The generation game: Does Gen Z have it any easier?

When my grandparents left school, The Beatles’ single ‘She Loves You’ was the most popular song of that year. Meanwhile, the year my parents did the same, Nirvana reached the peak of their fame. Then, in 2023, when I left school, it was Miley Cyrus who had the most popular single of the year. If there is any evidence that there is a difference between generations, it is probably in these examples of music throughout the years.

Labelling of generations has inevitably prompted each age group to compare itself to each other. This has led to fun comparisons online and across the UK. For example, my grandparents’ generation (known as Baby Boomers) may joke that my generation (Gen Z) cannot fix a car or make a telephone call. Meanwhile, younger people would poke fun at older people’s technological struggles like their inability to read phones without the largest font size.

However, the perceived differences between generations are not always viewed so light-heartedly. In recent years, very simple economic truths have been pointed out, such as the fact that housing costs are three times higher relative to wages than they were for Baby Boomers. The current London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, believes that we are seeing “intergenerational inequality like we’ve never seen before” because Gen Z have such poor economic support from the government. For university students, the differences are particularly monumental. For both our grandparents’ and parents’ generations, higher education was free, and the graduate job market was less crowded. Nowadays, many of today’s younger generation view university as a way to burden yourself with huge student debt as soon as you start your working life.

If I were to suggest to my grandparents that the 1970s were an alright time for the British economy, they would laugh me out of the room. Throughout the ‘70s, inflation rarely ever dipped below 10%

Furthermore, there are more underlying social issues for young people, such as the internet and social media, that are creating new and unique challenges to the mental health of an entire generation. A UN Commission has recently found that “youth is no longer one of the happiest times of life”. The commission pointed to intergenerational inequality, insecure employment, and the climate crisis as the driving factors of this growing unhappiness. All of this together highlights that there is a distinct difference between how each generation views their lived experiences.

Yet how much of this can actually be used to suggest that the current generation of young people definitely has it worse than our predecessors? If I were to suggest to my grandparents that the 1970s were an alright time for the British economy, they would laugh me out of the room. Throughout the ‘70s, inflation rarely ever dipped below 10%. Considering this was the decade when my grandparents’ generation was raising my parents’ generation, it seems that it would be appropriate to conclude that every generation has its own economic challenges.

So, if every generation had its own economic challenges, are generation labels even a useful metric to measure economic inequalities in British society? The answer is probably not. A person born in 1980 is from Gen X, yet someone born a year later in 1981 would be considered a Millennial. If generations were a good indicator of economic outcomes, then these two people would theoretically have vastly different experiences. Yet the reality is that whether you’re born in 1980 or 1981 has little impact on your life experiences.

Generation labels are a fun concept, but they are not useful in the slightest. Each age group has its own unique economic challenges that cannot be compared, especially if you ignore other factors that affect your lived experiences

Furthermore, there are also far more relevant identifying factors that will affect your economic opportunities. The gender pay gap still exists even in 2026, which demonstrates that your gender is far more relevant to your livelihood than the year you are born. This logic follows for many other factors, such as race, class, and nationality, which affect your economic opportunities to a far greater extent than your generation. Privilege is not something that is given life simply because of the time you existed. Instead, it is something that appears due to a vast array of combined factors. Fundamentally, generations are a weak method of categorising different historical periods and groups.

Generation labels are a fun concept, but they are not useful in the slightest. Each age group has its own unique economic challenges that cannot be compared, especially if you ignore other factors that affect your lived experiences. If we return to music, then Kate Bush is just as popular for my generation compared to my parents due to the Netflix TV show Stranger Things. Moreover, I have just as much of a chance seeing Paul McCartney live as my grandparents did when they were my age. While the generation game is fun to play when you visit your grandparents and parents, it really should not be taken that seriously.