Skip to footer

Message from the young: The future’s going to be all right

A poll shows that young Americans are the most confident U.S. generation that things will get better. And youths in poorer nations are even more confident.

|
AP/FILE
Students embrace as they arrive for the Rutgers graduation ceremonies in Piscataway, N.J.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

In the midst of climate change, a pandemic, and economic uncertainties, young Americans stand out as the generation most confident that the future is going to get better. And worldwide, the young people in poorer nations are even more confident than those in wealthier nations.

Those are the conclusions of two recently released surveys that ask about views of the future based on age groups. 

In the United States, Generation Z (ages 13 to 24) and millennials (ages 25 to 40) were more confident about the future and their ability to bring about positive change than the older Generation X (ages 41 to 56). The survey reported that 66% of Gen Z and 63% of millennials say their generation is motivated to make positive change, compared with 56% of Gen X. 

That’s based on a newly released poll conducted by MTV and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

In addition, the younger Gen Z (45%) and millennials (41%) are more optimistic than the older Gen X ( 33%) that Americans will be able to come together and work out their political differences.

“Where I find the most hope is when I talk to people and we find the common ground,” said Jonathan Belden, a 29-year-old from New Mexico and a father of five children. “When that happens, even if there are differences, it helps me to feel like there is actually good in people and in the world.”  

A separate UNICEF-Gallup survey taken across 21 countries, rich and poor, and released last month showed that 57% of younger people (ages 15 to 24) believe the world is getting better with each passing generation, compared with only 39% of older people (age 40 and up). 

In the half-dozen richest countries, though, only about a third of the younger age group replied that they thought children today will be better off economically than their parents. But in poorer countries, especially in Africa and South Asia, about two-thirds of the younger group said children today will be better off than their parents.

Why the optimism? One answer might be that in recent decades, standards of living have been rising in many poorer countries. And growing access to the internet has created new opportunities for education and employment.

“I think when you have less, it fuels you to seek more,” said Lorraine Nduta, a 21-year-old in Nairobi, Kenya. “The power to change any situation lies with us – hard work, consistency, and discipline.”

Commenting on the report in The New York Times, Sharlene Swartz, a sociologist at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria, South Africa, also noted that her research has shown the positive outlook of youths in poorer countries is related to their religious faith and strong family and community ties.

Reports of these positive attitudes among young people – the architects of the future – help inspire confidence that the challenges that lie ahead will be met.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Message from the young: The future’s going to be all right
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2021/1216/Message-from-the-young-The-future-s-going-to-be-all-right
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe