since 2010. Nevertheless, uncertainty surrounding Britain's international trade policy suppressed the chances of an export boom despite the depreciation of the pound sterling.[207] According to the employment website Glassdoor, the highest paying entry level jobs in the United Kingdom in 2019 are investment banking analyst, software engineer, business analyst, data scientist, financial analyst, software developer, civil engineer, audit assistant, design engineer, mechanical engineer. Their median base salaries range from about £28,000 to £51,000 a year. In general, people with STEM degrees have the best chances of being recruited into a high-paying job. According to the Office for National Statistics, the median income of the United Kingdom in 2018 was £29,588.[208]

In the United Kingdom, the number of teenagers who owned businesses jumped from 491 in 2009 to 4,152 in 2019. These people primarily use social media platforms to establish their careers.[209]

Due to the strong correlation between economic growth and youth employment, recessions come with dire consequences for young people in the workforce. In the struggling Southern European economies, such as Greece and Spain, youth unemployment lingered on in the aftermath of the Great Recession, remaining stuck at around a third. With another recession induced by the COVID-19 global pandemic, it could rise to about half. Even the Czech Republic, which previously boasted the lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe, at about 5%, could see that number triple in 2020. Overall, European job markets are hostile towards new entrants, who, unlike their older counterparts, do not have permanent contracts and are often the first to be laid off during hard times. E.U. average unemployment has gone up, but youth unemployment went up even more; among workers below the age of 25, it stood at 15.7% in May 2020.[206]

An Ottawa-bound train passing through Brighton, Ontario. Railroad engineering was one of the top professions in Canada in 2017.

Between 2014 and 2019, Canada's overall unemployment rate fell from about 7% to below 6%, according to the IMF.[199] In 2017, the magazine Canadian Business analyzed publicly available data from Statistics Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada to determine the top occupations on the basis of growth and salaries. They included construction managers, mining and quarry managers, pilots and flying instructors, software engineers, police officers, firefighters, urban planners, petroleum, chemical, agricultural, biomedical, aerospace, and railroad engineers, business services managers, deck officers, corporate sales managers, pharmacists, elevator mechanics, lawyers, economic development directors, real-estate and financial managers, telecommunications managers, utilities managers, pipe-fitting managers, forestry managers, nurse practitioners, and public administration managers.[210] However, in the late 2010s, Canada's oil and gas industry has been in decline due to a lack of political support and unfavorable policies from Ottawa. The number of oil rigs in Western Canada, where most of the country's deposits are located, dropped from 900 in 2014 to 550 in 2019. Many Canadian companies have moved their crew and equipment to the United States, especially to Texas.[211] As the COVID-19 pandemic mauled the Canadian economy, Generation Z was one of the worst affected groups, with 70% being CAN$200 or less away from insolvency, a figure that includes 39% who were already insolvent.[212]

Americans aged 15 to 21 expect to be financially independent in their early twenties while their parents generally expect them to become so by their mid-twenties.[213] While the Millennials tend to prefer flexibility, Generation Z is more interested in certainty and stability.[214] Whereas 23% of Millennials would leave a job if they thought they were not appreciated, only 15% of Generation Z would do the same, according to a Deloitte survey.[215] According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), 77% of Generation Z expects to work harder than previous generations.[216] As a result, barely one in two recruits from Generation Z are willing to negotiate a higher salary, even though, as of 2019, the U.S. labor market is very tight, meaning the balance of power is currently in favor of job seekers, collectively.[217] Indeed, Employers are open to negotiations for higher salaries and better benefits in order to attract talents.[217] While there is agreement across generations that it is very important for employees to learn new skills, Millennials and Generation Z are overwhelmingly more likely than Baby Boomers to think that it is the job of employees to train themselves. Baby Boomers tend to think it is the employer's responsibility. Moreover, Millennials and Generation Z (74%) tend to have more colleagues working remotely for a significant portion of their time compared to the Baby Boomers (58%).[218] An overwhelming majority, 80%, prefers to work for a medium-sized or large company.[216] A Morgan Stanley report, called the Blue Paper, projected that the Millennials and Generation Z have been responsible in a surge in labor participation in the U.S., and that while the U.S. labor force expands, that of other G10 countries will contract. This development alleviates concerns over America's aging population which jeopardizes the solvency of various welfare programs.[219] As of 2019, Millennials and Generation Z account for 38% of the U.S. workforce; that number will rise to 58% in the incoming decade.[218]

According to the United States Department of Labor, the unemployment rate in September 2019 was 3.5%, a number not seen since December 1969.[220] At the same time, labor participation remained steady and most job growth tended to be full-time positions.[220] The number of people who ended up with part-time positions despite looking for full-time jobs dropped to 4.32 million, below the average of the previous three decades.[221] Economists generally consider a population with an unemployment rate lower than 4% to be fully employed. In fact, even people with disabilities or prison records are getting hired.[222] On average, they grew by 2.7% in 2016, 3.3% in 2018,[223] and 3.3% in 2019.[221] However, the Pew Research Center found that the average wage in the U.S. in 2018 remained more or less the same as it was in 1978, when the seasons and inflation are taken into consideration. Real wages grew only for the top 90th percentile of earners and to a lesser extent the 75th percentile (in 2018 dollars).[224] Nevertheless, these developments ease fears of an upcoming recession.[225] Moreover, economists believe that job growth could slow to an average of just 100,000 per month and still be sufficient to keep up with population growth and keep economic recovery going.[223] As long as firms keep hiring and wages keep growing, consumer spending should prevent another recession.[226] Appearing before Congress in November 2019, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said that while the U.S. economy had taken a long time to recover from the Great Recession, it now enjoyed a strong labor market, low inflation, and moderate growth, and that his agency expected continued economic growth.[227] At the same time, U.S. household debt fell from 90% of GDP in 2010 to 75% in 2019, according to Bank of America.[202]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the occupations with the highest median annual pay in the United States in 2018 included medical doctors (especially psychiatrists, anesthesiologists, obstetricians and gynecologists, surgeons, and orthodontists), chief executives, dentists, information system managers, chief architects and engineers, pilots and flight engineers, petroleum engineers, and marketing managers. Their median annual pay ranged from about $134,000 (marketing managers) to over $208,000 (aforementioned medical specialties).[228] Meanwhile, the occupations with the fastest projected growth rate between 2018 and 2028 are solar cell and wind turbine technicians, healthcare and medical aides, cyber security experts, statisticians, speech-language pathologists, genetic counselors, mathematicians, operations research analysts, software engineers, forest fire inspectors and prevention specialists, post-secondary health instructors, and phlebotomists. Their projected growth rates are between 23% (medical assistants) and 63% (solar cell installers); their annual median pays range between roughly $24,000 (personal care aides) to over $108,000 (physician assistants).[229] Occupations with the highest projected numbers of jobs added between 2018 and 2028 are healthcare and personal aides, nurses, restaurant workers (including cooks and waiters), software developers, janitors and cleaners, medical assistants, construction workers, freight laborers, marketing researchers and analysts, management analysts, landscapers and groundskeepers, financial managers, tractor and truck drivers, and medical secretaries. The total numbers of jobs added ranges from 881,000 (personal care aides) to 96,400 (medical secretaries). Annual median pays range from over $24,000 (fast-food workers) to about $128,000 (financial managers).[230]

The Kondratiev cycle

According to the Department of Education, people with technical or vocational trainings are slightly more likely to be employed than those with a bachelor's degree and significantly more likely to be employed in their fields of specialty.[178] The United States currently suffers from a shortage of skilled tradespeople.[178] If nothing is done, this problem will get worse as older workers retire and the market tightens due to falling unemployment rates. Economists argue that raising wages could incentivize more young people to pursue these careers. Many manufacturers are partnering with community colleges to create apprenticeship and training programs. However, they still have an image problem as people perceive manufacturing jobs as unstable, given the mass layoffs during the Great Recession of 2007–8.[231] After the Great Recession, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs reached a minimum of 11.5 million in February 2010. It rose to 12.8 million in September 2019. It was 14 million in March 2007.[232] As of 2019, manufacturing industries made up 12% of the U.S. economy, which is increasingly reliant on service industries, as is the case for other advanced economies around the world.[233] Nevertheless, twenty-first-century manufacturing is increasingly sophisticated, using advanced robotics, 3D printing, cloud computing, among other modern technologies, and technologically savvy employees are precisely who employers need. Four-year university degrees are unnecessary; technical or vocational training, or perhaps apprenticeships would do.[234]

Quantitative historian Peter Turchin observed that demand for labor in the United States had been stagnant since 2000 and would likely continue to 2020 as the nation went through the negative part of the Kondratiev wave. (See above.) Moreover, the share of people in their 20s continued to grow till the end of the 2010s according projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning the youth bulge would likely not fade away before the 2020s. As such the gap between the supply and demand in the labor market would likely not fall before then, and falling or stagnant wages generate sociopolitical stress.[235]

Unlike some major economies, unemployment actually increased in Brazil, from about 6.7% in 2014 to about 11.4% in 2018. Although its economy remains growing, it is still recovering from a recession in 2015 and 2016. Wages have remained stagnant and the labor market has been weak.[199] Unemployment rose to 12.7% in March 2019, or about 13.4 million people. Underemployment also increased in the first quarter of 2019.[236]

A 2020 meta-analysis found that the most common psychiatric disorders among adolescents were ADHD, anxiety disorders, behavioral disorders, and depression, consistent with a previous one from 2015.[32]

According to the OECD PISA surveys, 15-year-olds in 2015 had a tougher time making friends at school than ten years prior. European teenagers were becoming more and more like their Japanese and South Korean counterparts in social isolation. This might be due to intrusive parenting, heavy use of electronic devices, and concerns over academic performance and job prospects.[10]

A sleeping girl (2011). Sleep deprivation was common among teenagers of the 2010s.

Sleep deprivation is on the rise among contemporary youths,[237][29] thanks to a combination of poor sleep hygiene (having one's sleep disrupted by noise, light, and electronic devices), caffeine intake, beds that are too warm, a mismatch between biologically preferred sleep schedules at around puberty and social demands, insomnia, growing homework load, having too many extracurricular activities.[29][30] Consequences of sleep deprivation include low mood, worse emotional regulation, anxiety, depression, increased likelihood of self-harm, suicidal ideation, and impaired cognitive functioning.[29][30] In addition, teenagers and young adults who prefer to stay up late tend to have high levels of anxiety, impulsivity, alcohol intake, and tobacco smoking.[238]

A study by Glasgow University found that the number of schoolchildren in Scotland reporting sleep difficulties increased from 23% in 2014 to 30% in 2018. 37% of teenagers were deemed to have low mood (33% males and 41% females), and 14% were at risk of depression (11% males and 17% females). Older girls faced high pressure from schoolwork, friendships, family, career preparation, maintaining a good body image and good health.[239] Data from the British National Health Service (NHS) showed that between 1999 and 2017, the number children below the age of 16 suffering from at least one mental disorder increased from 11.4% to 13.6%. Researcher interviewed older adolescents (aged 17–19) for the first time in 2017 and found that girls were two thirds more likely than younger girls and twice more likely than boys from the same age group to suffer from a mental disorder. In England, hospitalizations for self-harm doubled among teenage girls between 1997 and 2018, but there was no parallel development among boys. While the number of children receiving medical attention for mental health problems has clearly gone up, this is not necessarily an epidemic as the number of self-reports went up even faster possibly due to the diminution of stigma. Furthermore, doctors are more likely than before to diagnose a case of self-harm when previously they only treated the physical injuries.[28]

In Canada, teenagers sleep on average between 6.5 and 7.5 hours each night, much less than what the Canadian Paediatric Society recommends, 10 hours.[240] According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, only one out of five children who needed mental health services received it. In Ontario, for instance, the number of teenagers getting medical treatment for self-harm doubled in 2019 compared to ten years prior. The number of suicides has also gone up. Various factors that increased youth anxiety and depression include over-parenting, perfectionism (especially with regards to schoolwork), social isolation, social-media use, financial problems, housing worries, and concern over some global issues such as climate change.[241]

In the United States, the number of teenagers who suffered from the classic symptoms of depression rose 33% between 2010 and 2015. During the same period, the number of those aged 13 to 21 who committed suicide jumped 31%. Psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues found that this growth of mental health issues was not divided along the lines of socioeconomic class, race/ethnicity, or geographical location. Rather, it was associated with spending more time in front of a screen. In general, suicide risk factors—depression, contemplating, planning, and attempting suicide—increase significantly if the subject spends more than two to three hours online. Especially, those who spent five or more hours had their suicide risk factors increase 71%. It is not clear, however, whether depression causes a teenager to spend more time online or the other way around. At the same time, teens who spent more time online were more likely to not have enough sleep, a major predictor of depression.[242] Many teenagers told researchers they used a smartphone or a tablet right before bed, kept the device close, and used it as an alarm clock. But the blue light emitted by these devices, texting, and social networking are known for perturbing sleep. Besides mental problems like depression and anxiety, sleep deprivation is also linked to reduced performance in school and obesity. Parents can address the problem of sleep deprivation simply by imposing limits on screen time and buying simple alarm clocks.[6]

Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics analyzing responses from the parents of caregivers of 49,050 children aged six to seventeen in the combined 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health revealed that only 47.6% of American children slept for nine hours one most days, meaning a significant number was sleep deprived. Compared with children who did not get enough sleep most nights, those who did were 44% more likely to be curious about new things, 33% more likely to finish their homework, 28% more likely to care about their academic performance, and 14% more likely to finish the tasks they started. The researchers identified the risk factors associated with sleep deprivation among children to be the low educational attainment of parents or caregivers, being from families living below the federal poverty line, higher digital media usage, more negative childhood experiences, and mental illnesses.[243]

In a 2019 study, Twenge and her collaborators examined surveys from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health of 200,000 adolescents aged 13 to 17 from 2005 to 2017 and 400,000 adults aged 18 and over from 2008 to 2017. They found that while there was a marked increase in the number of teenagers and young adults reporting mental illness, there was no corresponding development among those of 26 years and up.[27]

Multidisciplinary research in the early twenty-first century suggests that ongoing human evolution could help explain the rise of certain medical conditions such as autism and autoimmune disorders among children. Autism and schizophrenia may be due to genes inherited from the mother and the father that are over-expressed and that fight a tug-of-war in the child's body. Allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders appear linked to higher standards of sanitation, which prevent the immune systems of modern humans from being exposed to various parasites and pathogens the way their ancestors' were, making them hypersensitive and more likely to overreact. The human body is not built from a professionally engineered blueprint, but rather is a system shaped over long periods of time by evolution with all kinds of trade-offs and imperfections. Understanding the evolution of the human body can help medical doctors better understand and treat various disorders. Research in evolutionary medicine suggests that diseases are prevalent because natural selection favors reproduction over health and longevity. In addition, biological evolution is slower than cultural evolution and humans evolve more slowly than pathogens.[244]

Anatomical diagram of myopia or nearsightedness.

A 2015 study found that the frequency of nearsightedness has doubled in the United Kingdom within the last 50 years. Ophthalmologist Steve Schallhorn, chairman of the Optical Express International Medical Advisory Board, noted that research have pointed to a link between the regular use of handheld electronic devices and eyestrain. The American Optometric Association sounded the alarm on a similar vein.[245] According to a spokeswoman, digital eyestrain, or computer vision syndrome, is "rampant, especially as we move toward smaller devices and the prominence of devices increase in our everyday lives." Symptoms include dry and irritated eyes, fatigue, eye strain, blurry vision, difficulty focusing, headaches. However, the syndrome does not cause vision loss or any other permanent damage. In order to alleviate or prevent eyestrain, the Vision Council recommends that people limit screen time, take frequent breaks, adjust screen brightness, change the background from bright colors to gray, increase text sizes, and blinking more often. Parents should not only limit their children's screen time but should also lead by example.[246]

While food allergies have been observed by doctors since ancient times and virtually all foods can be allergens, research by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota found they are becoming increasingly common since the early 2000s. Today, one in twelve American children has a food allergy, with peanut allergy being the most prevalent type. Reasons for this remain poorly understood.[25] Nut allergies in general have quadrupled and shellfish allergies have increased 40% between 2004 and 2019. In all, about 36% of American children have some kind of allergy. By comparison, this number among the Amish in Indiana is 7%. Allergies have also risen ominously in other Western countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, the number of children hospitalized for allergic reactions increased by a factor of five between 1990 and the late 2010s, as did the number of British children allergic to peanuts. In general, the better developed the country, the higher the rates of allergies.[26] Reasons for this remain poorly understood.[25] One possible explanation, supported by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is that parents keep their children "too clean for their own good." They recommend exposing newborn babies to a variety of potentially allergenic foods, such as peanut butter, before they reach the age of six months. According to this "hygiene hypothesis," such exposures give the infant's immune system some exercise, making it less likely to overreact. Evidence for this includes the fact that children living on a farm are consistently less likely to be allergic than their counterparts who are raised in the city, and that children born in a developed country to parents who immigrated from developing nations are more likely to be allergic than their parents are.[26]

A research article published in 2019 in the Lancet journal reported that the number of South Africans aged 15 to 19 being treated for HIV increased by a factor of ten between 2019 and 2010. This is partly due to improved detection and treatment programs. However, less than 50% of the people diagnosed with HIV went onto receive antiviral medication due to social stigma, concerns about clinical confidentiality, and domestic responsibilities. While the annual number of deaths worldwide due to HIV/AIDS has declined from its peak in the early 2000s, experts warned that this venereal disease could rebound if the world's booming adolescent population is left unprotected.[247]

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal that 46% of Australians aged 18 to 24, about a million people, were overweight in 2017 and 2018. That number was 39% in 2014 and 2015. Obese individuals face higher risks of type II diabetes, heart disease, osteoarthritis and stroke. The Australian Medical Associated and Obesity Coalition have urged the federal government to levy a tax on sugary drinks, to require health ratings, and to regulate the advertisement of fast foods. In all, the number of Australian adults who are overweight or obese rose from 63% in 2014–15 to 67% in 2017–18.[248]

In Europe and the United States, the average age of the onset of puberty among girls was around 13 in the early twenty-first century, down from about 16 a hundred years earlier. Early puberty is associated with a variety of mental health issues—such as anxiety and depression, as people at this age tend to strongly desire conformity with their peers—,early sexual activity, substance abuse, tobacco smoking, eating disorders, and disruptive behavioral disorders.[20] Girls who mature early also face higher risks of sexual harassment. Moreover, in some cultures, pubertal onset remains a marker of readiness for marriage, for, in their point of view, a girl who shows signs of puberty might engage in sexual intercourse or risks being assaulted, and marrying her off is how she might be 'protected'.[22] To compound matters, factors known for prompting mental health problems are themselves linked to early pubertal onset; these are early childhood stress, absent fathers, domestic conflict, and low socioeconomic status. Possible causes of early puberty could be positive, namely improved nutrition, or negative, such as obesity and stress.[20] Other triggers include genetic factors, high body-mass index (BMI), exposure to endocrine-disrupting substances that remain in use, such as Bisphenol A (found in some plastics) and dichlorobenzene (used in mothballs and air deodorants), and to banned but persistent chemicals, such as dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), and perhaps a combination thereof (the 'cocktail effect').[21][249]

A 2019 meta-analysis and review of the research literature from all inhabited continents found that between 1977 and 2013, the age of pubertal onset among girls has fallen by an average of almost three months per decade, but with significant regional variations, ranging from 10.1 to 13.2 years in Africa to 8.8 to 10.3 years in the United States. This investigation relies on measurements of thelarche (initiation of breast tissue development) using the Tanner scale rather than self-reported menarche (first menstruation) and MRI brain scans for signs of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis being reactivated.[21] Furthermore, there is evidence that sexual maturity and psychosocial maturity no longer coincide; twenty-first-century youths appear to be reaching the former before the latter. Neither adolescents nor societies are prepared for this mismatch.[23][24][note 1]

In the United States, African girls on average enter puberty first, followed by those of Hispanic, European, and Asian extraction, in that order. But African-American girls are less likely to face the negative effects of puberty than their counterparts of European descent.[20]

Unlike the case of girls, pubertal onset in boys is more difficult to determine and study, though the literature suggests that boys, too, are reaching puberty earlier than their predecessors.[20] In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that American boys were reaching puberty between six months to two years earlier than a few decades before, with Africans entering that stage the soonest, at around nine years of age, followed by Caucasians and Hispanics, at about ten.[249]

Sociologists Judith Treas and Giulia M. Dotti Sani analyzed the diaries of 122,271 parents (68,532 mothers, 53,739 fathers) aged 18 to 65 in households with at least one child below the age of 13 from 1965 to 2012 in eleven Western countries—Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Slovenia—and discovered that in general, parents had been spending more and more time with their children. In 1965, a mother spent on average 54 minutes on childcare activities each day whereas one from 2012 spent almost twice as much 104 minutes. Among fathers, the amount of time spent on childcare roughly quadrupled, from 16 minutes in 1965 to 59 in 2012. Parents of all education levels were represented, though those with higher education typically spent much more time with their children, especially university-educated mothers. France was the only exception. French mothers were spending less time with their children whereas fathers were spending more time. This overall trend reflects the dominant ideology of "intensive parenting" and the fact that contemporary fathers tend to hold more egalitarian views with regards to gender roles and are more likely than their predecessors to want to play an active role in their children's lives.[291]

In the United States, the Pew Research Center's analysis of data from the American Community Survey and the Decennial Census revealed that the number of children living outside of the traditional ideal of parents marrying young and staying together till death has risen precipitously between the mid- to late-twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. In 2013, only 43% of children lived with married parents in their first marriage, down from 61% in 1980 and 73% in 1960. Meanwhile, the share of children living with a single parent was 34% in 2013, up from 19% in 1980 and 9% in 1960. The proportion of children not living with their parents barely changed, standing at 5% in 2013; most of them lived with their grandparents. 15% of American children lived with married parents at least one of whom remarried in 2013, with little change from previous decades.[292]

In Australia, growing numbers of older teenage boys and young men are now eschewing romantic relationships altogether, citing concerns over the traumatic experiences of older male family members, including false accusations of sexual misconduct or loss of assets and money after a divorce. This social trend—Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)—is an outgrowth of the men's rights movement, but one that emphasizes detachment from women rather than the issues. "Both sexes have different challenges; we’ve lost sight of that. We’re stuck in a gender war and it’s harming our children," psychologist Meredith Fuller told News.com.au.[293]

According to a 2014 report from UNICEF, some 250 million females were forced into marriage before the age of 15, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Problems faced by child brides include loss of educational opportunity, less access to medical care, higher childbirth mortality rates, depression, and suicidal ideation.[22][294]

Schoolchildren using a laptop computer (2008). Generation Z was one of the first generations to have widespread access to the Internet at an early age.

Young people on their smartphones at a party (2014). Early twenty-first-century youths are heavily reliant on mobile devices for entertainment.

Generation Z is the first cohort to have Internet technology readily available at a young age.[295] With the Web 2.0 revolution that occurred throughout the mid-late 2000s and 2010s, they have been exposed to an unprecedented amount of technology in their upbringing, with the use of mobile devices growing exponentially over time. Anthony Turner characterizes Generation Z as having a "digital bond to the Internet", and argues that it may help youth to escape from emotional and mental struggles they face offline.[5]

According to U.S. consultants Sparks and Honey in 2014, 41% of Generation Z spend more than three hours per day using computers for purposes other than schoolwork, compared with 22% in 2004.[296] In 2015, an estimated 150,000 apps, 10% of those in Apple's App Store, were educational and aimed at children up to college level,[297] though opinions are mixed as to whether the net result will be deeper involvement in learning[297] and more individualized instruction, or impairment through greater technology dependence[298] and a lack of self-regulation that may hinder child development.[298] Parents of Gen Zers fear the overuse of the Internet, and dislike the ease of access to inappropriate information and images, as well as social networking sites where children can gain access to people worldwide. Children reversely feel annoyed with their parents and complain about parents being overly controlling when it comes to their Internet usage.[299]

A 2015 study by Microsoft found that 77% of respondents aged 18 to 24 said yes to the statement, "When nothing is occupying my attention, the first thing I do is reach for my phone," compared to just 10% for those aged 65 and over.[300]

In a TEDxHouston talk, Jason Dorsey of the Center for Generational Kinetics stressed the notable differences in the way that Millennials and Generation Z consume technology, with 18% of Generation Z feeling that it is okay for a 13-year-old to have a smartphone, compared with just 4% for the previous generation.[301][302][303] An online newspaper about texting, SMS and MMS writes that teens own cellphones without necessarily needing them; that receiving a phone is considered a rite of passage in some countries, allowing the owner to be further connected with their peers, and it is now a social norm to have one at an early age.[304] An article from the Pew Research Center stated that "nearly three-quarters of teens have or have access to a smartphone and 30% have a basic phone, while just 12% of teens 13 to 15 say they have no cell phone of any type".[305] These numbers are only on the rise and the fact that the majority own a cell phone has become one of this generations defining characteristics. Consequently, "24% of teens go online 'almost constantly'."[305]

A survey of students from 79 countries by the OECD found that the amounts of time spent using an electronic device has increased, from under two hours per weekday in 2012 to close to three in 2019, at the expense of extracurricular reading.[34]

Psychologists have observed that sexting—or the transmission of sexually explicit contents via electronic devices—has seen noticeable growth among contemporary adolescents. The older the teenager, the more he or she participates in sexting. Besides some cultural and social factors such as the desire for acceptance and popularity among peers, the falling age at which a child receives a smartphone may contribute to the growth in this activity. However, while it is clear that sexting has an emotional impact on adolescents, it is still not clear how it precisely affects them. Some consider it a high-risk behavior because of the ease of dissemination to third parties leading to reputational damage and the link to various psychological conditions including depression and even suicidal ideation. Others defend youths' freedom of expression over the Internet. In any case, there is some evidence that at least in the short run, sexting brings positive feelings of liveliness or satisfaction. However, girls are more likely than boys to be receiving insults, social rejections, or reputational damage as a result of sexting.[17]

Despite being labeled as 'digital natives', the 2018 International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), conducted on 42,000 eighth-graders (or equivalents) from 14 countries and education systems, found that only two percent of these people were sufficiently proficient with information devices to justify that description, and only 19% could work independently with computers to gather information and to manage their work.[7] ICILS assesses students on two main categories: Computer and Information Literacy (CIL), and Computational Thinking (CT). For CIL, there are four levels, one to four, with Level 4 being the highest. Although at least 80% students from most countries tested reached Level 1, only two percent on average reached Level 4. Countries or education systems whose students scored near or above the international average of 496 in CIL were, in increasing order, France, North Rhine-Westphalia, Portugal, Germany, the United States, Finland, South Korea, Moscow, and Denmark. CT is divided into four levels, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Regions. International averages for the proportions of students reaching each of these were 18%, 50%, and 32%, respectively. Countries or education systems whose students scored near or above the international average of 500 were, in increasing order, the United States, France, Finland, Denmark, and South Korea. In general, female eighth-graders outperformed their male counterparts in CIL by an international average of 18 points but were narrowly outclassed by their male counterparts in CT. (Narrow gaps made estimates of averages have higher coefficients of variation.)[306] In the United States, where the computer-based tests were administered by the National Center for Education Statistics,[7] 72% of eighth-graders said they searched for information on the Internet at least once a week or every school day, and 65% reported they were autodidactic information finders on the Internet.[306]

The use of social media has become integrated into the daily lives of most Gen Zers with access to mobile technology, who use it primarily to keep in contact with friends and family. As a result, mobile technology has caused online relationship development to become a new generational norm.[307] Gen Z uses social media and other sites to strengthen bonds with friends and to develop new ones. They interact with people who they otherwise would not have met in the real world, becoming a tool for identity creation.[299] The negative side to mobile devices for Generation Z, according to Twenge, is they are less "face to face", and thus feel more lonely and left out.[308]

Focus group testing found that while teens may be annoyed by many aspects of Facebook, they continue to use it because participation is important in terms of socializing with friends and peers. Twitter and Instagram are seen to be gaining popularity among members of Generation Z, with 24% (and growing) of teens with access to the Internet having Twitter accounts.[309] This is, in part, due to parents not typically using these social networking sites.[309] Snapchat is also seen to have gained attraction in Generation Z because videos, pictures, and messages send much faster on it than in regular messaging. Speed and reliability are important factors in members of Generation Z choice of social networking platform. This need for quick communication is presented in popular Generation Z apps like Vine and the prevalent use of emojis.[3]

A study by Gabrielle Borca, et al found that teenagers in 2012 were more likely to share different types of information than teenagers in 2006.[309] However, they will take steps to protect information that they do not want being shared, and are more likely to "follow" others on social media than "share".[111] A survey of U.S. teenagers from advertising agency J. Walter Thomson likewise found that the majority of teenagers are concerned about how their posting will be perceived by people or their friends. 72% of respondents said they were using social media on a daily basis, and 82% said they thought carefully about what they post on social media. Moreover, 43% said they had regrets about previous posts.[310]

A 2019 Childwise survey of 2,000 British children aged five to sixteen found that the popularity Facebook halved compared to the previous year. Children of the older age group, fifteen to sixteen, reported signs of online fatigue, with about three of ten saying they wanted to spend less time on the Internet.[92]

In his 2017 book Irresistible, professor of marketing Adam Alter explained that not only are children addicted to electronic gadgets, but their addiction jeopardizes their ability to read non-verbal social cues.[311]

Two children on their gadgets (2011). Screen time can be addictive, take away time for other activities, diminish mental activities, and curb the development of social skills.

A 2019 meta-analysis of thousands of studies from almost two dozens countries suggests that while as a whole, there is no association between screen time and academic performance, when the relation between individual screen-time activity and academic performance is examined, negative associations are found. Watching television is negatively correlated with overall school grades, language fluency, and mathematical ability while playing video games was negatively associated with overall school grades only. According to previous research, screen activities not only take away the time that could be spent on homework, physical activities, verbal communication, and sleep (the time-displacement hypothesis) but also diminish mental activities (the passivity hypothesis). Furthermore, excessive television viewing is known for harming the ability to pay attention as well as other cognitive functions; it also causes behavioral disorders, such as having unhealthy diets, which could damage academic performance. Excessive video gaming, on the other hand, is known for impairing social skills and mental health, and as such could also damage academic performance. However, depending on the nature of the game, playing it could be beneficial for the child; for instance, the child could be motivated to learn the language of the game in order to play it better. Among adolescents, excessive Internet surfing is well known for being negatively associated with school grades, though previous research does not distinguish between the various devices used. Nevertheless, one study indicates that Internet access, if used for schoolwork, is positively associated with school grades but if used for leisure, is negatively associated with it. Overall, the effects of screen time are stronger among adolescents then children.[8]

Research conducted in 2017 reports that the social media usage patterns of this generation may be associated with loneliness, anxiety, and fragility, and that girls may be more affected than boys by social media. According to 2018 CDC reports, girls are disproportionately affected by the negative aspects of social media than boys.[312] Researchers at the University of Essex analyzed data from 10,000 families, from 2010 to 2015, assessing their mental health utilizing two perspectives: Happiness and Well-being throughout social, familial, and educational perspectives. Within each family, they examined children who had grown from 10 to 15 during these years. At age 10, 10% of female subjects reported social media use, while this was only true for 7% of the male subjects. By age 15, this variation jumped to 53% for girls, and 41% for boys. This percentage influx may explain why more girls reported experiencing cyberbullying, decreased self-esteem, and emotional instability more than their male counterparts.[313]

Other researchers hypothesize that girls are more affected by social media usage because of how they use it. In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2015, researchers discovered that while 78% girls reported to making a friend through social media, only 52% of boys could say the same.[314] However, boys are not explicitly less affected by this statistic. They also found that 57% of boys claimed to make friends through video gaming, while this was only true for 13% of girls.[314] Another Pew Research Center survey conducted in April 2015, reported that women are more likely to use Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram than men. In counterpoint, men were more likely to utilize online forums, e-chat groups, and Reddit than women.[314]

Cyberbullying is more common now than among Millennials, the previous generation. It is more common among girls, 22% compared to 10% for boys. This results in young girls feeling more vulnerable to being excluded and undermined.[315][316]

According to a 2020 report by the British Board of Film Classification, "many young people felt that the way they viewed their overall body image was more likely the result of the kinds of body images they saw on Instagram."[290]