tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/millennials-14647/articlesMillennials – The Conversation2024-02-28T13:12:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229122024-02-28T13:12:01Z2024-02-28T13:12:01ZWill Britons work until they’re 71? Expert examines proposed pension age rise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574609/original/file-20240209-22-wo3zz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C5385%2C3579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The current pension age of 66 is set to rise to 67 by 2028.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elderly-man-changing-light-bulbs-retired-2269968695">Andrew Angelov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The retirement age will need to rise to 71 for UK workers in future, according to a recent <a href="https://ilcuk.org.uk/ageing-populations-forced-to-increase-state-pension-age-to-71-by-2050-to-maintain-dependency-ratio/">report</a> looking at the effect of increasing life expectancy and falling birthrates on the state pension. </p>
<p>The current pension age of 66 is set to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-review-2023-government-report/state-pension-age-review-2023#:%7E:text=The%20Pensions%20Act%202014%20brought,68%20between%202044%20and%202046.">rise</a> to 67 by 2028, and to 68 from 2044. But research by the International Longevity Centre (ILC), a thinktank focusing on ageing, says that doesn’t go far enough. </p>
<p>It suggests that anyone born after April 1970 may have to work until they are 71 years old in future. And there’s a possibility that the age limit may need to go even higher than that. The underpinning reason is the rising cost of pension provision because the number of pensioners and the value of payments are growing. </p>
<p>The government’s Office for Budget Responsibility <a href="https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/#:%7E:text=Pensioner%20benefit%20spending%20in%202023,5.3%20per%20cent%20of%20GDP">estimates</a> the state pension will cost around £124 billion this financial year. The pension level is safeguarded by the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-triple-lock-how-will-state-pensions-be-uprated-in-future/">triple lock</a>, which was first introduced in 2010. It means annual increases in payments are made in line with earnings growth, price inflation (currently 4%) or 2.5%, whichever is highest. </p>
<p>The Institute for Fiscal Studies has <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/triple-lock-uncertainty-pension-incomes-and-public-finances">estimated</a> that continuing the triple lock will lead to an extra £45 billion of annual cost by 2050.</p>
<h2>It’s not just the UK</h2>
<p>The issue of rising pension costs isn’t merely a UK problem. Countries across Europe are currently grappling with the conundrum of how to look after their ageing populations in retirement. </p>
<p>Protests erupted across <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/06/in-france-a-14th-day-of-protest-to-derail-macron-s-pension-reform_6029218_7.html">France in 2023</a> in response to pension reforms which would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. There have also been ongoing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL8N12F3RN/">protests in Greece</a>, which has been struggling with pension reforms since 2010. </p>
<p>Pension age increases are also <a href="https://www.etk.fi/en/work-and-pensions-abroad/international-comparisons/retirement-ages/">planned</a> in numerous other countries such as Denmark, the Czech Republic, Spain and the Netherlands.</p>
<h2>How the state pension works</h2>
<p>Unlike company-sponsored pensions, which invest money in individual accounts for future payouts, the UK state pension operates on a different principle. Instead of accumulating a personal “pot” of money, the idea is that current workers essentially fund the pensions of retirees. So, the state pension is financed from national insurance contributions and general taxation.</p>
<p>For this model to sustain itself, each new retiree entering the “pensioner pool” needs to be matched by a new worker entering the “worker pool.” As long as this balance persists, and pension claim periods remain reasonable, the system maintains its solvency.</p>
<p>Less than five years after the introduction of the state pension in 1946, the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1954-11-15/debates/ed3805b1-dbb6-4f54-970e-58a43094a094/Old-AgeAndRetirementPensioners">pressures on the system</a> were already beginning to show. And the central issues are the same now as they were then – we are living longer and having fewer children. </p>
<p>In 1951, the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09">UK life expectancy</a> was 66 for men and 71 for women. By 2011, it had increased to 79 for men and almost 83 for women.</p>
<p>This means that a 66-year-old in 2024 will receive a pension for an average of nearly 16 years. But since <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/281416/birth-rate-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/">birth rates have fallen</a> from 15 per 1000 in 1951 to 10 per 1000 in 2021, those retirees aren’t being replaced with fresh workers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/matching-state-pension-to-the-national-living-wage-would-help-pensioners-maintain-their-dignity-217473">Matching state pension to the national living wage would help pensioners maintain their dignity</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/compendium/economicreview/april2019/longtermtrendsinukemployment1861to2018#:%7E:text=Image%20.csv%20.xls-,The%20highest%20employment%20rates%20recorded%20were%20in%20the%20years%201872,average%20employment%20rate%20was%2073%25.">In 1951</a>, the UK population was 50 million with an employment rate of 70.4%. There were 35.2 million workers who were supporting 4.5 million pensioners, or 7.8 workers for every pensioner. </p>
<p>Today, the UK’s population is more than 67 million, which includes 33.17 million <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9366/">workers</a> and 12.8 million <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2023/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2023#:%7E:text=The%20main%20headline%20figures%20for,5.6%25%20to%201.6%20million%20claimants">pensioners</a>. This means that every pensioner is being “supported” by just 2.6 workers. </p>
<p>Both central planks of the state pension system appear to be broken. And, to further complicate matters, we are seeing increasing levels of people <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/how-is-health-affecting-economic-inactivity/">leaving the workforce</a> before they reach pension age, largely due to ill-health.</p>
<p>The state (in other words, the taxpayer) cannot afford the current pension provision for an ageing population for longer periods, let alone improve it. So, tough decisions have to be made, and soon. </p>
<h2>Generation X and millennials</h2>
<p>The implications of a rising retirement age won’t be felt by baby boomers like me. Generally speaking, we have benefited from jobs for life, free education, affordable housing and good company pensions. </p>
<p>The first cohort to shoulder the changes to the pension age will be generation X, born between 1965 and 1980. And they do not possess the wealth and assets of previous generations. </p>
<p>In fact, recent government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/analysis-of-future-pension-incomes/analysis-of-future-pension-incomes">figures</a> show that a third of the UK’s 14 million gen Xers won’t have enough savings to comfortably cover their retirement. <a href="https://www.justgroupplc.co.uk/%7E/media/Files/J/Just-Retirement-Corp/news-doc/2023/majority-of-gen-x-worried-they-wont-save-enough-for-good-standard-of-living-in-retirement.pdf">More than half</a> are not confident about achieving a good standard of living in retirement.</p>
<p>This generation, sometimes described as the “<a href="https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Gen-X-face-huge-pension-black-hole-with-two-thirds-not-saving-enough.php">forgotten generation</a>” by finance experts, stands at a disadvantage due to their lack of early access to defined benefit pensions, which were largely closed to new employees by the time they entered the workforce. They also missed out on the financial benefits of automatic enrolment in workplace pension schemes, which was introduced only after many members of this generation had already established their careers.</p>
<p>The situation doesn’t look any rosier for the millennials, who have <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/moreadultslivingwiththeirparents/2023-05-10">struggled</a> to get onto the housing ladder and are paying back student loans. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/04/britons-cut-pension-contributions-hargreaves-lansdown-abrdn">Research</a> last year showed that almost a third of 18 to 34-year-olds had either stopped or cut back on pension contributions to save money. </p>
<p>Perhaps it comes as no surprise that more than two thirds of this age group <a href="https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/one-fifth-unsure-over-future-certainty-of-state-pension.php">don’t believe</a> the state pension will even exist when they enter retirement. </p>
<p>While the future of the state pension in its current form remains uncertain, one thing is clear – ignoring the problem is no longer an option.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Parry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Increasing life expectancy and falling birthrates means many of us may have to keep working until beyond 71 years of age.Chris Parry, Principal Lecturer in Finance, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2118902024-02-18T19:51:27Z2024-02-18T19:51:27ZFrom Harry Potter to Taylor Swift: how millennial women grew up with fandoms, and became a force<p><em>With Taylor Swift pulling in over half-a-million audience members on her Australian tour, we’ve been thinking a lot about fans. <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/fandom-series-152420">In this series</a>, our academics dive into fan cultures: how they developed, how they operate, and how they shape the world today.</em></p>
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<p>With the record-breaking success of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/07/28/barbie-broke-a-lot-of-records-but-not-all-of-them-here-are-the-movies-that-kept-their-titles/?sh=2f15eff31442">Barbie</a> and <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/taylor-swifts-eras-tour-breaks-world-record-becomes-highest-grossing-tour-ever-4667626">Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour</a>, the economic power of women as fans is being stamped on the global entertainment industries. </p>
<p>Leading these events are millennial women. While women of all ages turned out to see Barbie, women aged 25 and older made up <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/barbie-oppenheimer-box-office-1235542025/">38% of the audience</a> by the second week of its release. Likewise, a significant chunk of Swifties <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/taylor-swift-fandom-demographic">belong to the millennial age group</a>, much like 34-year-old Taylor Swift herself. </p>
<p>Female fans followed Swift to the 2024 Super Bowl, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240209-2024-super-bowl-commercials-target-women-because-taylor-swift">many advertisers targeted this female Gen Z and millennial audience</a>. The challenge to gender stereotypes around sport and fandom echoes the support for the Matildas during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia, which <a href="https://harpersbazaar.com.au/womens-world-cup-matildas-fandom/">opened up a new space of representation</a>. </p>
<p>Women’s fandom is increasingly a visible and powerful force in many spaces of pop culture, media and entertainment.</p>
<h2>Training fandoms</h2>
<p>Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, were taught to buy into their passions thanks to growing up in the golden age of franchises, from Harry Potter to Twilight to the Hunger Games. As these fandoms grew, millennial women increasingly found themselves playing a major role as <a href="https://entertainment.time.com/2012/09/12/introducing-the-new-face-of-fandom-women/">audiences</a> and consumers.</p>
<p>The first Harry Potter book was released in 1997, and the first film in 2001. </p>
<p>Today, there is no shortage of ways to buy into the Harry Potter world. From mugs to broomsticks, from clothes to limited-edition books, there is a constant range of objects to buy. Potter merchandise has existed since the early 2000s, with early merchandise including items like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koka3znVDyc">secret boxes</a>” containing mystery trinkets. The Wizarding World brand launched in 2018. Encompassing things like bags, jewellery and cosmetics, the brand saw demand and merchandising formalised. </p>
<p>Specialised <a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/4th-harry-potter-store-worldwide-opens-in-istanbul/news">Harry Potter stores</a> are still popping up around the globe, offering keen fans branded merchandise on just about every product imaginable. </p>
<p>Hannah Worthy is the business manager at Brisbane’s The Store of Requirement (a play on “The Room of Requirement” at Hogwarts, which provided anything a witch or wizard needed). The store opened in 2017 and is exclusively dedicated to stocking officially licensed Harry Potter merchandise.</p>
<p>Their biggest demographic, Worthy told me in an interview, is “women aged between 25 and 45”. </p>
<p>The first Twilight book was released in 2005, and the first film was released in 2008. Michael Inturrisi, the business development manager at Ikon Collectibles, tells me Twilight changed the landscape for Funko Pop! Vinyl figures, opening doors for selling collectables into major Australian bookstores. </p>
<p>These collectible plastic figurines partly found success because Twilight was popularised on both screen and film. The movies meant the franchise was a “big deal” with a large consumer base, Inturrisi says.</p>
<p>Ikon’s consumer base has since shifted over the years, moving away from its original male-dominated demographic. The company now caters more to women, with about 60% of its consumers being female.</p>
<p>The Hunger Games also contributed to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/hunger-games-ballad-songbirds-and-snakes-box-office-previews-1235648522/#:%7E:text=The%20four%20Hunger%20Games%20films,book%20of%20the%20same%20name.">franchise fever</a>, teaching fans that they could buy into their passions. Where Harry Potter featured a male lead character, The Hunger Games was led by a strong female protagonist. </p>
<p>These franchises changed the fandom landscape by building fans’ voracious appetites for all things franchised, leading to the fandom we see today.</p>
<h2>Online communities</h2>
<p>Female fans have built complex communities in digital places, empowered by social media to connect and to share their fandom. The power of these communities is becoming increasingly visible. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-booktok-and-how-is-it-influencing-what-australian-teenagers-read-182290">BookTok</a>” is a growing TikTok community where book lovers discuss and share their opinions on their reads. The platform has the power to make and break books and helps to catapult niche genres or self-published releases to the forefront of popular culture. It has driven the growth behind emerging genres, like “cosy fantasy” and “romantasy” – niche genres that focus on characters and their relationships, and romance in fantasy worlds respectively. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-booktok-and-how-is-it-influencing-what-australian-teenagers-read-182290">What is BookTok, and how is it influencing what Australian teenagers read?</a>
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<p>BookTok fans aren’t just market followers; they are also market-makers. Romantasy (a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”) authors like Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros have outsourced their merchandising to fans, taking a cut of the royalties. In my research I’ve found these authors have leveraged the popularity of unofficial merchandise on social media platforms to increase their official merchandise catalogues and revenue. </p>
<p>Fan cultures have a range of influences on everyday life, from <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a43948812/taylor-swift-friendship-bracelets-eras-tour-explained/">swapping friendship bracelets at Taylor Swift concerts</a> to <a href="https://www.celestialfestival.com.au">attending romantasy-inspired balls</a>. </p>
<p>Fandom might be shared online, but its effects are felt in person.</p>
<h2>The influence of millennial women in fandom</h2>
<p>Fans who were girls in the era of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight are now the women who have powered the success of Barbie and the Eras Tour. The shift in fandom has been led by adult women who have been honing their fan skills since girlhood. </p>
<p>They, in turn, stand on the shoulders of the early female fans who read romance fiction back when it was even more stigmatised and wrote the earliest fan-fiction. Now they buy their daughters tickets to Taylor Swift and cheer them on as their own girls take on new fan roles. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-deadheads-on-bulletin-boards-to-taylor-swift-stans-a-short-history-of-how-fandoms-shaped-the-internet-210970">From Deadheads on bulletin boards to Taylor Swift 'stans': a short history of how fandoms shaped the internet</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Baulch is an Assistant Producer - Publishing at Ludo Studio.</span></em></p>Fans who were girls in the era of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight are now the women who have powered the success of Barbie and the Eras Tour.Emily Baulch, PhD Candidate in Publishing Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215442024-02-14T17:07:42Z2024-02-14T17:07:42ZGeneration Z may not need mortgages, here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575630/original/file-20240214-22-ieqy9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C20%2C3493%2C2239&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/young-happy-lesbian-couple-hugging-laughing-1896484951">Ground Picture/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ask many Millennials – the generation currently in their late 20s to early 40s – about the possibility of home ownership and they will probably laugh in your face. The idea of getting a mortgage with just their own income is often unthinkable, and those who do own property often have an uncommonly early inheritance to thank.</p>
<p>While housing crises rage across Europe, many members of Generation Z – those born after the year 2000 – may soon find that the shoe is on the other foot. By analysing mortgage trends and other data, my research has predicted a gradual shift away from long term mortgage commitments among this generation.</p>
<p>Inheritances will play a key part in this change. Slowing population growth, smaller families, and a concentration of property ownership in the ageing Baby Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) mean that inheritance rates have been climbing year on year. </p>
<p>Generation Z therefore stands to benefit from Europe’s declining birth rate, one of the lowest in the world at <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Fertility_statistics">1.53 children per woman</a>. Put simply, there will be fewer young people to inherit houses, and more houses for them to inherit.</p>
<h2>Mortgages: an increasingly unattractive prospect</h2>
<p>Getting a mortgage is daunting at the best of times, as banks require savings, income, stable employment and a hefty deposit. If you meet these criteria, you are then locked into, on average, a 25-year commitment. </p>
<p>In a labour market characterised by <a href="https://feps-europe.eu/publication/605-living-with-uncertainty-the-social-implications-of-precarious-work/">temporary jobs and low, stagnating wages</a>, many people will struggle to ever sign a mortgage, let alone pay one off. The prospect of getting one is especially unappealing at a time when <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/03/24/European-Housing-Markets-at-a-Turning-Point-Risks-Household-and-Bank-Vulnerabilities-and-531349">rising mortgage rates are driving the cost of living up</a> in Europe and beyond. This panorama is already affecting <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/09/29/gen-z-faces-financial-challenges-stress-anxiety-and-an-uncertain-future/">Generation Z’s attitude to long term milestones</a> such as buying a home.</p>
<p>The fact that <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c585cc68-880c-44af-95e4-8be50676b095">fewer mortgages are being signed</a> across the continent is therefore unsurprising, especially given a <a href="https://www.ey.com/en_gl/news/2023/12/decade-low-european-mortgage-growth-forecast-this-year-and-next-as-high-borrowing-costs-and-a-weak-economy-drive-down-demand">steep rise in interest rates</a> and soaring property prices. This decline seems set to continue into the long term, for a number of reasons.</p>
<h2>Home ownership in Europe today</h2>
<p>In the European Union, the average age at which people first acquire property is 34. The average mortgage duration is 25 years, meaning payments are typically completed by the age of 59, just before retirement age (65 in most EU member states).</p>
<p>As of 2022, 69.1% of Europeans owned their home, but only <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-bulletin/focus/2021/html/ecb.ebbox202101_05%7Ea872597edd.en.html">24.7% had mortgages</a>. This does <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/957803/homeowners-with-and-without-an-outstanding-mortgage-in-eu-28-per-country/">vary widely</a> across the continent, and there is little correlation between ownership rates and the number of active mortgages. </p>
<p>In some Northern European countries, the number of mortgages is actually rising. In the Netherlands, for example, <a href="https://www.dnb.nl/en/current-economic-issues/housing-market/hight-mortgage-debts-in-the-netherlands-risks-and-solutions/">61% of homeowners currently have a mortgage</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, this percentage is far lower in countries like Italy, where only <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/957803/homeowners-with-and-without-an-outstanding-mortgage-in-eu-28-per-country/">14.6%</a> of homeowners have a mortgage. This disparity may be due to the more common use of liquid funds, or stronger, more longstanding traditions of inheriting property in certain countries.</p>
<h2>Spain: a case in point</h2>
<p>We can take Spain as an example of the changes that are already underway. It is above average in life expectancy and rates of home ownership (especially among older generations): the average Spaniard first purchases property at age 41, and receives an inheritance at 51. </p>
<p>The number of inheritances, however, is reaching new highs year on year. From 2021 to 2022 the number of homes inherited in Spain rose by <a href="https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=6154">3.7%</a>, with over 17,800 homes inherited per month within its borders. </p>
<p>With only a 10-year gap, on average, between signing a mortgage and receiving an inheritance, the average Spanish person may see little benefit in tying themselves to a variable, potentially volatile 25-year loan.</p>
<h2>Leaving the family home</h2>
<p>The ongoing surge in property inheritance shows no signs of slowing, and is big enough to potentially decrease the long-term demand for mortgages. However, the value of inheritances varies widely across different countries and wealth distributions, and it is difficult to make predictions for all of Europe. </p>
<p>There is also huge variation in factors such as <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20230904-1">the age of leaving the family home</a>. Southern Europe is generally higher in this regard, with adults typically staying with their parents until age 30.3 in Spain, 30.7 in Greece and 30 in Italy. </p>
<p>In Finland, on the other hand, people typically leave home at age 21.4, with similarly low figures across Scandinavia. France sees adults move out at 23.4, and Germany at 23.8. According to Eurostat data, many of these average ages showed long-term increases between 2012 and 2022.</p>
<p>However, higher youth independence does not directly correlate with more mortgage signings. <a href="https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Tabla.htm?t=3200&L=0">Spain’s staggering drop of 62.54%</a> in new mortgages from 2007 to 2023 is reflected in data from across Europe. From 2022 to 2023, <a href="https://www.nbb.be/fr">Belgium recorded a 33.8% decrease</a>, and between 2021 and 2022 <a href="https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/publications-et-statistiques/statistiques/panorama-des-prets-lhabitat-des-menages">France has witnessed an approximate decrease of 47.49%</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://economic-research.bnpparibas.com/pdf/fr-FR/marche-immobilier-residentiel-zone-euro-epreuve-normalisation-monetaire-17/01/2024,49230">Annual data from the European Central Bank, released in November 2023,</a> also shows annual decreases of 61% in Slovakia, 57% in Austria, 40% in Luxembourg, and 23% in Estonia. Across Europe as a whole, the number of new housing loans dropped by 32% last year. </p>
<h2>Impacts on Generation Z</h2>
<p>Though they will face plenty of other problems, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335555065_Precarious_work_and_labour_regulation_in_the_EU_current_reality_and_perspectives">such as securing stable employment contracts</a>, housing might not be the primary concern for much of Generation Z in the future.</p>
<p>An ageing baby boomer population means that massive amounts of property are already being passed down among the wealthiest households: as far back as 2015, inheritances on average corresponded to <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e2879a7d-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/e2879a7d-en#:%7E:text=Inheritance%20and%20estate%20taxes%20are,taxes%20on%20donors'%20overall%20estates.source">$196,247 per person in the wealthiest 20% of OECD countries</a>. This figure had already increased by 50% in less than a decade. </p>
<p>This will benefit Millennials to a certain extent, but with <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/the-lonely-childhood-of-generation-z/">fewer siblings</a>, many wealthier members of Generation Z might not need to divide inheritances from parents who often own multiple properties. This outlook, coupled with the conditions for accessing a mortgage in an inhospitable job market, will raise a simple question for much of Generation Z: Why take on the risk, long term commitment and extra cost of a mortgage if I don’t have to?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Ditta no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>Europe’s ageing population means that Generation Z stands to inherit huge amounts of property in the coming years, resulting in reduced demand for mortgages.Geoffrey Ditta, Geoffrey Ditta Ph.D. Profesor de Economía y Negocios Internacionales. Director del Máster Universitario en Internacionalización de Empresas. Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad NebrijaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208172024-01-17T13:36:23Z2024-01-17T13:36:23ZChef Bill Granger dies and leaves behind an inadvertent legacy – the avocado toast meme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569130/original/file-20240112-25-mrzqwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C25%2C4268%2C2818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it avocado toast or high interest rates that have prevented so many young people from buying homes?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/avocado-butter-royalty-free-image/185328444?phrase=avocado+toast+illustration&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Josef Mohyla/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Christmas Day 2023, world-renowned Australian chef and restaurateur <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/dec/27/bill-granger-renowned-australian-cook-dies-aged-54">Bill Granger died at 54</a>. </p>
<p>Granger owned and operated 19 restaurants across Australia, the U.K., Japan and South Korea. He authored 14 cookbooks, produced several TV shows and was awarded <a href="https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/food-and-wine/how-bill-granger-conquered-the-world-s-breakfast-tables-20230307-p5cq7g">the Medal of the Order of Australia</a>.</p>
<p>But his lasting legacy may be his role in making avocado toast <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/dining/bill-granger-dead.html">a Western culinary staple</a> – and, inadvertently, the viral meme that transformed the open sandwich into a symbol of generational tension.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man uses a spatula to flip pancakes in a frying pan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569577/original/file-20240116-17-asgem0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill Granger was renowned for adding a bougie twist to breakfast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/australian-chef-bill-granger-cooks-pancakes-for-tasting-of-news-photo/72864230?adppopup=true">Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The practice of spreading avocado on bread has existed for centuries, particularly in Central and South America. Some speculate it dates as far back as the 1500s, <a href="https://tastecooking.com/really-invented-avocado-toast/">when the Spanish settlers brought Western breads to Mexico</a>. But a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/06/how-the-internet-became-ridiculously-obsessed-with-avocado-toast/">2016 Washington Post article</a> pointed to Granger as the first person to put avocado toast on a menu, when he did so at his Sydney café, Bills, in 1993.</p>
<p>I love ordering the occasional avocado toast. But as a sociologist of the internet and social media, I’m most interested in the meme – its origins, how it became a point of contention and how it has ultimately muddied the waters of inequality. </p>
<h2>Avocado toast and the American dream</h2>
<p>On May 15, 2017, Australian real estate tycoon <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/09/13/australia-real-estate-ceo-tim-gurner-pain-in-economy-avocado-toast/">Tim Gurner</a> said <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/australian-millionaire-millennials-avocado-toast-house">in an interview</a>, “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each.”</p>
<p>Gurner’s comments implied that young people were not buying homes at the same rate as older generations due to their poor money management skills – unlike Gurner and his cohort, who understood the value of a buck and the importance of an honest day’s work. </p>
<p>No matter that minimal research revealed that Gurner’s nearly billion-dollar empire <a href="https://thiswastv.com/tim-gurner-parents/">began with financial assistance from his wealthy family</a>. The backlash on the internet was swift and searing, as Gurner became a stand-in for an entire out-of-touch generation who didn’t know how easy they had it.</p>
<p>Memes emphasized the fact that baby boomers, in general, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2019.01.004">had an easier time becoming homeowners</a> compared to millennials, who largely came of age during the post-2008 economic downturn, which forced them to reckon with the crumbling remains of the American dream.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"910207147861983232"}"></div></p>
<h2>Generational tensions or class tensions?</h2>
<p>In their article “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205211025724">A Sociological Analysis of ‘OK Boomer</a>,’” sociologists Jason Mueller and John McCollum describe how we’re in a period rife with confusions exacerbated by the internet. </p>
<p>They conclude that meme trends like “<a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ok-boomer">OK Boomer</a>” – a phrase that Gen Z popularized as an online retort to politicians and reporters who dismissed young people – reflect a world in which generational wars online coexist with class wars offline. The avocado toast meme works in a similar way.</p>
<p>In offline reality, <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27123/w27123.pdf">there is some correlation between generations and wealth</a>. But generations are not what ultimately explain class inequality. </p>
<p>Instead, economic sociologists largely agree that a political emphasis on market “freedoms” and the concurrent paring back of programs that distribute resources have led to soaring economic inequality. These include laws that deregulated markets and privatized public spaces, as well as those that scaled back funding for health care, welfare, education and other government services. The policies first emerged under the umbrella of “<a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-soc-090220-025543">The Washington Consensus</a>” in the late 20th century. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/telecommunications-act-1996">Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>, rather than treating emerging internet technology as a public good, <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/14707">ensured the privatization of the internet</a>, paving the way for an online economy that profits off the attention and data of users.</p>
<p>Deregulation has created the conditions for today’s economic reality, in which many millennials and Gen Zers must work <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/REGE-08-2021-0153/full/html">precarious jobs in the gig economy</a>. They continue to struggle to buy homes and afford rent.</p>
<p>But importantly, many baby boomers face the same economic reality. Millions of them have been forced <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22694">to delay retirement</a>, particularly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22694">if they’re from marginalized races and genders</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, the adverse impacts of class inequality leave no generation untouched.</p>
<h2>Illusions of separation</h2>
<p>So why does it feel like most baby boomers have it so easy?</p>
<p>Cultural theorist Mark Fisher, in his 2009 book “<a href="https://files.libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf">Capitalist Realism</a>,” describes this moment in history as one in which “hyperreality” prevails. </p>
<p>The term, coined by <a href="https://revistia.org/files/articles/ejis_v3_i3_17/Ryszard.pdf">French post-modernist Jean Baudrillard</a> in 1981, essentially describes a state in which simulations of reality appear more “real” than reality. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Simulacra-Simulation-Body-Theory-Materialism/dp/0472065211">Simulacra and Simulation</a>,” Baudrillard uses the example of Disneyland to describe hyperreality. Many people would rather pay to go to Disneyland – a park built to mimic imaginary places – <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/destination-science-the-natural-world-outside-disney-world">than travel to national parks</a>, where they can experience nature for free or on the cheap.</p>
<p>The virtual world of the internet – with its own sets of cultural norms, language and memes – is the epitome of hyperreality.</p>
<p>And in the hyperreal world of the internet, as Mueller and McCollum discuss in their article about the “OK Boomer” meme, generational tensions take form.</p>
<p>Memes like avocado toast construct a state of generational conflict in the online world that is real, quite simply, because it feels real.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1011175349055623169"}"></div></p>
<p>Algorithms have every incentive to stoke this conflict. </p>
<p>That’s because online generational conflicts, along with most social media battles, <a href="https://theconversation.com/hate-cancel-culture-blame-algorithms-129402">are immensely profitable</a>. In “<a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/virality">Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks</a>,” sociologist Tony Sampson concludes that viral content usually elicits strong emotional reactions.</p>
<p>When users, old and young, are angry with one another, and express that anger in the language of memes, social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, get more engagement and make more money.</p>
<h2>Reframing avocado toast</h2>
<p>What Sampson finds, though, is that positive feelings also lead to virality.</p>
<p>So perhaps one way to honor Granger is to reclaim the avocado toast meme as an in-joke that nonmillionaires and nonbillionaires of all generations can relate to. </p>
<p>It’s about one billionaire’s absurd proposition that millennials eating a fleshy fruit on a piece of toast is preventing them from buying homes. It’s the billionaire divorced from the struggles of everyday people who’s out of touch – not an entire generation of boomers. </p>
<p>The avocado toast meme serves as a reminder that the hyperreal space of the internet distorts an offline reality in which generations share struggles, whether through housing insecurity or delayed retirements – a reality perpetuated by billionaires like Tim Gurner and the economic systems that serve their interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220817/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aarushi Bhandari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Granger, who died in December 2023, is credited with making avocado toast fashionable. Little did he know that his lasting legacy would inspire a meme that symbolized generational tension.Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206322024-01-12T13:28:57Z2024-01-12T13:28:57ZGen Z and millennials have an unlikely love affair with their local libraries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568487/original/file-20240109-27-hil6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Libraries can be an oasis from doomscrolling and information overload.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/NYC_Public_Library_Research_Room_Jan_2006-1-_3.jpg">Diliff/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568935/original/file-20240111-27-544ldb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>A phone fixation may seem at odds with an attraction to books. But the latter may offer a much-needed reprieve from the former.</p>
<p><a href="https://shorturl.at/FQS26">In our recent study of American Gen Z and millennials</a>, we discovered that 92% of them check social media daily; 25% of them check multiple times per hour.</p>
<p>Yet in that same nationally representative study, we also found that Gen Z and millennials are still visiting libraries at a healthy clip, with 54% of Gen Zers and millennials trekking to their local library in 2022. </p>
<p>Our findings reinforce 2017 data from the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/21/millennials-are-the-most-likely-generation-of-americans-to-use-public-libraries/">Pew Research Center</a>, which showed that 53% of millennials had gone to their local library over the previous 12 months. By comparison, that same study found that 45% of Gen Xers and 43% of baby boomers visited public libraries.</p>
<p>So why might Gen Z and millennials – sometimes characterized as <a href="https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/gen-z-has-1-second-attention-span-work-marketers-advantage">attention-addled</a> <a href="https://qz.com/quartzy/1748191/how-millennials-became-a-generation-of-homebodies">homebodies</a> – still see value in trips to the public library?</p>
<h2>A preference for print</h2>
<p>We found that Gen Zers and millennials prefer books in print over e-books and audiobooks, even though their other favorite reading formats are decidedly digital, such as video game chats and <a href="https://medium.com/fiction-friends/whats-a-web-novel-and-why-should-you-be-excited-about-them-1181ae02be3b">web novels</a>. American Gen Zers and millennials read an average of two print books per month – nearly double the average for e-books or audiobooks, according to our data.</p>
<p>The preference for print also manifests itself in the types of books Gen Z and millennials are borrowing and buying: 59% said they prefer the same story in graphical or manga format than in text only. </p>
<p>And while some graphic novels, comics and manga can be read on a screen, print is where these intricately illustrated books truly shine. </p>
<h2>Beyond reading</h2>
<p>We were most surprised by our finding that 23% of Gen Zers and millennials who don’t identify as readers nonetheless visited a physical library in the past 12 months. </p>
<p>It’s a reminder that libraries <a href="https://ischool.syr.edu/12-things-you-can-get-at-libraries-other-than-books/">don’t just serve as a repository for books</a>. Patrons can record podcasts, make music, craft with friends or play video games. There are also quiet spaces with free Wi-Fi, perfect for students or people who work remotely. </p>
<p>Younger generations tend to be more <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/insights/topics/talent/recruiting-gen-z-and-millennials.html">values driven</a> than older ones, and libraries’ ethos of sharing seems to resonate with Gen Zers and millennials – as does a space that’s free from the insipid creep of commercialism. At the library, there are no ads and no fees – well, provided you return your books on time – and no cookies tracking and selling your behavior.</p>
<p>U.S. census data also shows that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-2020-census-data-shows-an-aging-america-and-wide-racial-gaps-between-generations">younger generations are more racially diverse</a> than older generations. </p>
<p>Our survey found that 64% of Black Gen Zers and millennials visited physical libraries in 2022, a rate that’s 10 percentage points higher than the general population. Meanwhile, Asian and Latino Gen Zers and millennials were more likely than the general population to say that browsing library shelves was a preferred way to discover new books.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two young Black women work from a desk at a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568490/original/file-20240109-27-ra0uc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Libraries are chock-full of resources – including free Wi-Fi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-wearing-turban-using-laptop-while-sitting-royalty-free-image/1439945442?phrase=young+people+at+library&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">Maskot/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A crucial moment for libraries</h2>
<p>Though libraries have been forced to <a href="https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/09/american-library-association-releases-preliminary-data-2023-book-challenges">reckon with book bans</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/tennessees-drag-ban-rehashes-old-culture-war-narratives-201623">politicization of public spaces</a>, Gen Zers and millennials still see libraries as a kind of oasis – a place where doomscrolling and information overload can be quieted, if temporarily. </p>
<p>Perhaps Gen Zers’ and millennials’ library visits, like their <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/29/dumb-phones-are-on-the-rise-in-the-us-as-gen-z-limits-screen-time.html">embrace of flip phones</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-so-many-gen-z-ers-drawn-to-old-digital-cameras-198854">board games</a>, are another life hack for slowing down.</p>
<p>Printed books won’t ping you or ghost you. And when young people eventually log back on to their devices, books <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/BookTok">make excellent props for #BookTok</a>, the community on TikTok where readers review their favorite books.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathi Inman Berens receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Delmas Foundation, the Panorama Project and the American Library Association. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Noorda receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Delmas Foundation, the Panorama Project and the American Library Association.</span></em></p>Though they’re sometimes characterized as attention-addled homebodies, younger people see a real value in libraries − one that goes beyond books.Kathi Inman Berens, Associate Professor of Book Publishing and Digital Humanities, Portland State UniversityRachel Noorda, Associate Professor of Publishing, Portland State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125692023-09-06T21:48:14Z2023-09-06T21:48:14ZThe price of love: Why millennials and Gen Zs are running up major dating debt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546762/original/file-20230906-40532-qq86zj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are you looking for love in all the wrong places?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-price-of-love-why-millennials-and-gen-zs-are-running-up-major-dating-debt" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://nypost.com/2019/09/12/heres-how-much-money-the-average-american-spends-on-dating/">The average American invests US$120,000 throughout their lifetime in pursuit of love</a>, spending significant money on romantic dinners, movie outings and thoughtful gifts, not to mention personal grooming and cosmetic products. </p>
<p>As a result, according to <a href="https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/dating-money-inflation/">a survey by LendingTree</a>, 22 per cent of millennials and 19 per cent of Gen Z have begun to incur “dating debt.”</p>
<p>Another study by <a href="https://www.creditkarma.com/insights/i/dating-debt-young-adults-survey">Credit Karma</a> found that 29 per cent of people aged 18–34 have accrued debt for a date, with 21 per cent exceeding $500 in dating debt in a year. Reasons include accidental overspending (29 per cent), an attempt to impress dates (28 per cent) and seeking intimacy (19 per cent).</p>
<p>But another survey <a href="https://www.finder.com/unacceptable-partner-debt">by Finder</a> also reveals that 44 per cent of Gen Zs consider debt a romantic deal-breaker when considering a partner. </p>
<p>This highlights potential ties between accumulating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00715.x">dating-related debt and barriers to the chances of success</a> in forming meaningful romantic connections.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man sits on a picnic blanket and opens a bottle of champagne." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546426/original/file-20230905-25-1rh7hy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luxury dates are leading to debt for millennials and Gen Zs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jelleke Vanooteghem/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This conundrum is a problem for younger generations, where the pursuit of love and connection is intricately tied to an appetite for luxury, ultimately leading to debt accumulation. </p>
<p>The trend has implications for financial stability, emotional well-being and the very essence of modern relationships.</p>
<p>There are a few issues fuelling it, including the desire to signal status and the persuasive retail marketing of luxury as being synonymous with love, creating that false sense of connection between luxury and love.</p>
<h2>‘Costly signalling’</h2>
<p>Accumulating debt for romantic engagements has its roots in an innate human desire — namely, the urge to signal status. In a digital age where social media and online dating platforms are the norm, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11621-012-0108-7">standing out in a crowd has never been more challenging</a>, yet it’s also crucial.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3483-1">The “costly signalling” theory</a> may explain why such habits develop. It argues that humans and animals use resource-intensive or risky behaviours as genuine, hard-to-fake signals indicating their desirable traits and availability. </p>
<p>This is related to <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203936993">conspicuous consumption</a>, which is driven by a desire for status and the clear signalling of this status to onlookers. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/after-service/202102/what-your-social-signals-reveal">Signalling status in relationships or social circles isn’t uncommon</a>, but it’s found a financial expression in younger generations. Young adults are increasingly associating luxury experiences and goods with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.bm.2540194">unique form of personal expression</a>. </p>
<p>Whether it’s a lavish dinner at a high-end restaurant or gifting a designer handbag, these actions become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21639159.2022.2033132">markers of distinction and status</a>. While these acts add a layer of individuality to a relationship, they come with the risk of potential financial instability.</p>
<h2>Retail marketing</h2>
<p>Retailers often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac034">employ strategic marketing tactics to link luxury with love</a>, capitalizing on the emotional connection between these two powerful concepts to entice consumers into purchasing high-end goods. </p>
<p>For instance, luxury brands often release limited-edition Valentine’s Day collections, adorned with romantic motifs and themes, ranging from heart-shaped jewellery to high-end designer fragrances. </p>
<p>Additionally, retailers leverage the allure of love in their advertisements. They often showcase couples exchanging luxury gifts in opulent settings, fostering an aspirational connection between luxury products and romantic ideals. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A diamond engagement ring on a Tiffany blue background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546439/original/file-20230905-19-g0bd2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tiffany ‘Believe in Love’ campaign featured links to engagement ring offerings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.tiffany.ca/engagement/love-stories/">Tiffany & Co. released a “Believe in Love”</a> campaign featuring stories of seven couples at different stages of their relationships, and how Tiffany has played a part in their love journey.</p>
<p>Retailers create an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac034">ambience of indulgence and luxury</a>, presenting their offerings as tokens of affection and devotion. </p>
<p>Personalized engraving services on luxury items, such as monogrammed initials or special dates, further enhance the sentimentality and connection between the product and the act of gifting, convincing consumers to spend money on these high-end, emotionally charged offerings. </p>
<p>For example, Gucci’s “<a href="https://www.lofficielbaltic.com/en/fashion/apple-of-my-eye-gucci-s-apple-print-collection-comes-in-time-for-chinese-valentine-s-day">apple of my eye</a>” limited-edition collection shows two interlocking red letter Gs that are meant to signify romantic love.</p>
<p>These strategic marketing tactics linking luxury with love contribute to more debt by enticing consumers to overspend on high-end goods with premium price tags. They promote impulse buying through limited-edition collections, foster unrealistic desires through aspirational advertising, encourage additional spending on personalized services and compel people to prioritize romantic gestures over financial responsibility.</p>
<p>This ultimately leads to the accumulation of debt as consumers strive to express their love through emotionally charged purchases.</p>
<h2>False sense of connection</h2>
<p>But there seems to be an intriguing paradox when it comes to luxury goods and their ties to social relationships. </p>
<p>While luxury items can enhance someone’s social image and boost self-perception, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-09-2014-1161">people also tend to view themselves more positively when they possess or experience luxury — even though they often hold a less favourable view of others who do the same</a>. </p>
<p>This sheds light on a fascinating discrepancy in self-versus-other evaluations when it comes to luxury consumption. </p>
<p>In a dating context, a person boasting about the purchase of an expensive wine on a dinner date, for example, may over-estimate whether it will actually impress their date.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A glass of white wine sits in front of a woman at a table in a restaurant." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546516/original/file-20230905-31392-5c4cul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ordering an expensive bottle of wine on a date isn’t necessarily impressive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(JP Valery/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gift-givers often believe that more expensive gifts are more appreciated, assuming they convey greater thoughtfulness. But gift recipients don’t necessarily share this belief because they don’t consistently link gift price to their level of appreciation.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.11.003">This suggests that gift-givers may not accurately predict what gifts will be meaningful to others</a>. And because they personally may connect expensive gifts with something meaningful, it may lead them to spend more, ultimately contributing to greater dating debt.</p>
<p>Interestingly, while it’s known that people use luxury items to signal their social status and earning capacity, the reactions to such gifts may be complex. Indeed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103945">many people prioritize their independence and question the giver’s motives behind such gifts, fearing power imbalances and expectations</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-essential-piece-in-every-wardrobe-young-people-are-shopping-for-luxury-like-never-before-184536">'An essential piece in every wardrobe': Young people are shopping for luxury like never before</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Instead, they may value personal connections over materialistic displays and be cautious in the early stages of a relationship. </p>
<p>Ultimately, open and honest communication about expectations is crucial for navigating these complexities, ensuring that gift-giving aligns with the relationship’s goals and mutual desires.</p>
<p>The concept of luxury often gets mixed up with our quest for love, creating a captivating but misleading link between the two. In the realm of romantic relationships, luxury goods or indulging in extravagant experiences can sometimes make us feel closer to our partners than we really are.</p>
<p>But the ties between luxury and love can be deceiving. While luxury can certainly add to the romance, it’s important for younger generations to see the difference between flashy things and the deep, lasting connections that bring us closer to love.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Genuine love holds immeasurable value, yet discovering it can pose challenges — and come with a significant price tag.Omar H. Fares, Lecturer in the Ted Rogers School of Retail Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversitySeung Hwan (Mark) Lee, Professor and Associate Dean of Engagement & Inclusion, Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115752023-08-15T15:56:34Z2023-08-15T15:56:34ZAdults: how a sex play about boomers v millennials brings both together<p>Kieran Hurley’s new play <a href="https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/adults-festival-23">Adults</a> brilliantly illuminates an intergenerational clash that should leave <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2008/06/25/baby-boomers-the-gloomiest-generation/">boomers</a> (born between 1945 and 1964) and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">millennials</a> (born between 1981 and 1996) in the audience with a little more empathy for each other.</p>
<p>It all starts entertainingly when a strawberry milkshake bursts open in the face of Iain (Conleth Hill) just as he arrives early at the flat of thirtysomething Zara (Dani Heron). Zara is a sex worker who runs her business from home “collectively and ethically”.</p>
<p>Iain, in his 60s, married with two grown-up daughters, is completely out of his comfort zone and there to have sex with a young man: Zara’s business partner, Jay (Anders Hayward), who is running late.</p>
<p>As Iain wipes the pink goo from his face, Zara recognises him as her former teacher Mr Urquhart. And so Hurley sets up his character triangle. For the next 80 minutes, the audience has the pleasure of watching Zara, Iain and Jay argue with, blackmail, and eventually simply hold each other across the generational divide.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness">spat</a> between boomers and millennials has been rumbling on for the last few years, pitting the former against their children’s/grandchildren’s generation who are viewed as whiny, lazy snowflakes with an overinflated sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>Conversely, millennials view boomers as the generation that took everything, ruined everything, and have left very little for those who came after. As journalist David Barnett has succinctly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/millenials-generation-x-baby-boomers-a7570326.html">pointed out</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Boomers live in the past and have ransomed the future. Millennials fear the future and are ignorant of the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Envy, resentment, misunderstanding</h2>
<p>Disappointed expectations and repressed resentment bubble up during Zara’s and Iain’s initial confrontation, which plays out in her small one-bedroom flat while she matter-of-factly turns her living space into a brothel, replete with dildo collection (set and costume design: Anna Orton).</p>
<p>Zara, a literature graduate now earning money through sex work, begrudges the older generation their safe careers and settled lifestyles, and resents her teacher for instilling in her the bogus belief she could do anything with her life. Iain, meanwhile, feels trapped and envies the younger generation their seeming freedom, abandon and sexual confidence.</p>
<p>Both are deliberately ignoring the fact that the object of their envy is a fantasy. Iain is oblivious to the fact that the carefreeness of the younger generation (the young men he watches in his videos) is largely performed for a capitalist market that values only these qualities.</p>
<p>Zara’s resentment, meanwhile, doesn’t take into account that the apparent safety of her teacher’s generation came at the expense of not pursuing other, maybe more exciting or fulfilling alternatives.</p>
<p>Their debate treads the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness">familiar territory</a> of millennial precarity versus boomer affluence, but is nonetheless supremely entertaining. Spontaneous applause rewards Zara’s viciously eloquent takedown of Iain’s cherished memories of reading his kids Thomas the Tank Engine, which, according to Zara, is simply “pseudo-imperialist nostalgic colonial nonsense … some big nostalgic cry-wank for a lost idea of Britain”. </p>
<p>However, once Jay arrives, with his infant daughter screaming in the pram, the stakes are raised considerably. While Zara berates him for bringing his daughter to work, he insists that she owes him money, thus revealing her talk of an ethical and “non-hierarchical business practice” as hypocritical.</p>
<p>Jay needs money to secure shared custody of his daughter. And when the little one finally goes to sleep, he puts all his expertise into performing the willing, lascivious little “twink” to seduce the inhibited Iain and earn his money.</p>
<h2>Comedy and tragedy</h2>
<p>Hayward and Hill (who played Varys, Master of the Whisperers, in Game of Thrones) excel in this seduction scene that alternates beautifully between moments of physical comedy and verbal exchanges that reveal profound sadness. Hill’s Iain, a sexually inexperienced older man who has never explored his desires, gradually develops into a tentative, then enthusiastic punter who enjoys roleplay – only to revert to the condescending, middle-class teacher who judges Jay for how he earns his money and is scathing about his parenting.</p>
<p>Hayward’s Jay writhes seductively on the floor, performs the invested listener and works his literal butt off, but draws the line at being insulted. When he vindictively posts a compromising picture of Iain on Facebook, the secrets that Iain and Zara have kept from their families are revealed.</p>
<p>Roxana Silbert’s confident direction lets the play text breathe and leaves room for her actors to insert some well-timed physical comedy – Hill sliding/falling off various bits of furniture hits the spot every time. </p>
<p>In the end, Iain, shocked but also relieved that he has nothing more to lose, comes clean to his wife in the face of his very public outing. The humbled Zara acknowledges in yet another reference to children’s literature, this time <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lorax/dr-seuss/9780007455935">The Lorax by Dr Seuss</a>, that she just might be a “Once-ler” too – meaning to “accept that the world you’re passing on is in a worse state than when you inherited it”.</p>
<p>Before the lights go out, we see Jay, the overwhelmed millennial father, lying on the bed holding the sobbing Iain, while offstage the voice of his crying baby clamours for attention to the coming generation.</p>
<p>With Adults, Hurley, a millennial author himself, seems to appeal to his own generation to let go of their rage, be more understanding of their elders, and accept that, one day, they too will to be blamed for the future. Because as it turns out, confirms Iain: “Everyone always grows up thinking it’s the end of the world.”</p>
<p><em>Adults is showing until August 27 at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh</em></p>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann-Christine Simke is affiliated with the theatre company Stellar Quines. She is a member of the board for the company.</span></em></p>Kieran Hurley’s new play treads the familiar debate of millennial precarity versus boomer affluence with verve and insight.Ann-Christine Simke, Lecturer in Performance, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2105272023-08-10T12:41:29Z2023-08-10T12:41:29ZBeyoncé has a prenup − but do you need one if you’re not a millionaire?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541566/original/file-20230807-26-p288xv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=152%2C49%2C2815%2C1877&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A prenup allows couples to separate their debt from the debts of their spouse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/beyonce-and-jay-z-perform-during-the-global-citizen-news-photo/1067795190?adppopup=true">Kevin Mazur via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A prenuptial agreement can seem like something only high-profile people like <a href="https://www.hellomagazine.com/brides/494142/jeff-bezos-prepares-jaw-dropping-prenup-to-protect-his-138billion-fortune/">Jeff Bezos</a> – with his US$138 billion fortune to protect – actually need.</p>
<p>But prenups – contracts entered into before marriage that detail how assets will be divided in the case of divorce – can be a good idea for anyone going into a marriage, according to <a href="https://doyledivorcelaw.com/blog/9-reasons-you-need-a-prenuptial-agreement/">lawyers</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/bringing-compassion-matrimonial-law/201810/the-unexpected-upside-getting-prenup">marriage counselors</a>. They have been in regular use since 1983, when a group of attorneys and law professors drafted the <a href="https://helloprenup.com/upaa/">Uniform Premarital Agreement Act</a>, a set of rules regulating prenups that 28 U.S. states have since adopted. </p>
<p><a href="https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/popularity-of-prenups-rising-2022/">A recent poll</a> showed that the percentage of couples with prenups has risen from 3% in 2010 to 15% in 2022. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/prenups-arent-just-for-rich-people-anymore">Nearly 40%</a> of married or engaged couples between the ages of 18 and 34 have signed prenups, while just 13% of couples between 45 and 54 have done so. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6kPZNuMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As a law professor</a> who specializes in family law, I teach my students what prenups are and how to make sure they stand up in court. I also <a href="https://law.richmond.edu/faculty/atait/">write about</a> what happens to property when couples get divorced, especially unique forms of property like <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3036997">family businesses</a> or <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3259129">trust funds</a>. </p>
<h2>A shield from unwanted debt</h2>
<p>But prenups can be about more than what you own – they can also be about what you owe.</p>
<p>Millennials have accumulated <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/02/27/millennials-debt-pandemic-credit-interest-rates/">more debt</a> than previous generations, and prenups can help millennial couples navigate some of the concerns about debt in marriage. They can help couples address questions about the shared debt incurred during the marriage and who will pay what if the marriage ends. For example, couples can agree in a prenup to allocate <a href="https://www.tateesq.com/learn/prenup-student-loans">student loan debt</a> to the person who took out the loan. </p>
<p>They can also choose to protect one person from the other’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/prenups-arent-just-for-rich-people-anymore">medical debt</a>, especially if they know that large medical bills are on the horizon. Prenups can insulate one spouse from potential debt and financial risk from their <a href="https://state48law.com/benefits-of-a-prenuptial-agreement-for-business-owners/">partner’s business</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A couple signs a prenup agreement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541349/original/file-20230806-20589-vq6fu7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prenups allows couples to make their own rules rather than being at the mercy of state laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/couple-who-signs-a-contract-at-a-new-residence-royalty-free-image/1124316087?phrase=a+couple+signing+a+prenup&adppopup=true">kokouu/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>A shield from state laws</h2>
<p>Couples may also be drawn to prenups because these agreements allow them to make arrangements that, if executed correctly, take precedence over state laws.</p>
<p>When you get divorced, you can either follow the terms in a prenup or the terms that state law provides and be at the mercy of a divorce court’s estimation of who should get what. </p>
<p>State rules that generally divide all assets and debt equally were initially created for divorcing couples with conventional and gendered household patterns. For example, stay-at-home mothers raising children, working fathers with full-time employment, and assets like a house, life insurance and pension. </p>
<p>Younger couples are likely to organize their <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/05/27/as-millennials-near-40-theyre-approaching-family-life-differently-than-previous-generations/">households much differently</a>. Both spouses <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/10/13/the-rise-resilience-and-challenges-of-2-career-couples/">generally work</a>. Expectations about who is responsible for child rearing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/upshot/millennial-men-find-work-and-family-hard-to-balance.html">are more varied</a>. Millennials and Gen Z workers are frequently <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennial-burnout-cant-even-anne-helen-petersen">freelance employees</a> or independent contractors, with less income security and fewer benefits like employer-provided pensions or health and life insurance. </p>
<p>Prenups are a helpful way to address these emergent work-life arrangements. For example, one spouse can choose to keep their income or pension benefits as separate property, not to be divided upon divorce.</p>
<h2>New ways to draft a prenup</h2>
<p>New platforms like <a href="https://helloprenup.com">Hello Prenup</a> – a “Shark Tank” success story – can be helpful for younger couples. The company aims to make the prenup process more accessible and less costly – think Turbo Tax but for prenups. Online platforms like Rocket Lawyer or Legal Templates, which provide outlines for all kinds of legal documents, also offer a <a href="https://www.rocketlawyer.com/sem/prenuptial-agreement?id=1319&partnerid=103&cid=15098121101&adgid=134763364211&loc_int=9008455&loc_phys=9109325&mt=b&ntwk=g&dv=c&adid=450847162998&kw=prenuptial%20agreement%20form&adpos=&plc=&trgt=&trgtid=kwd-29682911&gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw5remBhBiEiwAxL2M955oQgvm6K7G5HI0VwPv9dOAPRh95YgbNtrlS-rnXrW3wsEAK1J_bRoC8SAQAvD_BwE">prenup template</a>. </p>
<p>These platforms provide state-specific documents and explain the process, walking clients through things like <a href="https://helloprenup.com/prenuptial-agreements/can-online-prenups-be-valid/">financial disclosure rules</a> that are important if a prenup ever ends up being questioned in court.</p>
<h2>A valuable conversation</h2>
<p>Prenups make the news because of celebrity agreements and sensational provisions, like <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/16-times-contents-celeb-couples-181602719.html">fidelity clauses</a> or <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/celebrity-couples-with-and-without-prenuptial-agreements/">sobriety requirements</a>. However, for most couples, these items are less important. Many people draft prenups to feel financially safe and know what will happen if they divorce. </p>
<p>One of the most significant benefits of prenups is that they get couples to talk about their financial lives and what it might look like to merge – or separate – finances as a part of marriage. And, considering conflicts around money are one of the <a href="https://www.thejimenezlawfirm.com/what-percent-of-marriages-end-in-divorce-because-of-money/">biggest causes of divorce</a>, prenup conversations may be the best kind of wedding planning you can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Anna Tait does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A prenuptial agreement can help millennial couples navigate concerns about student debt in their marriage.Allison Anna Tait, Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2086312023-07-24T12:16:22Z2023-07-24T12:16:22ZTaylor Swift: Person of the year and political influencer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538543/original/file-20230720-29-90pi0e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C14%2C3273%2C2430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That's a lot of potential voters behind Swift at her Denver concert on July 14, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/taylor-swift-performs-onstage-during-taylor-swift-the-news-photo/1544910187?adppopup=true">Tom Cooper/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before Taylor Swift was named “<a href="https://time.com/6342806/person-of-the-year-2023-taylor-swift/">person of the year” by Time magazine</a>, politicians courted Swiftie voters.</p>
<p>Call me a Swiftie, too. Like any millennial pop music fan active on social media, I followed Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour – the <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-eras-tour-surprise-songs-list-1235578714/">surprise songs</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-taylor-swift-tickets-so-hard-to-get-the-economics-are-complicated-208567">scramble to get tickets</a>, her <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/05/24/taylor-swifts-matty-healy-controversy-explained/?sh=1a46afdb26bc">brief romance</a> with that guy from The 1975 with a history of racist comments.</p>
<p>But as a political scientist, I was intrigued by something else: reaction to the tour by government officials. New Jersey <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/new-jersey-taylor-swift-ham-egg-cheese-sandwich">renamed</a> the state’s famed Taylor ham, egg and cheese in her honor – it’s now the “Taylor Swift Ham, Egg, and Cheese” <a href="https://pub.njleg.gov/bills/2016/A4000/3667_I1.HTM">official state sandwich</a>. </p>
<p>Pittsburgh’s <a href="https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/mayor-ed-gainey-renames-pittsburgh-swiftsburgh-friday-saturday-honor-eras-tour/ZEVOJJKUDJH5ND2EE7EYIKRCCY/">mayor briefly renamed</a> the city “Swiftsburgh” when her tour hit town. </p>
<p>And in my neck of the woods, Swift Street in North Kansas City <a href="https://www.kmbc.com/article/north-kansas-city-temporarily-renames-street-in-honor-of-taylor-swift/44309042">was temporarily rebranded</a> “Swift Street (Taylor’s Version).” </p>
<p>Local or state governments have lauded Swift in some way at virtually every stop on her tour. While these honors make for great photo opportunities for Swifties, the politics of these moves is worth examining. Do politicians have something to gain in appealing to Swift’s fans?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1669754533444984832"}"></div></p>
<h2>Celebrities can help politicians</h2>
<p>Unlike many celebrities, Swift does not involve herself much in politics. One particular tool of politicians looking to boost their numbers is to get celebrity endorsements. But Swift’s use of endorsements has been limited, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/07/taylor-swift-endorses-democrats-bredesen-cooper-in-instagram-post.html">save for backing</a> two Democrats in her adopted home state of Tennessee: Phil Bredesen in his Senate race and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper in his 2018 reelection campaign. Swift also endorsed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/entertainment/taylor-swift-joe-biden/index.html">Joe Biden in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Bredesen’s <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-20&geo=US&q=phil%20bredesen&hl=en">peak</a> in Google search interest from 2010 to the present coincided with Swift’s endorsement in October 2018. Cooper saw <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-20&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F03tm2p&hl=en">more Google search traffic</a> with Swift’s endorsement than at any point since his vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart shows the Google search interest in Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper peaking with Swift's endorsement" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538748/original/file-20230721-19-5kqtg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Google search interest in Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper peaked with Swift’s endorsement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202023-07-21&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F03tm2p,%2Fm%2F02655s&hl=en">Matt Harris</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the specific impact of Swift’s endorsements is difficult to assess, an <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/11/07/taylor-swift-bredesen-endorsement-tennessee-senate-race-political-post/1918440002/">Emerson College poll</a> of Tennesseans in 2018 found that 11.7% of those surveyed said Swift’s endorsement would make them more likely to support Bredesen – a number unlikely to make a difference in a race Bredesen lost by nearly 11 points despite Swift’s support. Cooper easily won reelection in his heavily Democratic Nashville-based district.</p>
<p>Although Swift’s endorsements likely did not sway these particular races, celebrity endorsements can matter in close races, particularly when the celebrity making the endorsement is viewed favorably – a likely scenario in Swift’s case. </p>
<h2>Fawning = attention</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/taylor-swift-fandom-demographic">slight majority</a> of Americans consider themselves at least something of a fan of Swift’s music – that includes me – and a June 2023 Echelon Insights <a href="https://echelonin.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2023-Omnibus-Crosstabs-EXTERNAL.pdf">poll</a> showed 50% of likely voters view Swift at least somewhat favorably. This is a higher favorability rating than Joe Biden, Donald Trump and both major political parties.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about endorsements here, though – we’re talking about politicians aligning themselves with Swift with no reciprocity. One clear benefit to public officials fawning over Swift? Attention – not unlike that seen for Bredesen and Cooper in 2018. </p>
<p>New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s <a href="https://twitter.com/GovMurphy/status/1661761816588955648?s=20">tweet</a> declaring the “Taylor Swift ham, egg, and cheese” garnered 5,700 likes; his next unrelated tweet had fewer than 100. </p>
<p>A cursory analysis of social media data seems to support the idea that the use of Swift’s name in honorary government actions produces a result similar to that of Swift’s endorsements: it drives engagement. Murphy’s Instagram post lauding Swift garnered the most likes on any post of his in 2023, with the exception of an early June post on the state’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CtMi_8KMA0Q/">air-quality crisis</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1661761816588955648"}"></div></p>
<p>OK, so politicians need publicity, and they can use Taylor Swift’s name to get it. But what about Swifties as a voting bloc? </p>
<p>The idea that Swifties might be a key demographic in future elections is not far-fetched given their <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/taylor-swift-fandom-demographic">location and age</a>. A majority of Swift’s fans live in the suburbs, the <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-bcf4-d17b-a1ff-bef5e8a70000">swing territory</a> of American politics. Further, most are Gen Zers or Millennials. These groups encompass an increasing share of the electorate with each passing year – up to <a href="https://time.com/6049270/2020-election-young-voters/">31% in 2020</a>. Swift’s favorability among those ages 18 to 29 <a href="http://echelonin.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2023-Omnibus-Crosstabs-EXTERNAL.pdf">stands at 72%</a>, and by one poll’s estimate, 21% in that age cohort say they would vote for Swift over Trump and Biden.</p>
<h2>Taylor Swift Post Office?</h2>
<p>World leaders from numerous countries have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/07/08/world-leaders-keep-asking-taylor-swift-to-bring-the-eras-tour-to-their-countries/?sh=3a7d6ff3415c">taken to social media</a> to ask Swift to bring her tour to their countries. There’s an economic angle to this, of course, as a Swift tour stop can <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/06/09/taylor-swifts-the-eras-tour-could-generate-46-billion-for-local-economies/?sh=176cec68442d">generate huge sums</a> in consumer spending. In the U.S., however, the honorifics bestowed upon Swift have come since her tour dates were confirmed. </p>
<p>There is a question of whether these Swift-adjacent stunts boil down to campaigning thinly disguised as official government action. This is perhaps best demonstrated in Canada, where a member of Parliament <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/after-taylor-swift-snubs-canada-mp-files-a-parliamentary-grievance/article_aefb1060-63da-58a3-b790-2e65a51d6696.html?">filed a parliamentary grievance</a> over the singer’s lack of Canadian tour dates. </p>
<p>Such behavior is perhaps analogous to, on a larger scale, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-crackdown-on-naming-post-offices/452544/">renaming of post offices</a> in the U.S. Congress. While generally innocuous and locally meaningful, these moves still require government resources and staffers to put their attention toward them as opposed to substantive policy matters.</p>
<p>Taylor Swift is an enormously popular figure, particularly among demographic groups that will be increasingly important in future American elections. In close races, voices such as Swift’s could prove critical – not necessarily because she influences how fans vote, but because her voice provides <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1940161208321948?casa_token=FqVHkgX13GQAAAAA:8D39zHPXgQcumJ9DdrnYmjACC2c8j7diH0oSQXqQ-BqqDKU0_FoozCAA08TKUf-UsItfKby-AnSz">attention and credibility</a> to candidates.</p>
<p><em>This is an update to a story originally published on July 24, 2023, to reflect Swift being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pittsburgh’s mayor renamed the city ‘Swiftsburgh’ when the singer’s tour hit town. He’s not the only politician who has publicly fawned over the star.Matt Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1977372023-04-13T14:56:26Z2023-04-13T14:56:26ZWhen what you type doesn’t mean the same thing to the (older) person you’re texting or tweeting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520252/original/file-20230411-28-xngq56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/afro-american-latin-girls-using-mobile-1379846387">Marmolejos</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a day-to-day level, the way we interact with the people around us is shaped by our expectations, which are rooted in our experience. <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/4555/4555">Most adults</a> experience more regular and intensive contact with adults of roughly the same age as them. It is no surprise then – as a cursory glance at <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/gen-z-mocking-millennials">any multigenerational Twitter row</a> over the past decade clearly demonstrates – that our expectations tend to be skewed towards how our own age group expresses themselves. </p>
<p>This isn’t only evident on social media. Business insiders are quick to point out both the benefits and the challenges of a <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/hiring-multigenerational-workforce/">multigenerational workforce</a>. Communication is a key factor, here. There are subtle differences in how different generations use language. </p>
<p>Sometimes it’s a matter of unfamiliar words or peculiar grammatical constructions. Former UK prime minister David Cameron famously alternated between signing off with “DC” – clearly, his initials – and “LOL”, in text messages he was sending to the media executive Rebekah Brooks. The two are roughly the same age but one seems to have been much more up on text speak than the other. He thought this meant “lots of love”, Brooks <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/may/11/rebekah-brooks-david-cameron-texts-lol">explained in 2012</a> “until I told him it meant <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages-41562">‘laugh out loud’</a> and then he didn’t sign them like that any more.” </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-dictionary-of-the-manosphere-five-terms-to-understand-the-language-of-online-male-supremacists-200206">A dictionary of the manosphere: five terms to understand the language of online male supremacists</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages-41562">How do you haha? LOL through the ages</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-cope-when-you-lose-access-to-a-digital-world-you-love-199447">How to cope when you lose access to a digital world you love</a></em></p>
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<p>Often, though, it stems from a misinterpreted intonation or a misunderstood intention. It’s not the meaning of the words used that causes the confusion, but how you said them.</p>
<p>When we speak, we convey information by all kinds of means besides the words we choose – volume and speed of speaking, facial expressions, body language, tone of voice. These are what linguists call “paralinguistic channels”. “I’m fine” thus comes across very differently when said in a happy voice than in a flat monotone, or when accompanied by exaggerated thumbs-up or other gestures. </p>
<p>In writing, things are more fraught. What internet linguist Gretchen McColloch, in her book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, calls the <a href="https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/">“typographical tone of voice”</a> is harder to convey, possibly because writing uses only one channel, the written word itself. </p>
<h2>Typographical tone</h2>
<p>Billions of emails and texts are sent every day – an estimated <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/">320 billion</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/01/06/the-past-present-and-future-of-messaging/">23 billion</a>, respectively. Research <a href="https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/">shows</a> some quite consistent (and intuitive) ways in which people have communicated their intent through the ages. </p>
<p>If McCulloch <a href="http://clarkbuckner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/McColloch-Because-Internet-04-Typographical-Tone-of-Voice.pdf">points</a> to text written in all caps, for instance, as expressing strong feelings, all-caps text has widely been meant and understood as shouting since the middle of the 20th century at least. Its use is documented as early as the 1850s: The Yorkville Enquirer of April 17 1856 describes a Dutchman <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026925/1856-04-17/ed-1/seq-4/">“shout(ing) it out in capital letters”</a>.</p>
<p>Context, however, is key. We interpret as shouting an all-caps email (“DON’T DO THAT AGAIN”), but <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/clarity-2">not necessarily</a> a sign (“PAPER AND CARDBOARD ONLY”). </p>
<p>Research has shown that the limitation in writing can, in fact, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pragmatics-in-english-language-learning/6545344362F3812D3A1A8D06BC6E39BD">flip the intended effect completely</a>. An emailed request in grammatically correct, clear and polite language (“Please tell me when we can meet”) can come across as rude if the recipient is used to more indirect wording (“I wonder if you could find time to meet with me”). </p>
<p>And that’s before you consider <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/2020/09/28/texting-etiquette-what-exclamation-point-period-ellipses-mean-to-different-generations/3524169001/">the power of punctuation</a>. The journalist Grace Seger went viral in 2019 with a tweet describing her very cautious approach to using the right exclamation-point-to-full-stop ratio in work emails:</p>
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<p>When texting or posting, an older person might use the standard punctuation rules they were taught in school, merely intending to present themselves as “proper” or to show respect to their recipients. </p>
<p>As a younger person, by contrast, you might be used to texting or posting without much punctuation. When receiving a overly punctuated text message, you might assume there’s a strong and serious reason for it – a hidden meaning. </p>
<p>In a 2018 piece entitled “Why… do old people… text… like this…? An investigation…”, tech journalist Paris Martineau <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/3333/why-do-old-people-text-like-this-an-investigation">reported</a> on the bafflement caused among young people by what she called their parents’ “chronic ellipsis overuse”. As one Twitter user Martineau quoted put it: “Why do old people use ellipses so much? My mom tells me she loves me and it sounds like she thinks I’m a huge disappointment.”</p>
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<h2>Hidden meanings</h2>
<p>We all know that irony and sarcasm are hard to convey in writing. Research shows, however, that we are in fact <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X04269587">more likely</a> to write something snarky than we are to say it. Here, the presumption of meaning behind non-standard features in text (that is, the elements that are not the words) is quite useful.</p>
<p>Written markers for irony or sarcasm arise quickly in a given community or interaction, to signal to the reader that there’s a meaning behind the words. This may be as explicit as an eye-rolling emoji or an obvious hashtag, say, #sarcasm. </p>
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<img alt="A girl with blue hair in a blue hoodie in front of a graffitied wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520247/original/file-20230411-24-vrqa8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Even innocuous messages can be misunderstood.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teenager-wearing-light-blue-oversize-hoodie-2123135423">Katrinshine</a></span>
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<p>It might also be more subtle. You might capitalise some words (going on a big date is serious, but <a href="https://mashable.com/article/capitalizing-first-letter-words-trend">“a Big Date”</a> is meant ironically). You might blatantly under-emphasise other words (<a href="https://twitter.com/kaiaaqm/status/1645739295452409861">a single “yay”</a>). Or, and contrary to the above-mentioned overuse of the ellipsis, you might just make a pointed use of <a href="https://issuu.com/shinycomm/docs/20220705_otd_july_2022_web/s/16399235#:%7E:text=Gen%20Z%20has%20adapted%20the,what%20it%20used%20to%20be.">three full stops</a> to point to something left unsaid, which, as McCulloch <a href="https://brands.wattpad.com/insights/the-new-rules-for-writing-for-gen-z-how-to-avoid-passive-aggressive-punctuation-and-other-lessons-from-an-internet-linguist">has said</a>, “could also come across as passive-aggressive in a certain context.” She gives “I can do that…” as an example, explaining that that “could mean they can do that but don’t necessarily want to”. </p>
<p>None of these are necessary to communicate the literal meaning of the written message. Instead, they tell the reader to look for an additional, hidden – or implied – meaning. </p>
<p>But you have to know to know. And if you don’t know, you’re lost. Research has shown how both humans and computers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220874376_Identifying_Sarcasm_in_Twitter_A_Closer_Look">struggle to consistently identify</a> sarcasm or irony in writing, because there are no universal features of sarcastic language. How we choose to express it depends on the subject and the cultural context of what we’re discussing, as much as it does on personal preferences. Thus, even innocuous messages can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X16662968">be misunderstood</a> as offensive. </p>
<p>When we notice that we’ve misunderstood someone or that they’ve misunderstood us, everyone benefits from a quick clarification. Not only does it improve the present situation, it also helps to avoid future pickles and broaden everyone’s experience base, which is valuable in itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Bürkle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Generational faultlines are made visible by the way we use punctuation and text formatting in online communication. Tone of voice is a tricky thing to convey.Daniel Bürkle, Senior Lecturer in Psycholinguistics, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994032023-03-02T19:09:07Z2023-03-02T19:09:07ZFriday essay: how policies favouring rich, older people make young Australians Generation F-d<p>Working to buy your own home is a rite of passage in Australia, firmly rooted in a time when government delivered plentiful, affordable housing. Following the senseless poverty and destitution inflicted by price-gouging landlords during the Depression, we created a better, more equitable housing system after World War II. </p>
<p>Up until the mid-1970s, government took a hands-on approach to housing, constructing homes for people to buy or rent at low cost. Investors weren’t prioritised over the rights of people who needed shelter, and governments helped people buy with cheap loans. It was these settings that generalised the home-owning dream to over 70% of Australian households by the late 1960s.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/think-private-renting-is-hard-first-nations-people-can-be-excluded-from-the-start-192392">Think private renting is hard? First Nations people can be excluded from the start</a>
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<h2>Australia’s housing a ‘closed shop’</h2>
<p>But from the 1980s, Australia’s housing system was being transformed into a “closed shop”, working to expand the wealth of existing home owners and investors. If you owned a home, you had membership to Australia’s exclusive wealth-builders’ club. </p>
<p>Generous tax concessions flowed to home owners, who were encouraged to expand their financial position, spending on their own house and maybe a rental property. The capacity to stash 50% of the spoils from selling a house away from the tax man, paying capital gains tax on only the remaining 50%, combined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/negative-gearing-reforms-could-save-a-1-7-billion-without-hurting-poorer-investors-92679">negative gearing</a>, meant easy money without having to move yourself, and an annual cash-flow boost through interest deductibility at every income tax return.</p>
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<p>After pumping up the insiders’ gains, government abandoned its role in new construction, handing the reins of housing supply to private interests. The majority of public dwellings, built by state housing authorities after the war, had already been sold off, mostly to the households occupying them, such that <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/%20housing-assistance/housing-assistance-in-australia/contents/%20social-housing-dwellings">less than 4%</a> of all homes are government-owned today.</p>
<p>After cutting supply, governments increased demand for housing. Tax concessions cultivated an investor class, but so did weakened lending regulations, which saw an explosion in new lending, as investors received almost the same loan rates as owner-occupiers.</p>
<p>House price growth was speeding ahead of employment incomes, and political pressure to respond to intergenerational and class inequality grew. Governments responded by ploughing billions into schemes to assist first-home buyers. Twenty billion dollars was spent in helping some young and low-income people into the market throughout the 2010s, <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/%20final-reports/381">but by 2021</a> this was little more than a bandaid over a bullet wound.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/poor-housing-leaves-its-mark-on-our-mental-health-for-years-to-come-120595">Poor housing leaves its mark on our mental health for years to come</a>
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<h2>False scarcity</h2>
<p>Australia’s gold-plated housing system manufactures false scarcity. It excludes an ever-larger group of people, for whom housing becomes a rare commodity. </p>
<p>Contrary to rudimentary supply–demand theory, individuals holding ownership of the hottest product in human life have zero interest in expanding supply to meet demand for affordable, decent homes. They sit and wait for prices to increase, and people borrow more and more to keep up. </p>
<p>Worse still, Australia helps older, wealthy owners of housing to keep cashing in on the lack of affordable homes and rising prices. Economists Matt Grudnoff and Eliza Littleton <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/rich-men-and-tax-concessions/">found</a> that almost three-quarters of the capital gains tax discount housing benefit goes to the top 10% of households by income, and more than three-quarters to people aged 50 and over. </p>
<p>People under 40 <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/%20uploads/2020/12/TAI-Briefing-Note-Tax-concessions-by-age.pdf">receive</a> only 6% of capital gains tax discount benefits. It’s a government-bankrolled gravy train, and there are no wealth or inheritance taxes in sight.</p>
<p>Many young people are locked out of a housing system dominated by rich older people. The housing industry is at pains to hide this, selling the longstanding lie that the Australian landlords reducing their taxes are average-earning mums and dads, while in reality the beneficiaries of negative gearing are overwhelmingly wealthy. </p>
<p>More than half of the $4.3 billion annual benefit from negative-gearing tax cuts <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/rich-men-and-tax-concessions/">goes to</a> the top 20% of households by income. Those aged between 40 and 60 <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/%20uploads/2020/12/TAI-Briefing-Note-Tax-concessions-by-age.pdf">capture</a> more than 60% of the concessions.</p>
<h2>Deposits of $120,000 ‘simply impossible’</h2>
<p>Even if lucrative tax concessions were unpicked to support a more level playing field in our housing system, young people’s pain is multiplied in the jobs market. </p>
<p>The Productivity Commission <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/youth-income-decline/youth-income-decline.pdf">found</a> that real incomes for people aged 15–24 declined by an average of 1.6% every year over the decade 2008–18. Incomes fell slightly less for the Millennials aged 25–34, but still fell 0.7% each year. Over the same period, real incomes for the over 65s increased by 37% … <em>more than one-third</em>. The only cohort emphatically mobilising is the oldest.</p>
<p>Since young people lost a decade of income growth after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-weve-the-weakest-economy-since-the-global-financial-crisis-with-few-clear-ways-out-122942">global financial crisis</a>, lower incomes mean they can’t build savings at the same rate as older generations. The 20% deposit of $120,000 to buy a median capital city unit is simply impossible for many young people to reach, placing home ownership in fantasy territory. </p>
<p>Right now, thin savings blankets already mean severe distress when shit hits the fan. Without a secure income or roof over young people’s heads, economic shocks are more severe, overall health and wellbeing diminished, and the ability to grasp opportunities for other jobs or study compromised.</p>
<p>Widening <a href="https://theconversation.com/68-of-millennials-earn-more-than-their-parents-but-boomers-had-it-better-161647">intergenerational inequality</a> centres around our housing system, with billions pumped into making houses more valuable. Many people who own those houses obtained them decades ago when prices were lower and you could rely on available jobs that paid enough to buy one. In the mid-1980s, the median earner forked out three times their annual income for a home, compared to the record-high 8.5 times their income in 2022.</p>
<p>But it’s not the old widower on your street who’s to blame: the bloke who bought his inner-city house in the 1970s for $15,000 and saw it rise to $1 million by retirement. Access to the basics of life is not the problem. Follow the big investor money.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/9-in-10-landlord-tax-returns-are-wrong-does-this-make-landlords-champion-tax-dodgers-195914">9 in 10 landlord tax returns are wrong. Does this make landlords champion tax dodgers?</a>
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<h2>Permanent renting a new reality</h2>
<p>While Australia encourages the wealthiest households to build housing assets, it forces young and low-income households into an increasingly pressured private rental market. Over 60% of people aged under 30 are renting, with this age group experiencing <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/%20australias-welfare/home-ownership-and-housing-tenure">the sharpest increase</a> in renting arrangements of any age group since 1996. </p>
<p>Low welfare payments and casual jobs are no match for rising rents. In fact, based on current rates for renting one bedroom in a two-bedroom unit, an average 18-year-old working in hospitality or retail, or receiving Youth Allowance, <a href="https://everybodyshome.com.au/young-australians-%20crunched-by-housing-crisis/">meets the definition</a> of housing stress in every capital city in the country.</p>
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<p>Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-insecurity-of-private-renters-how-do-they-manage-it-77324">private rental system</a> was designed to be a tenancy of transition, not a permanent encounter. But renting permanently is the reality for a growing number of low-income people, including youth, <a href="https://theconversation.com/older-women-often-rent-in-poverty-shared-home-equity-could-help-177452">older women</a>, those <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-660-000-locked-out-of-home-ownership-74926">with disabilities</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/think-private-renting-is-hard-first-nations-people-can-be-excluded-from-the-start-192392">Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander</a> people. </p>
<p>Governments have failed to catch up with this seismic shift in rental dependency. Without regulation of rental conditions, human dignity and security of tenure are railroaded by landlords, who routinely price gouge, abuse tenants, and offer dilapidated, inadequate, poor-quality housing. </p>
<p>After momentarily cooling with reduced demand in the pandemic lull, and various short-term measures introduced by state governments to relieve renters – including moratoriums on evictions and prohibitions on rent increases – rental prices have since surged. In <a href="https://www.adviservoice.com.au/2022/%2010/september-vacancy-rates-remain-constant-at-0-9">the 12 months to September 2022</a>, rental prices grew nationally by 15%, and vacancy rates fell to their lowest level since 2006 at less than 1%, with ongoing floods in New South Wales and Victoria placing greater strain on already-slim housing stocks in regional areas.</p>
<p>The shortened supply of suitable rental properties in many pockets of the country facilitates invasive practices by real estate agents too, who routinely encourage rent-bidding and payment of several months’ rent in advance, and demand financial and personal records from tenants. All for the privilege of paying off someone else’s mortgage!</p>
<p>Australian landlords demand a return on their investment as a matter of entitlement. As a class, they pocket billions in housing tax concessions, contribute to rising prices, and then demand their poorer tenants keep up with rents. </p>
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<p>Retrofitting a rental system designed to build the wealth of investors into one that meets human need costs us a pretty penny. The sneaky, indirect subsidy not often acknowledged is the almost $5 billion spent annually in Commonwealth Rent Assistance – a supplement paid by the federal government to people on meagre social security payments trying to keep a roof over their heads – <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/%20sites/default/files/documents/03_2022/2022-23_social_services_%20pbs.pdf">which underpins</a> the private rental system.</p>
<p>Australians idolise self-employment as an escape from the horrors of bad bosses, and it’s not hard to see the appeal of owner occupation to escape landlords. People would rather scrounge and submit to a lifetime of bank debt just to escape the indignity of individuals unfairly emboldened by our policies to determine the life course of others. </p>
<p>Why, after all, should young people be fixed in a cycle of helping secure wealth for older generations?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-housing-wealth-gap-between-older-and-younger-australians-has-widened-alarmingly-in-the-past-30-years-heres-why-197027">The housing wealth gap between older and younger Australians has widened alarmingly in the past 30 years. Here's why</a>
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<h2>Inequality within and between generations</h2>
<p>In a housing system generating inequality both within and between generations, all young people face rising hurdles to home ownership compared to earlier post-war generations, but those with the lowest incomes suffer the most. </p>
<p>Parental lending is reported with humour in our media – the Bank of Mum and Dad is now the ninth biggest mortgage lender – but this creeping return to feudal social relations is a shocking development in a nation that defined itself against the rigid class hierarchies of Britain.</p>
<p>Australia’s investor-dominated housing system has walked the nation to the cliff’s edge of our egalitarian history; whereas employment income was once sufficient to secure housing and a good life, working any job today is no longer enough; the wealth you’re born into increasingly determines your life chances.</p>
<p>While young people have nothing to gain from a housing system built on ever-rising prices and inherited wealth, it doesn’t mean they’ll revolt. I’ve seen an uncomfortable trend among many middle-class young people who’ve resigned themselves to insecure, unfulfilling jobs, and a sense they won’t transcend their parents’ financial or professional success.</p>
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<p>Australia’s housing system is politically conservatising. The vast majority of wealth held by middle-class and upper-middle-class households <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-distribution-household-income-consumption-and-wealth/latest-release">is concentrated</a> in land holdings, between 56 and 88% of their net wealth. That’s a lot of eggs in the status quo basket. </p>
<p>Disenfranchised young people see that economic opportunity may go backwards in their lifetime, but at least they’ll inherit the house when Mum and/or Dad kick the bucket. But with the average age of people inheriting wealth in the 50s, it’s an awfully long time to wait.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-everyone-wins-from-the-bank-of-mum-and-dad-73842">Not everyone wins from the bank of mum and dad</a>
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<h2>Hoping for a crash</h2>
<p>What’s the effect of all this? Australia’s jobs, housing and tax policies are writing the futures of people who have no chance of contributing to the story. It’s why 53% of young Australians expect to be financially worse off than their parents.</p>
<p>Deloitte’s 2022 <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/%20articles/genzmillennialsurvey.html.">Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey</a> shows the biggest issue plaguing Millennials and Gen Z is the rising cost of living. Almost half of young people globally live from one pay day to the next. </p>
<p>On top of the sense that the rising cost of living will price them out of having a family, many fear delivering their future progeny into a climate apocalypse. Existential doom and mass disempowerment are taking a grip on young people’s thinking. They’re trying to make the right choices against a backdrop of collapsed collective movements and government inaction against an energised global fossil fuel sector.</p>
<p>With economic exclusion carrying lifelong consequences for employment, health and welfare, it’s unsurprising that many young people have given up. One in ten people aged 15–24 is not engaged in any education, employment or training. Just under one-third (29%) <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/the-2021-australian-youth-barometer-understanding-young-people-in">report</a> having poor or very poor mental health. </p>
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<p>Severe psychological distress has grown since 2017, with youth from low socio-economic and regional backgrounds experiencing <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/%20children-youth/mental-illness">the highest rates</a> of mental illness. Young people feel the terrible weight of a society that is failing them.</p>
<p>Without hope of buying homes, young people engage in their favourite big crisis pastime: welcoming a market crash. With the pandemic came renewed faith in total economic carnage as the route to owner occupation – a hope that prices would crash and they’d finally be able to afford a home. These ideas are inspired by the collapse of the US financial system after the global financial crisis, though such an event is entirely ill-fit for Australia’s housing system.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-home-prices-soar-we-have-an-inquiry-almost-designed-not-to-tell-us-why-168959">As home prices soar, we have an inquiry almost designed not to tell us why</a>
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<h2>Why a housing crash won’t happen in Australia</h2>
<p>One of my favourite economists, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26680993">Hyman Minsky</a>, wrote about how asset price inflation emerges in modern financial markets, and what governments do when it goes belly up. When prices rise unsustainably, get away from their underlying value and enter free-fall, government swoops in as the lender-of-last-resort, socialising financial losses before debt deflation infects the rest of the economy. </p>
<p>Exactly whose losses government socialises is the real question – as seen with the trillion-dollar bailout for US corporations during the GFC while thousands of working-class Americans lost their homes.</p>
<p>Hoping highly leveraged poorer households lose their homes to bring down prices is no pathway to housing security for Australian youth. Morality aside, any generalised housing market crash in Australia is highly unlikely because astronomical levels of public money are pumped into the system already, including $14 billion every year in tax concessions and more in subsidies.</p>
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<p>But then, as Minsky reminds us, government will do everything it can to prevent a housing system crash because housing is so heavily intertwined with the stability of Australia’s banking system, which is, in turn, highly concentrated in mortgage lending. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/%20news/2022-05-10/big-four-banks-profits-home-loans-mortgage-%20debt-interest-rates/101051100.">big four banks</a> hold $1.9 trillion in mortgage loans, which comprises 65% of all their liabilities. Unlike the United States, Australia’s problem isn’t securitisation and unregulated “shadow banking”; it’s big, national banks that have monopolised credit provision and rake in easy profits by tightening the screws on workers’ mortgages and making houses more expensive.</p>
<p>Even if government unwound unsustainable tax concessions and built more houses, house prices might decline moderately, but never bottom out. So, waiting for housing prices to enter free fall is another pipedream. </p>
<p>But with 69% of young people now believing government has a responsibility to provide access to affordable housing for everyone, the scene is set for new and creative solutions to Australia’s housing crisis – the likes and scale of which we’ve never seen – including mass urban social and public housing projects, and shared-equity and cooperative housing schemes. With the advancement of a new national affordable housing agenda, “generation rent” may finally taste secure independence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-housing-made-rich-australians-50-richer-leaving-renters-and-the-young-behind-and-how-to-fix-it-195189">How housing made rich Australians 50% richer, leaving renters and the young behind – and how to fix it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Our housing has been in ‘dark territory’ before</h2>
<p>After the war, strong unions made sure government kept up with people’s expectations of a Fair Go. It made home ownership a reality for the average worker. But besides this brief period during the post-war reconstruction period when state governments focused on building public housing, Australia’s housing system has been otherwise dominated by private provision.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512582/original/file-20230228-194-etmtxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">During the Depression, people were packed into uncrowded, unsanitary rental homes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frederick Oswald</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, giving investors the reins in the housing system has plunged us into dark territory before. The working class and poor were subjected to untrammelled landlord power in the rental market during the Depression – the only tenure available to them. People were packed into overcrowded, unsanitary homes, without regulations or controls against the exorbitant rents that consumed their paltry incomes.</p>
<p>During the Depression, rental housing became emblematic of a society failing to provide basic economic security to all people, to the benefit of a minority of property owners. Sound familiar?</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shanty-towns-and-eviction-riots-the-radical-history-of-australias-property-market-185129">Shanty towns and eviction riots: the radical history of Australia's property market</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What can we do to fix Australia’s housing?</h2>
<p>Let’s not make the same mistake twice. Homes aren’t commodities. We can transcend our past solutions to the same problem of private housing provision that we faced then. In the immediate post-war years, we expanded owner occupation to workers as the housing arrangements of civility and dignity. </p>
<p>Today, we must resolve the housing crisis by dramatically expanding public and social housing – dwellings constructed and leased at low cost by both government and community housing providers.</p>
<p>Australian workers once aspired to a humble home to call their own. But the era of public-bankrolled housing riches is a shameful turn in our history. It’s time to stop subsidising property investors. Winding back multi-billion-dollar housing tax concessions will help us fund an upgrade to the Fair Go’s remit for public services, with the right to secure housing too.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1534358150442360838"}"></div></p>
<p>Building quality public and social housing alternatives to owning a home isn’t just about fixing a crisis in which over 500,000 people languish waiting for social housing. It’s also about shifting the focus of our nation’s culture and identity. </p>
<p>From the late 1990s, Australians were told to keep their head down, work hard, suffer honourably like the diggers, and find solace in the rising value of their homes. This was John Howard’s ideological project, which sought to dismantle working-class identity and replace it with “Aussie battlers”.</p>
<p>But defining people’s value based on economic conditions over which they have no control – like interest rates – has resulted in many workers becoming passive and without agency in the areas in which they can build power, like at work.</p>
<p>While the poorest suffer in material deprivation, Australia’s housing system, running on a “get in, cash out” mantra, has fostered a toxic political constituency, and a deprived national psyche. Are we really a nation of one-dimensional wealth-builders?</p>
<p>If we could avoid locking people into the mortgage rat-race, huge amounts of time would be freed to explore more fulfilling jobs – and lives. This is already the reality in Nordic countries, where there is a wide repertoire of pro-social housing models like housing cooperatives, which amount to 22% of the total housing stock in Sweden, and 40% of all housing stock in Norway’s capital, Oslo.</p>
<p>A national public housing construction program could build hundreds of thousands of units, with local materials and labour where possible, co-funded and delivered in partnership with state governments. They could be well-planned, high-quality, beautiful units, affordable and accessible to all. </p>
<p>We could also purchase existing privately owned dwellings, and renovate and repurpose them. Establishing a network of public housing community bodies could ensure new units were designed well, with residents helping manage the day-to-day running of their homes – just like they do in Sweden’s housing cooperatives – rather than the present highly bureaucratic, paternalistic system.</p>
<p>There are others for whom owner occupation will remain important. Indeed, the majority of young Australians say owning a home is still a key goal. Government could extend concessional loans, or even consider creating a public bank to extend cheap credit, and change regulations to slow commercial investor lending.</p>
<p>It’s a mighty challenge for Australia. We’re weaning ourselves off a drug. But normalising public and social housing, coupled with the campaign for good jobs and dignified, secure incomes, would help redirect the enormous economic and cultural value Australians place in the individual ownership of land and property. </p>
<p>This priority shift is one of the most critical updates we can make to the legacy of the Fair Go, built on unceded Aboriginal lands, and our nation would be the richer for it.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/gen-f_d_-by-alison-pennington/9781743799215">Gen F’d?: How Young Australians Can Reclaim Their Uncertain Futures</a> by Alison Pennington, published by Hardie Grant Books on 8 March 2023. Available in stores nationally.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Pennington is now an advisor to the Albanese government.</span></em></p>Since the 1980s, Australia’s housing market has become a ‘closed shop’ that expands the wealth of existing home owners and investors. Alison Pennington traces the changes – and suggests another way.Alison Pennington, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2001402023-02-23T06:15:26Z2023-02-23T06:15:26ZSome houseplants take in nutrients from roots outside the soil – and it may change how we care for them<p>In recent years, we have seen growing interest in houseplants, particularly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/16/how-youthful-plant-lovers-are-shaking-up-staid-old-horticultural-ways">among younger generations</a>. Between 2019 and 2022, houseplant sales in the UK <a href="https://gca.org.uk/garden-centres-saw-green-shoots-of-recovery-in-2021/">increased by more than 50%</a>. Indoor plants are associated with a range of <a href="https://theconversation.com/houseplants-dont-just-look-nice-they-can-also-give-your-mental-health-a-boost-186982">environmental and health benefits</a> including cleaner air, better mental health and clearer thinking.</p>
<p>If you’re a plant parent, you probably know that plants need food and water to grow and survive. You will also know that plants have roots for taking these resources in and leaves to absorb the light energy required for photosynthesis. This sounds simple, but many of us (including me) struggle to keep our plants healthy.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.</em> </p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/plant-curious-137238?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=PlantCurious2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of a series, Plant Curious</a>, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.</em></p>
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<p>Many common houseplants, especially those in the <a href="http://www.aroid.org/aroid/">aroid family</a> like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstera_deliciosa">monstera</a> (or the Swiss cheese plant) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philodendron">philodendron</a> evolved in tough conditions. In their tropical or subtropical forest homes, these plants begin life on the ground but quickly climb the nearest tree to escape the dimly lit forest floor. They produce aerial roots that grow from stems above the ground and attach the plant to a tree’s trunk, allowing them to climb.</p>
<p>Knowing whether these roots take up nutrients or not will influence how we care for these plants. Currently, people tend to feed them in the soil with regular watering and plant food. So in a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pce.14568">recent study</a>, my colleague and I compared aerial and soil-formed roots’ ability to take up nitrogen, an important plant food. </p>
<p>We expected the soil roots to better take up nitrogen because the soil is where the nutrients are – certainly in most houseplant potting mixes. Instead, we found that the aerial roots were far more efficient at taking up nitrogen than their soil counterparts.</p>
<h2>Reach for the sky</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A monstera plant growing up a neighbouring tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511134/original/file-20230220-16-3wb5pv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Monstera climb aerial roots to access lighter areas of the forest canopy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monstera-plants-growing-heights-20-metres-788113741">Pomme Home/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As they climb, aroids grow more leaves. To sustain this growth, the plant will require more nutrients and water. Trees and shrubs effectively meet their demands for food and water by adding new pipes called xylem and phloem to the stem or roots. </p>
<p>The xylem is a tissue that transports water and nutrients upward, from the roots to the leaves. The phloem carries sugars the opposite way.</p>
<p>But monstera and philodendron (and other aroids) are instead related to grasses, meaning they are unable to make new pipes to take up resources. Without help, they would run out of suck – like trying to suck a thick milkshake through a small straw – leaving them unable to feed their increasing leaf area. </p>
<p>Monsteras and philodendrons overcome this problem by growing roots from the new stems as they grow (effectively adding more straws). These new roots grow downwards towards the soil where, in theory, they will take up nutrients and water. </p>
<p>But until now, this theory has not been tested.</p>
<h2>Caring for your plants</h2>
<p>We grew three common houseplants, a <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/59193/philodendron-scandens/details">philodendron</a>, an <a href="https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/anthurium-andreanum/">anthurium</a> (flamingo flower) and an <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/32104/epipremnum-pinnatum-aureum/details">epipremnum</a> (devil’s ivy) both in humid conditions where there was plenty of water in the atmosphere, and in conditions typical of an office building (around 45% humidity).</p>
<p>After a few months, we recorded how big the plants were and then measured exactly how much nitrogen was taken up by each type of root. </p>
<p>Nitrogen uptake is measured by using a label – a bit like feeding flowers food dye. Nitrogen is present in nature in two “sizes”, called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nitrogen">stable isotopes</a>. The heavy one, nitrogen-15, is far less abundant in nature than the lighter nitrogen-14, so when we fed the roots a solution high in the heavy nitrogen, we were able to measure how much of it was taken up compared to the other nitrogen isotope already in the roots. </p>
<p>To compare soil roots with aerial roots, we then fed the heavy nitrogen solution to individual roots and measured the amount of heavy nitrogen that was taken up by each. </p>
<p>Houseplants with more moisture in the air grew bigger and lost less water from their leaves during photosynthesis. In some situations, it was clear the plants were taking up water from their leaves.</p>
<p>Aerial roots were also much better at taking up nitrogen than soil roots. In anthurium and epipremnum, aerial roots took in up to 35% more nitrogen than the soil roots. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman standing on a ladder tending to her houseplants." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511136/original/file-20230220-28-7c4vw9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Epipremnum’s aerial roots took in more nitrogen than the soil roots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/focused-african-american-woman-tending-epipremnum-2244583755">DimaBerlin/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>We are now exploring how and why this happens in more detail, but this could be because intense competition between neighbouring trees and shrubs in the plants’ original forest habitat strip soil of its nutrients. Being able to catch nutrients from decomposing leaf litter as they run down stems can thus be an advantage. The soil roots of some tropical trees even grow <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.235.4792.1062">up the trunks</a> of neighbouring trees.</p>
<p>This suggests that we could be caring for these houseplants all wrong. We tend to ignore their aerial roots when all we need to do is give these roots a good spray with a liquid fertiliser. This will run down the aerial roots towards the stems and into the soil, making sure the soil roots are not neglected entirely.</p>
<p>Houseplants, particularly aroids, are a feature of many of our homes. But to fully experience their benefits, these indoor plants must be healthy. This may involve changing how we look after them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Rasmussen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research finds that some common houseplants take in nutrients from outside the soil.Amanda Rasmussen, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974652023-01-30T11:58:24Z2023-01-30T11:58:24ZYoung people are drinking less – here’s an alternative to try on your next night out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506347/original/file-20230125-18-p4ov35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=602%2C787%2C5358%2C3286&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For many young people, arcades and board game cafes are replacing traditional pubs and bars.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/couple-playing-air-hockey-game-holding-1199753779">Jacob Lund / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new leisure trend is providing an alternative to pubs and bars for young people whose alcohol consumption <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-4446.12964">has been declining</a> for years. </p>
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<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/young-people-are-drinking-less-heres-an-alternative-to-try-on-your-next-night-out-197465" &bgcolor="F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Competitive socialising takes the centuries-old idea of mixing food with games (think <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1229/food-in-an-english-medieval-castle/">medieval banquets</a>) and amplifies it. Options range from reinvented versions of <a href="https://www.allstarlanes.co.uk">bowling</a>, <a href="https://www.draughtslondon.com">board games</a>, <a href="https://flightclubdarts.com">darts</a>, <a href="https://www.bouncepingpong.com">ping pong</a>, <a href="https://playshufl.com">shuffleboard</a>, <a href="https://www.players-social.com/foosball">table football</a>, <a href="https://www.playbirdies.com">mini golf</a>, <a href="https://sixescricket.com">cricket</a>, to <a href="https://whistlepunks.com">axe-throwing</a>, <a href="https://escapehunt.com">escape rooms</a> and <a href="https://www.navrtar.com">virtual reality bars</a>. The common denominator is fun, immersive social experiences served with high quality food and drinks in eye-catching, Instagrammable interiors.</p>
<p>According to market research analysts from <a href="https://store.mintel.com/report/leisure-outlook-uk-autumn-2022">Mintel UK</a>, a quarter of people surveyed about their leisure activities in autumn 2022 said they recently played a social entertainment game. And analysts predict that competitive socialising will remain popular despite ongoing economic uncertainty. </p>
<p>Millennials and Generation Z are <a href="https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-competitive-socialising-market-report">driving the trend</a>. Not only are they drinking less, they are spending <a href="https://pdf.euro.savills.co.uk/uk/commercial---other/competitive-socialising-and-emerging-concepts-in-leisure-2019.pdf">less on commodities and more on experiences</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/should-i-still-go-on-holiday-if-i-have-covid-186185?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Should I still go on holiday if I have COVID?</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/spotify-wrapped-how-sharing-your-music-tastes-can-drive-feelings-of-fomo-196825?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Spotify Wrapped: how sharing your music tastes can drive feelings of Fomo</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/your-dream-wedding-might-not-be-legal-time-to-update-englands-old-fashioned-marriage-laws-187567?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Your dream wedding might not be legal – time to update England’s old-fashioned marriage laws</a></em></p>
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<p>Competitive socialising venues <a href="https://www.mixinteriors.com/property/why-competitive-socialising-is-bigger-than-ever/">have the potential</a> to fill <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-street-strategy-recovery-will-take-more-than-street-parties-and-more-bins-164729">empty stores</a> and drive footfall back to the high street. My soon-to-be-published study of the UK’s social board gaming scene revealed just how much this sector contributes to local communities.</p>
<p>Unique leisure experiences do not just create personal memories, they are also the <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/43937">social currency</a> of digital capitalism. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337226409_Conspicuous_leisure_The_social_visibility_of_cultural_experiences">Research has shown</a> that being able to impress others with our nights out, holiday trips and festival visits is just as important as the actual quality of these activities. </p>
<p>After months of COVID-19 lockdowns, <a href="https://andjelicaaa.medium.com/is-offline-the-new-luxury-c09760a99eef">being offline is the new luxury</a>. The thirst for multisensory fun and in-person social interaction makes competitive socialising <a href="https://www.knightfrank.com/research/article/2021-10-15-leisure-responding-to-an-experiential-crisis">increasingly appealing</a> not only to young professionals but also to families and corporate clients looking for fresh team-building ideas.</p>
<h2>Reviving local business scenes</h2>
<p>Between June 2021 and September 2022, I visited 24 social board gaming venues in six regions of England and interviewed 50 people who own, organise and attend them. I was initially trying to find out what draws people to analogue games in a digital age and why they choose to play them outside the home. </p>
<p>The most popular answers were getting away from the screen, having a tactile experience and being able to socialise without drinking too much. For those who moved towns during the pandemic, visiting a board game social became the easiest and safest way to find new friends. Many people said that board games “add structure to socialising”, which is especially important for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Fpc2mpE0s&t=155s">neurodiverse people</a> and those dealing with <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-your-brain-type-says-about-how-youre-emerging-from-the-pandemic#Ways-to-adjust-to-a-new-normal">post-pandemic social anxiety</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/long-social-distancing-how-young-adults-habits-have-changed-since-covid-183837">Long social distancing: how young adults' habits have changed since COVID</a>
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<p>But as I dug deeper, I realised that social board gaming does even more than that – it also supports local independent business <a href="https://scenescapes.weebly.com">scenes</a>. </p>
<p>Most board game cafes partner with local bakeries, coffee roasters and other food suppliers. Some businesses, like <a href="https://www.strongisland.co/2018/10/19/dice-board-game-lounge-on-albert-road/">Dice Board Game Lounge</a> in Portsmouth or <a href="https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2020/03/11/board-games-cafe-plans-to-open-in-former-brighton-theatre/">Dice Saloon</a> in Brighton, contribute to urban regeneration by breathing new life into underused buildings.</p>
<p>As the UK’s pubs were closing down <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-pubs-are-closing-at-an-alarming-rate-but-the-hospitality-sector-is-fighting-back-193993">at alarming rates in 2022</a>, I saw publicans trying to attract customers by reaching out to local game enthusiasts. Some avid hobbyists host pub game nights in their free time, others have launched <a href="https://www.manchestersfinest.com/articles/the-pop-up-board-game-role-playing-night-taking-manchester-by-storm/">small event companies</a>, running socials in independent venues. Mintel’s recent <a href="https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-pub-visiting-market-report">UK pub market report</a> says 20% of their Gen Z respondents “don’t visit pubs often or at all” – but competitive socialising can be the hook that will drag them in. </p>
<h2>The cost of socialising</h2>
<p>In a world where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfUS-UUvAHs">leisure time</a> and budgets are constantly shrinking, mixing dining with memorable entertainment offers good value for money. But 2023 will bring economic challenges for everyone, and competitive socialising venues and their patrons are no exception. </p>
<p>Mintel analysts <a href="https://store.mintel.com/report/leisure-outlook-uk-autumn-2022">suggest</a> that while nights out are likely to become less frequent, they also become more of a special occasion, which means consumers will prioritise quality over quantity. And as Nick Frow, the owner of a cocktails and crazy golf experience in London, <a href="https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2022/11/17/how-is-competitive-socialising-impacted-by-recession">put it</a>: “Throughout any period, especially those that require some distraction, people need bread and circuses.”</p>
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<img alt="Two young women playing Jenga in a public cafe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=260%2C50%2C5346%2C3682&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506159/original/file-20230124-4836-reit37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Competitive socialising venues are changing young people’s social lives – could they save the high street, too?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-beautiful-girls-play-board-game-1095739379">Gankevych / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But smaller-scale, more community-oriented businesses based in less affluent areas are <a href="https://www.meepleperk.co.uk/post/the-elephant-in-the-room?fbclid=IwAR3Dra-u3q5_0Mn2eMFVYPiAnO2M1RKSxUbPeidAzyMBkzxiVba7t-RfQdA">not as optimistic</a>. The <a href="https://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/229130/335145-0">fall in consumer confidence</a> is part of the problem. And because leisure operators use a lot of energy for lighting, cooking, heating and cooling, they are particularly exposed to uplifts in energy prices. </p>
<p>If you want to support your local competitive socialising venue this winter, pay them a visit or follow them on social media. But there is a cheaper way to stay on top of this trend. Perhaps throwing an axe in your backyard isn’t the best idea, but you can always organise a <a href="https://www.meeplemountain.com/articles/how-to-plan-the-ultimate-board-game-night/">game night at home</a>. </p>
<p>There probably won’t be any neon lights, banging beats or a selfie wall, but home parties <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPMD-03-2014-0006/full/html">create a sense of community and relaxation</a> like no other environment. Invite a few friends, cook together, chip in for a takeaway or <a href="https://medium.com/illumination/how-to-use-a-potluck-spirit-to-cultivate-social-connections-e0d8504b6897">do potluck</a>. Pick some titles from <a href="https://gamenightgods.com/best-game-night-games/">this list</a> or play party games that require <a href="https://funcheaporfree.com/game-night-ideas/">nothing but pen and paper</a> – and have fun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Kviat is working on a research project funded by The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>Younger people are spending more on experiences, and cutting back on alcohol.Alexandra Kviat, Research fellow, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946742023-01-11T06:12:35Z2023-01-11T06:12:35ZChina: the rise of gen Z will have massive consequences for business and politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503397/original/file-20230106-6872-bvp86r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1592%2C1020&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All the rage: bunny balaclavas from fashion chain Ambush to help Chinese youth celebrate the Year of the Rabbit.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ambush</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As China prepares to celebrate new year on January 22, luxury brands are gearing up for the year of the rabbit with an <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brands-cash-in-on-the-year-of-the-rabbit-to-lure-chinese-consumers-8fz0r2bnt">array of luxury rabbit-themed goods</a>: a £29,000 gold and diamond-encrusted rabbit watch by Dior, perhaps, or an £850 floppy-eared hat from Burberry. Japanese streetwear brand Ambush has reportedly sold out of its £380 pink bunny balaclavas.</p>
<p>The target market? China’s 400 million-strong army of young consumers, who have the power to make or break foreign brands seeking their fortune in China.</p>
<p>Like their western peers, China’s “gen Z” consumers are avid users of social media, but that is where the similarities end. This generation has grown up during China’s rapid economic development in the 2000s and 2010s, which is a marked contrast to their peers in the west, who came of age in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis. As a result, they have been characterised as being more confident and better educated than previous generations.</p>
<p>Another notable characteristic of this generation has been its size, being one of the largest generations since the baby boomers in Europe and North America. The parallels between the two have been readily apparent with both enjoying significant cultural, economic and political influence, with China’s gen Z <a href="https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/the-next-baby-boomers-are-china-s-millennials-20210621-p582qf">being labelled</a> as the next “baby boomers”.</p>
<p>As a result, China’s young adults are well placed to influence future decisions, which will be based on their world view. Questions about how they will use their influence have <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/cn/our-insights/our-insights/chinas-gen-z-are-coming-of-age-heres-what-marketers-need-to-know">already been asked</a> – and the answer can be seen in their habits as consumers.</p>
<h2>China chic</h2>
<p>One of the most notable signs of this has been in the rise of <em>guochao</em> (国潮), roughly translated as “national wave”. Brands from this movement have sought to combine Chinese traditions with modern designs. This emerged from Li Ning’s Wu Dao collection, showcased at New York’s Fashion Week <a href="https://www.chinastory.cn/PCywdbk/chinastory/wap/en/detail/20190906/1012700000042741567732893478802390_1.html">in 2018</a>. Li’s Taoist-inspired designs have marked a wider trend for Chinese consumers to embrace domestic brands.</p>
<p><em>Guochao</em>’s success has been illustrative of several developments within China. Firstly, it shows how consumer habits have changed, with more younger consumers wanting to see their culture incorporated into consumer goods, favouring local brands over foreign ones. </p>
<p>This reflects a different view of Chinese identity among gen Z and millennials for whom China has always been a strong nation that rivals the western world. <em>Guochao</em>’s efforts to redefine the meaning of “Made in China” strikes a chord as it aims to move away from its association with cheap, poor-quality products that were the hallmark of the early days of China’s development.</p>
<p>As a result, the consumer habits of younger Chinese have not only shaped China’s perceived identity but has presented a notable challenge for foreign brands.</p>
<p>Another development that has illustrated the influence of younger Chinese consumers has been the popularity of traditional clothing, most notably the traditional long sleeved robe, the <em>hanfu</em> (汉服). The market for the costume has grown significantly and is expected to be worth <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3190171/cultural-power-not-suit-and-tie-hanfu">US$1.85 billion (£1.54 billion)</a> in 2022. </p>
<p>As with <em>guochao</em>, <em>hanfu</em> fever has also been driven by younger consumers, with TV period dramas and social media platforms playing a notable role in popularising the costume. This was demonstrated by how <em>hanfu</em>-related content has been viewed 47.7 million times on Douyin (Tik Tok). Young Chinese consumers have popularised a costume that had once been the preserve of a small number of enthusiasts.</p>
<p>In keeping with <em>guochao</em>, the popularity of the <em>hanfu</em> has also been illustrative of a wider effort to redefine China’s identity by tapping into vintage tropes. This has been typical of newly affluent and confident societies which seek to reshape their identity into one that is in keeping with their perceived status – most notably South Korea at the height of its cultural influence and Japan during its long postwar economic boom. </p>
<h2>A tougher customer</h2>
<p>The most obvious challenge posed by young Chinese consumers has been in how they favour domestic brands over foreign ones. This has often been interpreted as a form of “consumer nationalism”, most notably in the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57606588">boycotts against Nike and Adidas</a> in 2021 over their decision not to use cotton from Xinjiang province. The fact that neither brand has fully recovered its position in the Chinese market illustrates the potency of this.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, it was this backlash that would see Chinese brands such as Anta and Li Ning Co <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-china-nationalistic-online-shoppers/">outpace their western rivals</a>) for the first time since their entry to the Chinese market. In this way, shopping has become another outpost of politics.</p>
<p>This consumer nationalism is a reflection of a broader disenchantment among young people with the west, revealed in the way many have begun to perceive nations – most notably the US – as foes. Such a change was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cjip/article/15/1/27/6548121">noted by a 2022 study</a> from the University of Oxford, which found that Chinese people born after 1990 are more likely to hold negative views of the US. </p>
<p>It’s important to note that rather than being the result of top-down anti-western state propaganda, this antipathy is largely driven by western anti-China sentiment as promulgated, for example, by former president Donald Trump during his term of office.</p>
<p>This is likely to place greater pressure on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to take a more assertive stance towards the west. And a future politburo made up of millennials and gen Z may also result in a more confrontational China. In both business and politics, foreign concepts – be they fashion items or western-style democracy – no longer have the same appeal that they enjoyed with previous generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Harper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For China’s new youth generation, shopping has become an outpost of politics.Tom Harper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932882022-10-28T12:31:45Z2022-10-28T12:31:45ZThe ethics of canceling student debt is more about fairness than broken promises<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491932/original/file-20221026-16-z5dr49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Several groups have opposed President Joe BIden's plan to forgive $10,000 to $20,000 of student debt.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/student-loan-borrowers-stage-a-rally-in-front-of-the-white-news-photo/1417997441?phrase=student%20loan%20&adppopup=true">Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We the 45m</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive US$10,000 to $20,000 of student debt for up to 40 million eligible borrowers was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2022/10/21/court-temporarily-blocks-bidens-student-loan-forgiveness-plan---heres-what-it-means-for-borrowers/">recently put on hold</a> when a federal appeals court temporarily paused the program.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/six-republican-led-states-appealing-dismissal-of-lawsuit-over-student-loan-relief">Six states had asked the court</a> to block implementation of loan forgiveness until their lawsuits against the program were resolved. The states allege that they would be financially harmed if borrowers receive loan forgiveness.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/do/search/?q=author_lname%3A%22Padgett-Walsh%22%20author_fname%3A%22Kate%22&start=0&context=1759512&facet=">ethicist</a> who studies the morality of debt, my work explores the question at the heart of opposition to student loan forgiveness: Is student debt cancellation unfair? </p>
<h2>The moral case against canceling</h2>
<p>Educational debt is often regarded as an investment in one’s future. Millennials with a Bachelor of Arts degree, for instance, typically earn <a href="https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/education-pays.htm">$25,000</a> more per year than those with just a high school diploma. College education is also generally correlated with a variety of positive life outcomes, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2016.08.002">physical</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.10.038">mental</a> health, <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102503">family stability</a> and <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.1.159">career satisfaction</a>. </p>
<p>Given the benefits of college education, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/11/12/five-facts-about-student-loans/">canceling student debt appears</a> to some as a giveaway for those who are already on their way to becoming well-off. </p>
<p>Canceling debt also seems to violate the moral principle of following through on one’s promises. Borrowers have a moral duty to fulfill their loan agreements, the philosopher <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ff5d/112a814a2016f045f63a31755792c757e8b8.pdf">Immanuel Kant</a> argued, because reneging on promises is disrespectful to oneself and others. Once people have promised to do something, he noted, others rely upon that promise and expect them to follow through. </p>
<p>In the case of federal student loans, a borrower signs a promissory note agreeing to pay back the government and, ultimately, the taxpayers. And so student borrowers seem to have a moral duty to pay their debts unless mitigating circumstances like injury or illness arise.</p>
<h2>The moral case for canceling</h2>
<p>Fairness and respect, however, also demand that society address the magnitude of student debt today, and especially the burden it imposes on low-income, first-generation and Black borrowers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students holding placards saying 'Freeze tuition, abolish tuition,' among others." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491923/original/file-20221026-13-bdki44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Students hold a demonstration in New York to protest against ballooning student loan debt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/students-hold-placards-as-they-stage-a-demonstration-at-the-news-photo/496932252?adppopup=true">Photo by Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Young people today start their adult lives burdened with much more student debt than previous generations. Almost <a href="https://ticas.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy-files/pub_files/qf_about_student_debt.pdf">70% of college students</a> now borrow to attend college, and the average size of their debt has risen since the mid-1990s from less than <a href="https://ticas.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy-files/pub_files/qf_about_student_debt.pdf">$13,000 to about $30,000</a> today. </p>
<p>As a result, total outstanding student debt has jumped to over <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/topics/student-debt">$1.5 trillion</a>, making it the <a href="https://heller.brandeis.edu/iasp/pdfs/racial-wealth-equity/racial-wealth-gap/stallingdreams-how-student-debt-is-disrupting-lifechances.pdf">second-largest</a> form of debt in the U.S., after mortgages. </p>
<p>This explosion in student debt raises two significant moral concerns, as my student <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09770-1">Justin Lewiston and I argue in an article</a> published in 2020 by The Journal of Value Inquiry. </p>
<p>The first concern is that the distribution of costs and benefits is highly unequal. Fairness requires equal opportunity, as the philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/">John Rawls</a> argued. Yet, while borrowing for education is supposed to create opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, those opportunities often fail to materialize due to educational challenges and wage gaps in the labor market.</p>
<p>Data shows that low-income students, first-generation students and Black students face much greater struggles in repaying their loans. About 70% of those in <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2017/12/14/444011/student-loan-defaulters/">default</a> are first-generation students, and 40% come from low-income backgrounds. Twenty years after college, when white borrowers have repaid 94% of their loans, the typical Black student has been able to <a href="https://heller.brandeis.edu/iasp/pdfs/racial-wealth-equity/racial-wealth-gap/stallingdreams-how-student-debt-is-disrupting-lifechances.pdf">repay only 5%</a>. </p>
<p>These repayment and default rates reflect significantly lower <a href="https://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport16/">graduation rates</a> for students in those groups, who typically need to work long hours while also in school and hence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023116664351">engage</a> less with both the academic and nonacademic aspects of college.</p>
<p>But they also reflect significantly lower post-graduation incomes for such students, due in no small part to continuing social and racial wage gaps in the labor market. Black men with a bachelor’s degree make, on average, more than <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/el2017-26.pdf?mod=article_inline">20% less than white men</a> with the same education and experience, though that wage gap is smaller for women. And first-generation graduates typically make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-018-9523-1">10% less than students whose parents graduated</a> from college.</p>
<p>A second moral concern is that student debt is increasingly causing widespread distress and constraining the lives of borrowers in significant ways. Consider that even before the pandemic, <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2018-student-loans-and-other-education-debt.htm">20% of student borrowers</a> were behind on their payments, and first-generation borrowers and borrowers of color are struggling even more. </p>
<p>The financial distress indicated by this high rate of delinquency is undermining both the <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jfamec/v40y2019i1d10.1007_s10834-018-9594-3.html">physical</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953614007503">mental</a> health of young adults. It prevents young adults from starting <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2968250">families</a>, purchasing cars, renting or buying their own <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537117303317">homes</a> and even starting new <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2633951">businesses</a>. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, these negative effects are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696819879252">disproportionately</a> experienced by first-generation, low-income and Black student borrowers, whose life choices are especially restricted by the need to make loan payments. </p>
<h2>Avoiding moral hazard</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2019/10/28/the-massive-moral-hazard-problem-in-mass-student-loan-forgiveness/?sh=73667707e927">Some analysts</a> have argued, however, that canceling student debt will create a problem of moral hazard. A moral hazard arises when people no longer feel the need to make careful choices because they expect others to cover the risk for them.</p>
<p>For example, a bank that expects to be bailed out by the government in the event of a financial crisis thereby has an incentive to engage in riskier behavior. </p>
<p>Moral hazard can be avoided by combining student debt cancellation with programs that reduce the need for future borrowing, especially for first-generation students, low-income students and students of color. </p>
<p>One success story is the Tennessee Promise, a program enacted in 2015 to make tuition and fees at community and technical colleges free to state residents. This program has <a href="https://comptroller.tn.gov/office-functions/research-and-education-accountability/publications/higher-education/content/tennessee-promise-evaluation.html">increased enrollment</a> and retention and completion rates, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39369076/Do_Promise_Programs_Reduce_Student_Loans_Evidence_from_Tennessee_Promise">while reducing borrowing by over 25%</a>. </p>
<p>New Mexico has recently gone a step further, offering free tuition scholarships at all public colleges and universities, including some trade programs. The <a href="https://hed.nm.gov/free-college-for-new-mexico">scholarships</a> are offered to all state residents who maintain a 2.5 GPA while in college and enroll in at least 6 credit hours per semester. </p>
<p>Ultimately, morality requires a forward-looking as well as a backward-looking approach to debt cancellation. The way forward, I would argue, is to create a fairer society by canceling some student debt and reversing the trend of funding higher education with student borrowing. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-morality-of-canceling-student-debt-150606">first published on Dec. 2, 2020</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Padgett Walsh receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>A scholar who studies the morality of debt argues why canceling some student debt is fair.Kate Padgett Walsh, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877362022-08-02T12:57:52Z2022-08-02T12:57:52ZWhy food insecurity among Gen Z is so much higher than for other age groups<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476195/original/file-20220727-14-nkxvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=121%2C56%2C4995%2C2926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 30% of Gen Z adults needed help from a food bank or other charity to get enough food in 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FoodBanksUtah/71a3a68e5d4f4c85869e41ca301802ed/photo?Query=food%20bank&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2982&currentItemNo=35">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476532/original/file-20220728-20112-skb7td.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Adult members of Generation Z are experiencing food insecurity at <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/cfdas/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Report_06-2022.pdf">over twice the rate of the average American</a>, according to our latest consumer food survey. In fact, about 1 in 3 Americans born from 1996-2004 have had trouble affording enough food in 2022.</p>
<p>That compares with fewer than 1 in 5 millennials and members of Generation X, and fewer than 1 in 10 baby boomers. </p>
<p>We run the <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/cfdas/about/our-team/">Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability</a> at Purdue University, and every month, through our Consumer Food Insights survey, we query over 1,200 Americans with the goal of tracking national food security as well as many other behaviors, attitudes and preferences related to food. </p>
<p>Food insecurity means <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/definitions-of-food-security/">having a lack of money or other resources for food</a>. And when food insecurity surges, it can take a long time for affected populations to recover. After the Great Recession that ran from 2007 to 2009, <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2019/10/03/food-insecurity-us-households-2018-down-2017-continuing-trend-and-returning">food insecurity increased by 34%</a>. It took a decade for food insecurity to drop to its pre-recession levels.</p>
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<p>With COVID-19, food insecurity increased again, particularly among the most vulnerable groups in society, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13099">such as seniors</a> and <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13069">households with children</a>. </p>
<p>But it also increased for members of Gen Z, who were the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01082021.htm#:%7E:text=HOUSEHOLD%20DATA%0ATable%20A%2D10.%20Selected%20unemployment%20indicators%2C%20seasonally%20adjusted">most likely to face unemployment</a> due to the pandemic. And for those attending college, the pandemic reduced essential food services on campus and <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/more-students-are-dropping-out-of-college-during-covid-and-it-could-get-worse/">increased the number of students dropping out of school</a>.</p>
<p>Now, with <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL">inflation soaring at the fastest pace in 40 years</a>, those who lost jobs during the pandemic and college students with fixed incomes must stretch their limited resources even further at the grocery store.</p>
<p>We have found that education, income and race are three of the biggest factors driving food insecurity among America’s youngest generation. Members of Gen Z without a college degree or who make less than the <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines">federal poverty line</a> have a much higher risk of being food insecure – over three times the risk of other Gen Z households. The rate of food insecurity among Gen Z Black and Hispanic households is almost double that of white and Asian households. </p>
<p>Other research shows that factors like marriage and owning your own home <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppt024">typically improve food security</a>. Since young people typically aren’t married or own a home, Gen Z by and large isn’t benefiting from these factors.</p>
<p>Additionally, full-time college students are generally <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/students">not eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a>, formerly known as food stamps. Although student eligibility has been expanded during the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, the paperwork required to apply <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13497">can potentially discourage young people</a> who have much less experience navigating the government bureaucracy. </p>
<p>Our survey also shows a significant portion of Gen Z – 30% – has relied on free groceries from a pantry, church or other charity.</p>
<p>Prices for food consumed at home are currently jumping at over 12% a year. That’s the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF11#">fastest pace since 1979</a>. Our survey data only reflects some of these recent price gains, so it’s unclear yet how much this will affect food insecurity. But what is clear is that Gen Z Americans, like other vulnerable groups, need more support to ensure they can access an affordable diet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>About a third of American adults in Generation Z lack the money or resources needed for reliable access to nutritious food.Sam Polzin, Food and Agriculture Survey Scientist, Purdue UniversityAhmad Zia Wahdat, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Agricultural Economics, Purdue UniversityJayson Lusk, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849102022-06-20T10:51:31Z2022-06-20T10:51:31ZOnline dating fatigue – why some people are turning to face-to-face apps first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469280/original/file-20220616-22-d2gzpo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=82%2C49%2C5302%2C3282&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/couple-date-black-man-woman-drinking-1494190382">Prostock-studio / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the last two-plus years, people hoping to meet their soulmate in person have had a rough time. Lockdowns and uncertainty about social gatherings have led many people to turn to dating apps. People who feel they have lost months or years of their dating life may be eager to avoid the perils of dating apps – <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ghosting-to-backburner-relationships-the-reasons-people-behave-so-badly-on-dating-apps-179600">ghosting, backburner relationships</a>, or just wasting time chatting with the wrong people.</p>
<p>People are eager to meet in person, and the menu of dating apps is expanding to accommodate this. In addition to the likes of Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, there are apps that focus on bringing people together in person. </p>
<p>One of these is an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/07/thursday-dating-hit-millennials-suffering-app-fatigue/">increasingly popular</a> app called Thursday. It is live just once a week (on Thursdays) and gives users just 24 hours to arrange a date. This cuts down on the onerous swiping and messaging throughout the week and possibly prevents people using the app simply for validation or amusement. Thursday also hosts in-person events where attendees might meet someone without swiping at all.</p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-should-travel-solo-this-summer-184000?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Why you should travel solo this summer</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/sally-rooneys-conversations-with-friends-how-british-attitudes-have-become-tougher-on-adultery-183843?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends – how British attitudes have become tougher on adultery</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/love-island-ditches-fast-fashion-how-reality-celebrities-influence-young-shoppers-habits-183771?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Love Island ditches fast fashion: how reality celebrities influence young shoppers’ habits</a></em></p>
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<p>There are a few reasons in-person dating may be more appealing to some people than dating apps. The information we glean from online profiles gives us little to go on. Meeting in person results in a far richer and more detailed impression of a date than meeting online, where all we see is a photo and, usually, a brief bio. Also, 45% of current or previous users of dating apps or sites reported that the experience left them <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_2020-02-06_datingtakeaways_02">feeling frustrated</a>.</p>
<p>Online dating matches us to people we don’t know, making it easy for <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-the-love-bomb-then-the-financial-emergency-5-tactics-of-tinder-swindlers-176807">scammers to take advantage of them</a>. Apart from this, users often misrepresent themselves, resulting in disappointment when daters meet face to face.</p>
<p>While online dating appears to offer an abundance of choice, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15213269.2015.1121827?cookieSet=1">research suggests</a> that we make poorer decisions online about dating choice. We use simpler methods when choosing from a large array of potential suitors than when we choose on a one-to-one basis in person. This is often referred to as the paradox of choice.</p>
<h2>Are dating apps dead?</h2>
<p>Dating apps have undisputedly had a huge impact on how couples meet. In the US, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet/">meeting online is the most popular</a> way that couples meet, and the number has increased in recent years.</p>
<p>Part of the appeal of apps is their simplicity: you can create a profile and start matching with people in a matter of minutes. Despite this, using dating apps does take time and effort. A large survey by <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/millennials-spend-average-of-10-hours-a-week-on-dating-apps-survey-finds-but-heres-what-experts-actually-recommend-8066805">dating app Badoo found</a> that millennials spend on average 90 minutes a day looking for a date, by swiping, liking, matching and chatting.</p>
<p>Often, messages by one party go unanswered by the other, and even if there is a response, the chatting may never result in meeting in person. In 2016, Hinge’s data found that only <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/soloish/wp/2016/10/03/why-is-the-dating-app-hinge-bashing-swipe-apps/">one in 500 swipes</a> resulted in phone numbers being exchanged.</p>
<p>This onerous process may lead to online dating fatigue for some. If we get no positive matches from our seemingly endless swiping, or we receive no response to our messages, our online dating efforts will eventually fizzle out.</p>
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<img alt="A woman looks confusedly at her mobile phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469273/original/file-20220616-20-pmnopz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Traditional dating apps are still incredibly popular, especially among young people. As of 2021, Tinder has been <a href="https://www.tinderpressroom.com/news?item=122515">downloaded</a> over 450 million times – with Generation Z making up 50% of the app’s users.</p>
<p>Research by <a href="https://lendedu.com/blog/tinder-match-millennials/">Lendedu</a> asked 3,852 millennials whether they had ever met up with their Tinder matches. The research found that only 29% said “yes” – much lower than the 66% who reported meeting for at least one date via more traditional dating sites such as Match or OKCupid. </p>
<p>But not everyone on Tinder is hoping to find a date. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0736585316301216">Research among Dutch Tinder users found</a> that many use the app for validation (using matches merely as an assessment of one’s own level of attractiveness), or for the thrill of receiving a match but having no intention of pursuing a date. </p>
<p>For this reason, dating apps may eventually lose users who are pursuing genuine relationships, particularly if they are instead turning to face-to-face opportunities first. But as long as they adapt to the changing demands of daters, apps are here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Graff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Newer apps like Thursday prioritise meeting in person over possibly endless online chat.Martin Graff, Senior Lecturer in Psychology of Relationships, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845532022-06-07T07:10:41Z2022-06-07T07:10:41ZThe housing game has changed – interest rate hikes hurt more than before<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467402/original/file-20220607-18-kjr6oy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C669%2C3568%2C1739&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Reserve Bank has lifted the cash rate for the second time in two months, this time by 0.50 points to 0.85%.</p>
<p>It won’t be the last such hike. Forecasters expect the cash rate to hit 2.5% by the end of next year. This would lift the typical variable mortgage rate to near 5%.</p>
<p>Cue the claims that the new generation of borrowers are entitled – they don’t know how good they’ve had it with such low rates.</p>
<p>But the refrain misses the full story. High house prices have changed the game, making it much harder for today’s borrowers.</p>
<p>It is true that even a mortgage rate of 5% is well below the peak of about 17% earlier generations paid at the start of the 1990s. </p>
<p>But the impact of those high rates on overall mortgage interest payments as a share of income was modest, because house prices were much lower then, and mortgages were much smaller.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-middle zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467379/original/file-20220607-14-fp9ufr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Projection is for December 2023. It uses the average mortgage interest rate as at December 2021 and assumes household debt-to-income ratio is stable at December 2021 levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">RBA Tables E2 and F6; ABS National Accounts; Grattan analysis.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>Typical house prices used to be about <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Grattan-Institute-Submission-to-the-PC-review-of-the-NHHA.pdf">four times incomes</a>. Now they’re more than eight times incomes, and more in Melbourne and Sydney. </p>
<p>This has meant that for any given mortgage rate, the share of income taken up by mortgage payments is much, much higher.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467414/original/file-20220607-14-i9icwf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each dot represents a 3-month period.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: RBA Tables E2 and F6</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>If you have a small loan with a high rate, all you need is a cut in rates, some inflation and decent income growth, and your mortgage burden can fall sharply. </p>
<p>That’s how it was for borrowers in the 1990s. High rates stung, but not for long.</p>
<p>Borrowers in the 1990s who started out devoting more than 30% of their income to paying off a mortgage found themselves devoting just 12% by the time the loan was halfway through.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467415/original/file-20220607-15990-oh4qie.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Assumes 80% LVR 25-year loan on average house price in year of borrowing, taken from Yates (201 1) for pre-2010, and ABS thereafter. No lenders mortgage insurance.
Income is gross disposable income from ABS National Accounts. Historical interest rates are rolling 3-year averages of standard variable rates (discounted from 2004).
Projected interest rates are average of past 10 years. Projected income growth is 3%.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sources: ABS National Accounts and Residential House Prices; RBA Table F6; Yates (2011); Grattan Analysis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>It’s different if you’ve borrowed recently.</p>
<p>If you’ve taken out a big loan at today’s ultra-low interest rates, there’s only one way your mortgage payments can go – and that’s up.</p>
<h2>5% would hurt like it didn’t used to</h2>
<p>Even if mortgage rates stabilise at around 5% – which is implied by some of the things the Reserve Bank governor has said – and wages grow faster than they have for a decade, the mortgage burdens of millennials who’ve bought houses recently won’t much decline.</p>
<p>The extraordinary increase in house prices and debt means mortgage rates of 7% would be as painful to borrowers today as rates of 17% were decades ago.</p>
<p>It’s a common barb that newer generations are struggling with home ownership and housing costs because of <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/nest/bold-thinking-smashing-myths-smashed-avo/">profligate spending</a>, on smashed avos and the like.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paying-off-a-home-loan-used-to-be-easier-than-it-looked-its-now-harder-161873">Paying off a home loan used to be easier than it looked. It's now harder</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But millennials spend less of their incomes on “<a href="https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/920-Generation-Gap.pdf">discretionary</a>” items – such as alcohol, clothes and household services – than people of the same age did decades ago. </p>
<p>What millennials are spending much more on is housing, simply because houses are so much more expensive.</p>
<p>So as the Reserve Bank continues to increase rates, it’s important to keep in mind that comparisons between then and now miss the full story.</p>
<p>Skyrocketing house prices have changed the game. For millennials, even historically small increases in interest rates will hurt.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/expect-the-rba-to-go-easy-on-interest-rate-hikes-from-now-on-we-cant-afford-rates-to-climb-as-steeply-as-the-market-expects-184539">Expect the RBA to go easy on interest rate hikes from now on – we can't afford rates to climb as steeply as the market expects</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute's board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute's activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joey Moloney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The extraordinary increase in house prices and debt means mortgage rates of 7% would be as painful to borrowers today as rates of 17% were decades ago.Joey Moloney, Senior Associate, Grattan InstituteBrendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822262022-05-15T20:15:14Z2022-05-15T20:15:14ZHook-ups, pansexuals and holy connection: love in the time of millennials and Generation Z<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462196/original/file-20220510-12-8t3is2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C71%2C5955%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>“That Love is all there is,” wrote Emily Dickinson, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is all we know of Love;<br>
It is enough, the freight should be<br>
Proportioned to the groove.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Does what we know of love still apply to Australian relationships today – particularly among millennials and Generation Z, whose partnerships and dating behaviours are charting new territories? </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Heartland: What is the future of modern love? by Jennifer Pinkerton (Allen & Unwin).</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462191/original/file-20220510-22-dgjg6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Online dating, hook-ups, increased access to porn. Chastity movements. Romantic partners across (or regardless of) gender orientations. <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-romantic-partners-means-more-support-say-polyamorous-couples-125867">Polyamory</a> and a still-prevalent belief in <a href="https://theconversation.com/monogamy-cheating-on-what-nature-intended-or-a-simple-choice-7147">monogamy</a>. It’s all part of the modern landscape. Many committed relationships strain and break under the burden of meeting the hopes and dreams of what we imagine to be love. </p>
<p>Are the intimate and dating relationships of recent generations making more of what we traditionally understand as love, or are they creating something different, something new?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-mars-how-people-choose-partners-is-surprisingly-similar-but-depends-on-age-161081">Men are from Mars, women are from... Mars? How people choose partners is surprisingly similar (but depends on age)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Researching love</h2>
<p>Such questions are explored in <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/health-fitness/Heartland-Jennifer-Pinkerton-9781760878405">Heartland: What is the future of Modern Love?</a> by Dr Jennifer Pinkerton, a Darwin-based writer, photographer, producer, academic and Gen X-er. </p>
<p>Drawing on extensive research into more than 100 “heart-scapes” of young Australians – from transgender Aboriginal sistagirls in the Tiwi Islands to conservative Catholics living in Sydney – Pinkerton’s findings break new ground in an old landscape. </p>
<p>The complex modern dating world scoped in Heartland reveals a lack of rules, something that brings with it both loss and liberation. </p>
<p>Of course, love’s essential passion and pain remains unchanged across millennia. And some aspects of sexuality that seem new have always existed, albeit with different labels or levels of social acceptance. </p>
<p>“I desire. I crave,” wrote the Ancient Greek poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sappho">Sappho</a>, whose name is now immortalised in the description of female-only relationships. Shakespeare’s famous sonnet that begins “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45087/sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day">Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?</a>” was penned to another man. </p>
<p>Pinkerton shows the “who” is not what makes love complicated today. Millennial and Gen Z attitudes are inclusive to the point of being perplexed as to why a fuss was made (and for so long) about who can love whom. </p>
<p>It is the why, how, what, when and where that are currently making dating and relationships difficult – particularly post-pandemic – despite the ease of speedy internet access to potential partners.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462198/original/file-20220510-12-u8mp23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are ‘lots (and lots) of labels’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are also lots (and lots) of labels. They go beyond LGBTQ+. There’s sistagirl (an Aboriginal <a href="https://theconversation.com/supporting-trans-people-3-simple-things-teachers-and-researchers-can-do-149832">transgender</a> person). Vanilla (people who don’t do kink). There’s pansexual (someone who is attracted to all gender types: male, female, trans, non-binary); demipansexual (someone who seeks a deep connection); polyamory (multiple lovers) and more. Much more. </p>
<p>Without such labels, explains demipansexual Aggie (29), she couldn’t explore sexuality, her gender, or even polyamory itself. “These words describe things to other people and describe things you haven’t experienced before.” </p>
<p>The labels also function as an age dividing line. It’s a “generation thing”, says Aggie. There’s even a 14-year-old who identifies as “non-binary goth, demiromantic pansexual” who asks her Gen X aunt how she identifies. “I love who I love,” her bemused aunt replies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ghosting-to-backburner-relationships-the-reasons-people-behave-so-badly-on-dating-apps-179600">From ghosting to 'backburner' relationships: the reasons people behave so badly on dating apps</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Love, romance and liberation</h2>
<p>Yet as the interviews in Heartland reveal, it is impossible to generalise within (or about) any age group. While some find labels liberating, others shun them. And some shun dating altogether. </p>
<p>According to Pinkerton, many young people have stopped dating – and some never start. Some look askance at apps and some have tired of them. Others are simply tired of it all: Pinkerton describes them as an “army of disappointeds”. </p>
<p>One “disappointed” is Saxon (23, straight), who has spent hours chatting with potential matches, yet never met up with any of them – almost as if <a href="https://theconversation.com/tinder-fails-to-protect-women-from-abuse-but-when-we-brush-off-dick-pics-as-a-laugh-so-do-we-147909">Tinder</a> were a computer game.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman in bed looking at phone and smiling" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462207/original/file-20220510-12-3avq0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some young people don’t like using dating apps; others are tired of them.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Charlotte (22), there are hook-ups and there are dates. “There’s a big difference between dating and hook-ups for me. I agonise and stress over dates.” </p>
<p>By contrast, art student Stump (30) wants friendship with extras. “To be friends and fuck and be able to talk about shit and have that cordial thing going on.”</p>
<p>“I don’t care what they do, as long as they have a job,” says Lisa (27): “He needs to have life goals.” Her friend Kaylee (25) agrees. “If they can pay half the bills, I’m happy.”</p>
<p>Yet love and romance aren’t out of the equation. “I thought it would be more liberating to sleep with someone else than it was,” says 19-year-old law student Kami. “I suppose it didn’t feel great because there was no romantic connection.” </p>
<p>We meet Ryan (25), a shy security guard, who is reading Erich Fromm’s classic <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14142.The_Art_of_Loving">The Art of Loving</a>. He is not alone in wanting to learn how to love. Pinkerton notes that many under-40s read love and sex texts, including Gary Chapman’s popular <a href="https://www.5lovelanguages.com/store/the-5-love-languages">The Five Love Languages</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-3-ways-philosophy-can-help-us-understand-love-155374">Friday essay: 3 ways philosophy can help us understand love</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Holy connection</h2>
<p>Pinkerton sees the experiences and concerns of millennials and Gen-Z as shaping a new approach to modern love. Genuine love, she writes, demands courage, and extends beyond the narrow confines of the couple. It’s about much more than romance. </p>
<p>Pinkerton noted her surprise at how often, for example, millennials would end conversations to friends with “I love you”. At first, she thought it was a bit intense, but she soon discovered the importance young people place on their friendships is the key to what they consider holy: connection.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman smiling, looking down" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462201/original/file-20220510-12-dgjg6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Author and researcher Jennifer Pinkerton.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pinkerton’s reflections on the complexities of committed relationships are embedded in the context of her own story, which she willingly shares. While from a different generation, Pinkerton has experienced the anxiety of online communication (she particularly regrets sending a rather embarrassing haiku). </p>
<p>But it is the heartbreak of her own relationship breakdown with the father of her newborn son, and the loss of her mother, interwoven with the interviews, that contextualises and humanises the book. Heartland is not cold case research: it’s a genuine search for understanding, of self and others.</p>
<p>There is also a sense of authentic place evoked in Heartland: the “thick Red Centre heat that lifts off the road in ribbons and sends chalky-pink galahs hurtling from the sky.” Pinkerton identifies generational trends in dating and relationships that are by no means unique to Australia, but imbues them with a uniquely Australian sensibility. You can feel the heat as she writes about the Top End, a landscape clearly in her heart. </p>
<p>Heat – or rather, too much of it - is also an anxiety-provoking and distressing concern for Pinkerton’s millennials and <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-australian-teens-have-complex-views-on-religion-and-spirituality-103233">Gen Z</a> interviewees. </p>
<p>Take the usual stressors of young life and add the thought, “Maybe the planet is going to burn, and we’ll have nowhere to live”, says Helen Berry, Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Mental Health at the University of Sydney. Add dating, love, romance […] it can become too difficult to contemplate connection, in the face of so much potential risk and loss. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/love-academically-why-scholarly-hearts-are-beating-for-love-studies-104697">Love, Academically. Why scholarly hearts are beating for Love Studies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Heartland takes love seriously, as a subject worthy of research – at a time when interdisciplinary research about love is growing. In the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University, the new Love Studies network includes academics from every discipline. Mapping the field, we have discovered a diversity of research about love with multidisciplinary connections that are often surprising, ranging from popular <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-the-mattresses-a-defence-of-romance-fiction-72587">romance</a> studies to criminology, sexology and peace studies. </p>
<p>There is also a new Australian cross-university initiative, <a href="https://www.jcu.edu.au/this-is-uni/health-and-medicine/articles/exploring-the-heart-of-the-matter">The Heart of the Matter Health Humanities Project</a>, which aims to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>deepen our understanding of the heart and improve human well-being through fostering dialogue and innovation across the fields of health, medicine, engineering, philosophy, literary studies and the humanities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The initiative brings together academics and scholarship from across the country to explore the intersections between medical understandings of the heart, the role of the humanities, and the heart as a symbol and vehicle of emotion, from research on artificial hearts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/bloody-hunting-slaughtermen-sieges-and-lechery-what-does-shakespeare-tell-us-of-war-181474">Shakespeare</a>.</p>
<p>Heartland maps both the agonies and ecstasies of today’s relationships. “Among millennials and Gen Zs there’s a fluidity to life and love, and an openness to testing out alternative options,” Pinkerton concludes. “Sure, this can add to the anxiety load. Equally, it might just create more rewarding sex and love.” Labels may change, yet the search for love remains. A heavy weight, worth carrying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182226/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Reid Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research suggests that for millennials and Generation Z, a lack of rules around love and dating brings both loss and liberation.Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1728432022-01-17T01:54:55Z2022-01-17T01:54:55ZMaternal metamorphosis: how mothering has changed in Australia since the second world war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434596/original/file-20211130-19-4t29ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4585%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I first became a mother in 2013, I realised my experiences of motherhood did not match the kinds of messages circulating around me. </p>
<p>As a society we talk about motherhood either in cheesy sentimentalities – think of gift catalogues for Mother’s Day – or in terms of how overly burdensome it is for women. Too often, we depict motherhood as a problem or a crisis, rather than considering whether there are ways that mothering enriches a woman’s life.</p>
<p>Psychologists recognise becoming a mother as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/well/family/the-birth-of-a-mother.html">fundamental shift in a woman’s identity</a>. </p>
<p>So, I decided to try and understand this metamorphosis of the self that I recognised in myself, to track how it has developed over time, and what it can tell us about motherhood today. </p>
<p>By interviewing more than 60 Australian women who entered motherhood between 1945 and the present, I’ve created an oral history of how it feels to become a mother. While each interview is unique, together they form three broad eras of generational experience.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-coronavirus-may-forever-change-the-way-we-care-within-families-134527">Why coronavirus may forever change the way we care within families</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Postwar mothers</h2>
<p>Women who had their first child in the 1950s and 1960s had a distinctive experience I call postwar motherhood. During these decades, Australians embraced plans for marriage and parenthood that had been delayed by the second world war. Under conditions of full employment and high male wages, many families could live on one income. </p>
<p>In 1954, for example, only <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/42e23011aaf49548ca2570ec001971c8!OpenDocument">15% of married women were in paid work</a>. Most girls grew up assuming that their identity would centre on motherhood and for many, that meant becoming a full-time housewife. <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/6E0DF2AA818A74B7CA257987000F6EFE?opendocument">Women became mothers at a younger age and had larger families</a>: almost half had their first child in their early 20s and mothers had 3.5 children on average.</p>
<p>When I asked postwar mothers whether motherhood had changed them, many were dismissive. Eve felt that “I was the same person but growing in skills” and explained that – like many Australians in the mid-20th century – she did not analyse herself very often.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434646/original/file-20211130-18-98ddam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Postwar mums were characteristically stoic when recalling their time raising children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Postwar mothers were characteristically stoic in remembering motherhood. By contrast to living through the Great Depression or the second world war, they tended to downplay the challenges of toilet training or infant feeding. </p>
<p>However, a minority admitted finding the transition to motherhood difficult. Grace, for example, became “seriously depressed” from “managing two babies, and being isolated all day”. It was hard to speak openly about perinatal depression in an era when mental illness was considered shameful and the condition was not widely understood.</p>
<h2>Second-wave mothers</h2>
<p>Women who had children in the 1970s and 1980s had their experiences shaped by second-wave feminism.</p>
<p>More and more Australians came to believe a woman’s potential reached beyond breeding and raising children. Better access to birth control, abortion and sex education gave women a <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/facts-and-figures/births-in-australia">greater ability to control reproduction</a>. The average age of first-time motherhood rose to 25 in 1971, and women were having 2.1 children on average by 1976.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/6105.0feature+article1oct%202011">Women’s participation in the labour force</a> grew from 34% in 1961 to 62% by 1990, supported by the slow expansion of paid childcare.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434652/original/file-20211130-23-fph4pd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By the 1970s, Australian women saw their identity as stretching beyond just being wives and mothers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Australian Democracy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was growing discussion of psychology and emotion, as feminism encouraged women to speak about personal experiences, including mothering. Many second-wave mothers felt they were changed by having children. Susan said “having the first baby made my whole life worth living” and “fulfilled something that I didn’t know I needed”.</p>
<p>Second-wave mothers were franker about the difficulties of first-time motherhood. Sally found her initial experience was “hell on earth” and a “shock to the system in every way”. While Sally’s difficulties were short-lived, some mothers experienced more serious and long-lasting emotional struggles.</p>
<p>Miroslava remembers her sister Mary’s perinatal depression. Mary’s mother-in-law told her “it’s nothing” and “you’re being silly”. In an era when mental illness was stigmatised, Mary’s family was determined that “no daughter-in-law of ours was going to be diagnosed with a mental issue” and impeded her access to support services. </p>
<p>Mary’s story highlights the tragic incomprehension of many people towards perinatal depression in earlier eras. It also demonstrates that difficulties coping with motherhood do not happen in a vacuum, but rather in social contexts with many contributing factors.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mothers-explain-how-they-navigated-work-and-childcare-from-the-1970s-to-today-117617">Mothers explain how they navigated work and childcare, from the 1970s to today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Millennial mothers</h2>
<p>Women who have become mothers from the 1990s to today I call “millennial mothers”. The influence of feminism means <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/1e8c8e4887c33955ca2570ec000a9fe5!OpenDocument">motherhood is viewed as a choice</a>, and around one-quarter to one-third of Australian women alive today will likely never have children. </p>
<p>Those that do are <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/facts-and-figures/births-in-australia">having children later</a>, with the average age of first motherhood rising to 31. Australians are also having <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-24/fertility-rates-in-australia-at-all-time-low-cause-for-concern/100367258">smaller families</a>. In 2020, the average number of births per woman was 1.8. Our gender norms have fundamentally shifted: millennial mothers have grown up assuming female identity is rooted in career. </p>
<p>Our cultural ideals of the “good mother” have also changed: from judging mothers who go out to work, to judging women who stay home with their kids. Assisted reproductive technologies have enabled motherhood where it would have been difficult or impossible before, for single mothers, lesbian mothers and for women with fertility issues.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434654/original/file-20211130-21-15b2og4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millennial mothers assume having a career is a vital part of female identity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Katerina evoked the sense of intensity that characterises the early months of mothering, explaining it was both “the hardest thing” and “the most amazing thing” she has experienced. In fact, these extremes were linked in her interview, implying that the satisfaction and joy of mothering stem from mastering – or at least surviving – its difficulties.</p>
<p>After she decided to have a child on her own, Connie found motherhood much harder than anticipated. After what she describes as a couple of “breakdowns”, she was prescribed antidepressants. Connie’s depression stemmed from a disappointing birth experience, unsympathetic hospital staff while she was recovering, and inadequate support in looking after her new baby, manifesting in exhaustion and loneliness.</p>
<h2>A more complex picture emerges</h2>
<p>Across these 75 years there is a clear shift from the stoic and pragmatic accounts of postwar mothers to the more personal and expressive accounts of millennial mothers. There is also a rise in the number of women expressing difficulties adjusting to new motherhood.</p>
<p>Several factors explain these shifts. The rise of an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14780038.2018.1551273">expressive culture</a> over the second half of the 20th century means more people feel comfortable sharing emotions. Linked to this, the popularisation of psychology has <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Oral-History-and-Australian-Generations/Holmes-Thomson/p/book/9780367133627">normalised mental illness</a> (to some extent) and made it easier for mothers to admit emotional difficulties.</p>
<p>The dynamic nature of memory plays a role. For millennial mothers, memories of early motherhood are vivid and identity shifts easier to remember. For postwar mothers, memories of temporary difficulties have faded and any identity change has been integrated over decades.</p>
<p>But it’s also likely first-time motherhood was less of an identity shift for postwar mothers than today. Many grew up assuming motherhood would be central to adult identity; they didn’t view motherhood as optional. Since the women’s liberation movement, many Australian women have regarded their identity as closely linked to work, and motherhood disrupts that, at least temporarily.</p>
<p>A rising age of first motherhood contributes to this disruption. Postwar women were significantly younger when they became mothers – and it is very different for a 20-year-old to have a child compared with a 35- or 40-year-old, who may find motherhood more disruptive to her sense of self because her prematernal identity had become more solidified over time.</p>
<p>More and more women are choosing not to mother in the 21st century. I suspect one influence on women who decide against motherhood is because it looks inescapably and inevitably difficult. Yet motherhood itself is not the problem. It has the potential to be the most enriching experience of a woman’s life – but the preparation and support we provide to new mothers require dramatic improvement.</p>
<p>Motherhood comes with intense emotions, the likes of which a woman may never have previously experienced. This is hardly surprising if we keep in mind that two births are taking place: that of the infant and of the mother. </p>
<p>By improving our understanding of this profound transition we will also be able to better appreciate how mothers can be more effectively supported through one of the most cataclysmic – and rewarding – experiences of their lives: the maternal metamorphosis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Pascoe Leahy receives funding from the Australian Research Council under DE160100817.</span></em></p>As women’s relationship with work and career has changed, so too has the relationship with parenting. What women need now is more targeted support in raising children.Carla Pascoe Leahy, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1681262021-09-17T10:44:50Z2021-09-17T10:44:50ZSustainability must start with universities if the fashion industry is to change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421584/original/file-20210916-15-1eset05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C994%2C562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/closeup-fashion-waterproof-colorful-raincoat-yellow-1516930979">Saruntorn Chotchitima/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With six weeks to go until <a href="https://ukcop26.org/">COP26</a>, the delayed 2020 UN climate change conference in Glasgow, many people are considering how their personal and professional behaviour can help tackle the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/04/what-can-you-do-to-fight-the-climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>. This includes rethinking the extent to which we are defined by our consumption or our citizenship. </p>
<p>Academics recognise the widespread consensus, demonstrated through a global commitment to the UN’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/19/sustainable-development-goals-united-nations">Sustainable Development Goals</a> (SDGs), that universal action is needed to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.</p>
<p>But if in universities we continue to teach within a <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210517102802250">commodified model of education</a>, how will we deliver education for sustainable development? England, for example, has the <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/oecd-england-tuition-fees-scottish-b955661.html">highest tuition fees</a> in the developed world and the narrative of value for money has created a culture of students as consumers. </p>
<p>And where better to start than looking at how fashion students are taught to think about sustainability. The fashion industry has a well-documented history of <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-technology-help-fashion-clean-up-its-act-59888">unsustainable practices</a> including intensive and excessive production, textile waste, lack of transparency and poor labour conditions. Attending an international conference on how to create a more sustainable fashion system I recall a delegate saying: “We need to talk to industry,” to which I responded: “Our students <em>are</em> the industry.”</p>
<h2>Demanding a sustainable curriculum</h2>
<p>Educating future leaders is critical to achieving sustainability targets – and those working in fashion are no different. Graduates increasingly want to work with purpose, but are we equipping them with <a href="https://sustainability.glos.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Handbk-Sustainability-literacy-EC-16092020.pdf">sustainability literacies</a> – the information, skills and aptitudes – to challenge existing systems and structures, including the universities in which they study? </p>
<p>A 2021 <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html">Deloitte survey</a> confirms my own experience that younger people are increasingly concerned with issues such as income inequality and climate change. Many are looking for purpose over pay cheques when weighing up job opportunities. The survey reported that 44% of millennials and 49% of Gen Z base their choices on personal ethics when it comes to the type of work or the organisations they would consider joining.</p>
<p>But it’s not just employers that need to change attitudes towards creating workplaces that are more responsible when it comes to climate change. Another <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sustainability-more-important-location-mobile-students">recent survey</a> of prospective international students found that a university’s reputation and commitment to sustainability ranked higher than its location. According to <a href="https://onca.org.uk/2020/01/06/students-organising-for-sustainability-uk/">Students Organising for Sustainability UK</a> (SOS UK), 60% of students want to learn more about sustainability, and 80% of students want their institutions to do more about it.</p>
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</figure>
<h2>A focus on students</h2>
<p>It is only by taking a deep dive into sustainability that we can help fashion students understand how all the elements of the fashion business model and supply chain affect people and planet. This is greatly aided by new guidance on <a href="https://www.eauc.org.uk/advance_he_and_qaa_launch_landmark_new_guidance">Education for Sustainable Development</a> published earlier in 2021. </p>
<p>The annual <a href="https://www.greengownawards.org/home">Green Gown Awards</a> give a snapshot of the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges in the UK. In 2020, UCL’s <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/positive-climate-0">Positive Climate Campaign</a> won the 2030 Climate Action category. The University of Plymouth was highly commended for its collaborative <a href="https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/18/18648/Carbon_Strategy_issue_1.pdf">Net Zero pathway</a>. And Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) student Emma Kidd was highly commended for her <a href="https://fashiondetoxchallenge.com/">Fashion Detox Challenge</a>.</p>
<p>GCU was also recently commended by the UN as an example of <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/integration-sdgs-across-university-our-new-corporate-strategy">SDG best practice</a> for its commitment to <a href="https://www.unprme.org/">fully integrating</a> the sustainability goals into all its activities. This includes developing research, teaching materials and assessment tasks and collaborating with outside organisations at the forefront of sustainability including the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCc_7NUhKuw&list=PLxm8biUTixfl4AeoSKzhhdCqUK3DhFy8q&index=4">Ellen MacArthur Foundation</a> and its work promoting a circular fashion industry.</p>
<p>GCU’s British School of Fashion also produced a <a href="https://www.bloomsburyfashioncentral.com/products/whats-in-bloomsbury-fashion-business-cases/partner-collections/british-school-of-fashion">collection of teaching case studies</a>, as part of Bloomsbury’s digital resource, on sustainable clothing pioneers such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/10/yvon-chouinard-patagonia-founder-denying-climate-change-is-evil">Patagonia</a> and <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/stella-mccartney-g7-summit-fashion-sustainability#:%7E:text=Designers-,Stella%20McCartney%20Made%20an%20Impassioned%20Call%20for,Fashion%20at%20the%20G7%20Summit&text=McCartney%20is%20a%20well%2Dknown,on%20new%2C%20sustainable%20faux%20furs.">Stella McCartney</a>. Both businesses have an environmental mission and use creative ways to educate consumers about the climate crisis.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1332327278508912645"}"></div></p>
<p>Patagonia published a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90580854/patagonias-palindrome-poem-ad-is-a-check-on-runaway-black-friday-cyber-monday-spending">reversible poem</a> on Black Friday 2020 and Stella McCartney released her Spring 2021 collection <a href="https://www.stellamccartney.com/gb/en/stellas-world/mccartney-a-to-z-manifesto-spring-2021-collection.html">A-Z Manifesto</a> to “start a conversation about values”. By studying these businesses, students are encouraged to think about the negative social and environmental impacts of fashion, to debate the pros and cons of fabric and production choices and to actively promote more sustainable alternatives in line with their own values.</p>
<h2>Are we there yet?</h2>
<p>The UN’s <a href="https://indicators.report/targets/4-7/">Sustainable Development Goal 4.7</a> target states that by 2030: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The more we learn about sustainability, the clearer it is that many of our social and environmental challenges, including poverty, gender equality, climate change and quality education are interconnected – as exemplified by the UN’s framework of 17 SDGs. And despite the growth in commitment to sustainability from educational institutions, student bodies and individual academics, there is a widespread attitude-behaviour gap when it comes to the sector as a whole.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young woman working in a sewing sweatshop in Myanmar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421579/original/file-20210916-19-b6yod4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fashion students are increasingly concerned about sustainability and inequality issues and want universities to respond in the courses they offer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mandalay-myanmar-january-11-2016-unidentified-454972834">Catwalk Photos/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So as well as research and teaching for climate solutions we should ask universities how they are leading on measures of environmental and social sustainability. </p>
<p>In highlighting the <a href="https://racetozero.unfccc.int/dr-katharine-wilkinson-the-climate-crisis-is-a-leadership-crisis/">lack of women’s representation</a> at COP26, author and co-founder of the <a href="https://www.allwecansave.earth/project">All We Can Save Project</a>, Katharine Wilkinson, argues that the climate crisis should be considered a leadership crisis. This theme is developed by Caledonian student Luna Sanchez in her short film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk1iYrbomRQ">Manifesto for Women as Sustainability Leaders</a>. </p>
<p>Coronavirus has led to the greatest disruption in higher education in a generation. As <a href="https://londonfashionweek.co.uk/">London Fashion Week</a> resumes after the pandemic this week, now is a good time for reflection and planning. As we look forward to a new academic year, we should stop regarding students as consumers but as fellow citizens in pursuit of solutions to the world’s urgent climate crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas is editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury Fashion Business Cases.</span></em></p>More and more students want their universities to lead the way on sustainability issues. But are institutions doing enough to produce industry leaders who can meet that challenge?Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business at the British School of Fashion (GCU London), Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1660672021-09-09T12:26:50Z2021-09-09T12:26:50ZBuying groceries isn’t a problem just for the poor – middle-class millennials like me with student debt have trouble too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418976/original/file-20210901-27-1vefsj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=120%2C65%2C3527%2C2266&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When people can't afford what they want to eat, they have to make a lot of calculations at the supermarket.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-woman-wears-medical-mask-against-virus-while-royalty-free-image/1214224515">oonal/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I teach undergraduate and graduate students about <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-food-insecurity-152746">food insecurity</a>, I sometimes mention that my perspective is based not only on professional expertise but also on my personal experience. </p>
<p>Food insecurity might sound like the same thing as hunger, but that’s not the case. The somewhat technical term food insecurity applies when people can’t get the food they need for themselves or their families because of a lack of money or other resources. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx#ranges">Food security</a>, on the other hand, is more of an ideal – being able to access culturally preferred foods to support an optimal diet and health. This is my personal take on the gray area between food security and food insecurity – and how <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/student-loan-debt-2019-statistics-and-outlook-4772007">student loan debt</a> blurs the line between low-income and middle-income families.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=102075">38.3 million Americans </a> – 11.8% of the population – experienced food insecurity in 2020, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Like many other experts, I believe these numbers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9455-4">underestimate the scale of this problem</a>. And that’s not only because <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/an.112.003228">it can be hard to detect</a>.</p>
<p>One group of Americans who might also be dealing with problems accessing food is middle-class millennials with a lot of student loan debt – like me. Despite being an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=9pS6dhUAAAAJ">assistant professor</a> in a double-income household, in my opinion, I am not able to afford the foods I feel my family should be eating.</p>
<p>To be clear, based on the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/survey-tools/">official criteria</a>, my family is not food insecure. I’ve never been to a food pantry and my family always gets enough to eat. My family’s frugal diet is packed with <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/an.114.006973">nutritional value</a>: beans, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, milk and eggs. In some regards, however, I believe that my family is not fully <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/">food secure</a> because our choices are somewhat limited. </p>
<h2>Settling for a frugal diet</h2>
<p>For example, I know the benefits of <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1001/jama.296.15.1885">eating more fresh seafood</a>. It’s a lean source of protein, packed with heart-healthy fats and full of minerals and vitamins. Plus, I like how it tastes. But it can be expensive.</p>
<p>Fresh fish can cost US$15 per pound or more at <a href="https://www.heb.com/search/?q=fish">my local grocery store in central Texas</a>. That’s far higher than fresh <a href="https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/averageretailfoodandenergyprices_usandmidwest_table.htm">poultry, pork and beef</a>. Canned and frozen fish are much cheaper and last longer. Aside from a few special occasions, I’ll buy large cans of chunk light tuna and frozen packages of mussels and fish. Because price is a limiting factor, I usually stock up on vegetarian sources of protein like beans, legumes and tofu.</p>
<p>Another example is fruit. I don’t buy much fresh fruit in quantity or variety, as recommended by <a href="https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov">dietary guidelines</a>, because of cost. Instead, I rely on a small quantity of seasonal fresh fruit on sale and some <a href="https://www.heb.com/search/?q=dried+fruit">dried fruit</a>, such as raisins. </p>
<p>I make trade-offs like these in terms of what my family of four wants to eat and what our diet needs to include with every food group the government and nutritionists consider to be part of a <a href="https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/">recommended dietary pattern</a>.</p>
<p>I track items I want to buy based on what we like to eat, the food’s nutritional value or importance for culture. But I buy them only on sale or for celebrations. While I recognize my circumstances and compromises are not the same as those of a family of four with a <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines">poverty-level income</a>, some experiences – relative deprivation and stress – may be similar.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bowls of oranges, bananas, tomatoes, scallions and other produce are attractively arrayed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418975/original/file-20210901-17-1bt4v5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables is good for your health, but the costs can add up quickly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/february-2021-berlin-different-kinds-of-vegetables-and-news-photo/1231046674">Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Food insecurity economics</h2>
<p>Even though the economics of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41237221?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">food insecurity</a> is complex, <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/44678/19980_eib96.pdf">more nutritious food usually costs more and less nutritious food typically costs less</a>. </p>
<p>In pursuit of a healthy diet, low-income families, in addition to receiving assistance such as SNAP, can employ a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12859882/">variety of strategies</a> to spend less money on food. For example, they can use budget-conscious grocery shopping, daily cooking and food prep, reheating and reusing leftovers, packing lunches to eat at work and rarely eating in restaurants or buying takeout foods. </p>
<p>We live with my parents and pay what we used to pay in rent into our savings account so that someday we can buy a house. After paying for housing, utilities, transportation, health care, child care and education, credit card debt and student loans, almost half of what’s left over covers groceries: about $900 per month.</p>
<p>Spending almost half of our disposable income on food is more in line with <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending">what happens in low-income households</a>, according to the USDA. Households in the lowest, middle, and highest income groups spent about 36%, 20% and 8% of their disposable income on food, respectively, in 2019. </p>
<p>I wonder how many more Americans would be eligible for government assistance if student debt payments were taken into account. </p>
<h2>A gray area</h2>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/survey-tools/">measures food insecurity through a survey</a> of <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/measurement/#measurement">nationally representative households</a>. One of its questions is:</p>
<p>“Which of these statements best describes the food eaten in your household in the last 12 months?” These are the options:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enough of the kinds of food (I/we) want to eat</li>
<li>Enough, but not always the kinds of food (I/we) want</li>
<li>Sometimes not enough to eat</li>
<li>Often not enough to eat </li>
</ul>
<p>If someone asked me this question on food sufficiency, I would answer without hesitation: We eat enough, but not always the kinds of food I want for myself or my family.</p>
<p>In short, we – and many others making relatively high incomes – don’t meet the official criteria for food insecurity. But we also don’t have the resources to feel food secure.</p>
<h2>College debt</h2>
<p>Millennials like me are doubly burdened: Our income excludes us from many government benefits, and our needs, because of our student loan payments, leave us with very little disposable income.</p>
<p>I was the first person in my family to graduate from a four-year college and the first to obtain a graduate degree. But my career path came with a cost: Now in my 30s, I’m stuck with $133,000 in student loan debt, most of which I racked up as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>I hustled in my mid-20s to get a series of fellowships and research jobs for my top-ranked doctoral program. All that work made my career dreams come true and meant I could stop borrowing so much to finance my doctorate. But it didn’t make it easier to deal with the challenges of <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/06/01/first-generation-grad-student-laments-lack-career-opportunities-academe-opinion">being a first-generation academic</a>. In the past I have resorted to credit card debt to buy groceries and sometimes borrowing money from my relatives. It felt awful and awkward to ask for help with food while earning my doctorate in nutrition.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A piggy bank is divided into categories of spending, such as mortgage, car and food." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418977/original/file-20210901-17-1gwkspj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People appearing financially comfortable can actually be cash strapped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/financial-piggy-bank-decisions-royalty-free-image/164814703">Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other millennial professionals are struggling to make ends meet too. Monthly payments for housing, health and medical care – including health insurance premiums – and transportation leave very little money left for food. Parents, like me, also contend with high child care costs. It’s no wonder that researchers are finding that student loan debt is taking a <a href="https://theconversation.com/student-loan-debt-is-costing-recent-grads-much-more-than-just-money-158189">toll on my generation’s health and well-being</a>.</p>
<p>The average American with student loan debt spends about <a href="https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-payment">$393 per month servicing it</a>.</p>
<p>I shell out nearly triple that much to keep up with my loans. It’s the equivalent of a mortgage payment, and one-third of what I earn. My college loan payments will soar in December when the <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/student-loans/">COVID-19 relief for federal student loan payments</a> expires in tandem with <a href="https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/repayment/plans/income-driven">regularly scheduled increases</a>. My husband’s student loans are smaller, but it’s another bill we contend with.</p>
<p>While it can be frustrating to feel that the food I want for my family remains out of reach, I do realize that we are the lucky ones. I know how to shop, cook and eat on a budget and make sure my family eats a variety of nutritious and tasty meals on a regular basis. Many others in this situation don’t have what they need to cope with it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra M. Johnson receives funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Tufts University. </span></em></p>A scholar of nutrition opens up with a personal take on food insecurity in America.Cassandra M. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Foods, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1671382021-09-03T10:21:54Z2021-09-03T10:21:54ZBoomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418870/original/file-20210901-23-1w0c1m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C38%2C4203%2C1944&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are real differences between generations – but none of them relate to avocado toast.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Generational thinking is a big idea that’s been horribly corrupted and devalued by endless myths and stereotypes. These clichés have fuelled fake battles between “snowflake” millennials and “selfish” baby boomers, with younger generations facing a “war on woke” and older generations accused of “stealing” the future from the young. </p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/boomers-vs-millennials-free-yourself-from-the-phoney-generation-wars-167138&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As I argue in my book, <a href="https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/generations/">Generations</a>, this is a real shame. A more careful understanding of what’s really different between generations is one of the best tools we have to understand change – and predict the future.</p>
<p>Some of the great names in sociology and philosophy saw understanding generational change as central to understanding society overall. <a href="http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Comte/Philosophy2.pdf">Auguste Comte</a>, for example, identified the generation as a key factor in “the basic speed of human development”. </p>
<p>He argued that “we should not hide the fact that our social progress rests essentially upon death; which is to say that the successive steps of humanity necessarily require a continuous renovation … from one generation to the next”. We humans get set in our ways once we’re past our formative years, and we need the constant injection of new participants to keep society moving forward. </p>
<p>Understanding whether, and how, generations are different is vital to understanding society. The balance between generations is constantly shifting, as older cohorts die out and are replaced by new entrants. If younger generations truly do have different attitudes or behaviours to older generations, this will reshape society, and we can, to some extent, predict how it will develop if we can identify those differences.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418949/original/file-20210901-17-n03tna.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The changing generational balance of the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in place of this big thinking, today we get clickbait headlines and bad research on millennials “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-hate-napkins-2016-3?r=US&IR=T">killing the napkin industry</a>” or on how baby boomers have “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/">ruined everything</a>”. We’ve fallen a long way.</p>
<h2>Myth busting</h2>
<p>To see the true value of generational thinking, we need to identify and discard the many myths. For example, as I outline in the book, gen Z and millennials are not lazy at work or disloyal to their employers. They’re also no more materialistic than previous generations of young: a focus on being rich is something we tend to grow out of.</p>
<p>Old people are not uncaring or unwilling to act on climate change: in fact, they are more likely than young people to boycott products for social purpose reasons.</p>
<p>And our current generation of young are not a particularly unusual group of “culture warriors”. Young people are always at the leading edge of change in cultural norms, around race, immigration, sexuality and gender equality. The issues have changed, but the gap between young and old is not greater now than in the past.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there are real, and vitally important, generational differences hidden in this mess. To see them, we need to separate the three effects that explain all change in societies. Some patterns are simple “lifecycle effects”, where attitudes and behaviours are to do with our age, not which generation we are born into. Some are “period effects” – where everyone is affected, such as in a war, economic crisis or a pandemic. </p>
<p>And finally, there are “cohort effects”, which is where a new generation is different from others at the same age, and they stay different. It’s impossible to entirely separate these distinct forces, but we can often get some way towards it – and when we do, we can predict the future in a much more meaningful way. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two young people holding a tiny paper house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418905/original/file-20210901-15-pom937.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millennial home ownership in practice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many real generational differences, in vitally important areas of life. For example, the probability of you owning your own home is hugely affected by when you were born. Millennials are around half as likely to be a homeowner than generations born only a couple of decades earlier. </p>
<p>There is also a real cohort effect in experience of mental health disorders, particularly among recent generations of young women. Our relationship with alcohol and likelihood of smoking is also tied to our cohort, with huge generational declines in very regular drinking and smoking. Each of these point to different futures, from increased strain on mental health services to declining alcohol sales. </p>
<p>But lifecycle and period effects are vitally important too. For example, there is truth in the idea that we grow more conservative as we age. One analysis suggests that this ageing effect is worth around <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379413000875">0.35% to the Conservatives each year</a>, which may not sound like a lot, but is very valuable over the course of a political lifetime.</p>
<p>And, of course, the pandemic provides a very powerful example of how period effects can dramatically change things for us all.</p>
<h2>Reaching beyond the avocado</h2>
<p>When there is such richness in the realities, why are there so many myths? It’s partly down to bad marketing and workplace research – that is, people jumping on the generation bandwagon to get media coverage for their products or to sell consultancy to businesses on how to engage young employees. </p>
<p>This has become its own mini-industry. In 2015, US companies spent up to US$70 million (£51 million) on this sort of “advice” <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/helping-bosses-decode-millennialsfor-20-000-an-hour-1463505666">according to the Wall Street Journal</a>, with some experts making as much as US$20,000 an hour. Over 400 LinkedIn users now describe themselves solely as a “millennial expert” or “millennial consultant”.</p>
<p>Campaigners and politicians also play to these imagined differences. Our increasing focus on “<a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/culture-wars-in-the-uk.pdf">culture wars</a>” often involves picking out particular incidents in universities, such as the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-45717841">banning of clapping</a> at events or the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57409743">removal of a portrait of the Queen</a> to exaggerate how culturally different young people today are. </p>
<p>Maybe less obviously, politicians such as former US President Barack Obama repeatedly lionise coming generations as more focused on equality, when the evidence shows they’re often not that different. These assertions are not only wrong, but create false expectations and divides.</p>
<p>Some have had enough, calling on the Pew Research Center in the US, which has been a champion of generational groups, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/07/generation-labels-mean-nothing-retire-them/&data=04%257C01%257C">stop conducting this type of analysis</a>. I think that misses the point: it’s how it’s applied rather than the idea of generations that’s wrong.</p>
<p>We should defend the big idea and call out the myths, not abandon the field to the “millennial consultants”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bobby Duffy receives funding from the ESRC, Horizon 2020, British Academy, Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Cabinet Office.</span></em></p>Tropes around woke warriors and their heartless parents get us nowhere.Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642092021-07-19T12:11:22Z2021-07-19T12:11:22ZEvangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411528/original/file-20210715-32900-1hrwmn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C1007%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump's evangelical supporters cheered the 2018 move of of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MideastUSEmbassyToJerusalem/b6ce96595ae2499cbbc86872bc51ffdf">Ariel Schalit/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/">made waves</a> in May 2021 when he publicly suggested that Israel should prioritize its relationship with American evangelicals over American Jews. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/AmbDermer">Dermer described</a> evangelicals as the “backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.” By contrast, he described American Jews as “disproportionately among [Israel’s] critics.” </p>
<p>Dermer’s comments seemed shocking to many because he stated them in public to a reporter. But as <a href="https://walkerrobins.com/">a historian of the evangelical-Israeli relationship</a>, I didn’t find them surprising. The Israeli right’s preference for working with conservative American evangelicals over more politically variable American Jews has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">evident for years</a>. And this preference has in many ways paid off. </p>
<h2>Christian Zionism in the Trump era</h2>
<p>American Christian Zionists are evangelicals who believe that Christians have a duty to support the Jewish state because the Jews remain God’s chosen people.</p>
<p>During the Trump years, Christian Zionists were crucial allies for former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. They helped Netanyahu lobby Trump for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">relocation of</a> the U.S. embassy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/18/the-biggest-fans-of-president-trumps-israel-policy-evangelical-christians/">to Jerusalem</a>, as well as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/08/the-withdrawal-from-the-iran-deal-signals-a-new-power-player-in-washington-christian-zionists/">withdrawal of the U.S.</a> from the “Iran Deal” – the international nuclear arms control agreement with Iran.</p>
<p>These evangelicals also backed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-endorses-israeli-control-of-the-disputed-golan-heights/2019/03/21/7cfc0554-4bfb-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html">Trump’s recognition</a> of Israel’s 1981 annexation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-recognition-of-the-golan-heights-as-israeli-territory-matters-114132">the Golan Heights</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-cuts-more-than-200-million-in-aid-to-the-palestinians/2018/08/24/5bd7d58e-a7db-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html">cuts of more than US$200 million to American funding for the Palestinian Authority</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>Coming after this string of policy victories for the Israeli-evangelical alliance, Dermer’s comments made sense.</p>
<p>However, the alliance’s future may be in doubt. <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178">Recent polling shows dramatic declines</a> in support for Israel among <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/as-israel-increasingly-relies-on-us-evangelicals-for-support-younger-ones-are-walking-away-what-polls-show/">young American evangelicals</a>. Scholars <a href="https://uncp.academia.edu/MottiInbari">Motti Inbari</a> and <a href="https://www.uncp.edu/profile/dr-kirill-bumin">Kirill Bumin</a> found that between 2018 and 2021, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/support-for-israel-among-young-us-evangelicals-drops-sharply-survey/">rates of support fell</a> from 69% to 33.6% among evangelicals ages 18-29.</p>
<p>While these polls speak most immediately to the current context, they also underline a larger historical point: Evangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable.</p>
<h2>Southern Baptists and Israel</h2>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention – long the denominational avatar of white American evangelicalism – offers an example of how these beliefs have shifted over time, which I examine in my book “<a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel</a>.” </p>
<p>Southern Baptists are broadly supportive of Israel, and have been for much of the past half-century. Baptist leaders like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/evangelists-meet-in-the-holy-land-1000-from-32-countries-confer-on.html">W.A. Criswell</a> and <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/ed-mcateer-pioneer-for-faith-in-public-policy-dies-at-78/">Ed McAteer</a> helped organize Christian Zionism in the U.S. The Southern Baptist Convention itself has passed a number of <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/?fwp_resolution_search=israel">pro-Israel resolutions</a> in recent decades.</p>
<p>More recently, Southern Baptist support for Israel was highlighted when the Trump administration <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/15/mitt-romney-may-not-like-it-but-robert-jeffress-was-a-natural-choice-to-deliver-the-invocation-at-the-new-u-s-embassy-in-jerusalem/">invited Robert Jeffress</a>, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, to lead a prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018.</p>
<p>However, Southern Baptists were not always so unified in support for Israel, or the Zionist movement that led to its creation. This was evident only days after the establishment of Israel in 1948, when messengers to the convention’s annual meeting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1948/05/20/archives/baptists-criticize-truman-on-israel-refuse-commendation-consider.html?searchResultPosition=1">repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted down resolutions</a> calling for the convention to send a congratulatory telegram to U.S. President – and fellow Southern Baptist – Harry Truman for being the first foreign leader to recognize the Jewish state. </p>
<h2>Zionism was ‘God’s plan’ – unless it wasn’t</h2>
<p>This seems shocking today, after years of seemingly unanimous evangelical support for Israel. However, as I document in <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">my book</a>, Southern Baptists had diverse views on Zionism and “the Palestine question” in the decades leading up to Israel’s birth. While some did argue that support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine was a Christian duty, others defended the Arab majority’s rights in the Holy Land. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="U.S. President Harry S. Truman holds a copy of the Torah, presented to him by Chaim Weizman, right, in Washington on May 25, 1948." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Southern Baptist Convention refused to congratulate President Harry Truman for being the first world leader to officially recognize the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, even though he was one of their own. At right is Chaim Weizman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumanandWeizman/ae37ce7d442f4f5388d28efdb8b9938d">ASSOCIATED PRESS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During this era, the Southern Baptist Convention published books, pamphlets and other materials reflecting both sides. In 1936, its press <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9963436">published a work by missionary Jacob Gartenhaus</a>, a convert from Judaism to evangelical Christianity, arguing that to be against Zionism was “to oppose God’s plan.” The following year, however, the press published <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7962317">a mission study manual by J. McKee Adams</a> contending that “by every canon of justice and fair-play, the Arab is the man of first importance.” </p>
<p>Adams was one among a coterie of professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke out against what they sometimes derided as “Christian Zionism” – then an unusual term.</p>
<p>Even evangelicals who believed the Bible anticipated the return of Jews to Palestine disagreed on whether the Zionist movement was part of God’s plan. </p>
<p>The influential Baptist leader J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth, Texas, who broke away from the mainstream Southern Baptist Convention in the 1920s, argued in the 1930s and 1940s that Christians had a duty to God and civilization <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/432608001">to support the Zionists</a>. </p>
<p>But there was no widespread sense that being a Baptist – or an evangelical Protestant – entailed support for Zionism. John R. Rice, a prominent disciple of Norris’, rejected his mentor’s arguments outright. “The Zionist movement is not a fulfillment of the prophecies about Israel being restored,” Rice <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31748240">wrote in 1945</a>. “Preachers who think so are mistaken.” </p>
<p>Regarding the political question of whether Arabs or Jews should control Palestine, most evangelicals were unconcerned. The Southern Baptists focused on other priorities in the Holy Land, such as the growth of their missions in Jerusalem and Nazareth. Even those Baptists who supported the establishment of a Jewish state did not organize politically around the issue.</p>
<h2>The future of Christian Zionism</h2>
<p>In the decades after the establishment of Israel, however, <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">motivated evangelical and Jewish activists – as well as the Israeli government – </a> worked to stitch together the interfaith relationships, build the institutions and spread the ideas underpinning today’s Christian Zionist movement. These efforts have been remarkably effective in making support for Israel <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">a defining element</a> of many evangelicals’ religious and political identities.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/26/survey-young-evangelicals-largely-backed-biden-and-have-shifting-views-on-israel/">as the latest polling of young evangelicals shows</a>, there is no guarantee this will be permanent. This diverse and globally connected generation of evangelicals has <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-gen-x-and-millennial-evangelicals-are-losing-faith-in-the-conservative-culture-wars-162407">its own ideas and priorities</a>. It is more interested in social justice, less invested in the culture wars and increasingly weary of conservative politics.</p>
<p>Young evangelicals remain to be convinced of Christian Zionism. And they very well may not be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Walker Robins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The political alliance between American evangelicals and Israel’s right wing may have peaked during the Trump administration.Walker Robins, Lecturer in History, Merrimack CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624072021-06-22T12:14:06Z2021-06-22T12:14:06ZWhite Gen X and millennial evangelicals are losing faith in the conservative culture wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407077/original/file-20210617-19-fd3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C7%2C1010%2C717&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Younger evangelicals are openly questioning the religious and political traditions of their parents and grandparents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionPaulaWhite/d34a2fc5ce034461ac2a52c3d81efdcf">Julie Bennett/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1970s, white American evangelicals – a large subsection of Protestants who hold to a literal reading of the Bible – have often managed to get specific privileges through their political engagement primarily through supporting the Republican Party.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/22/reagan-tied-republicans-white-christians-now-party-is-trapped/">President Ronald Reagan symbolically consolidated the alliance</a> by bringing religious freedom and morality into public conversations that questioned the separation of church and state. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangelicals/bushand.html">Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act</a> into law. In October 2020, President Donald Trump <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-politicisation-of-the-us-supreme-court-could-lead-149025">appointed a conservative Christian, Amy Coney Barrett</a>, to the Supreme Court, and went on to win <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/324410/religious-group-voting-2020-election.aspx">80% of the white evangelical vote in the following month’s election</a>. </p>
<p>Trump went so far as to appoint a <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/key-evangelical-players-trumps-advisory-board">faith consultant board</a> composed of influential evangelical leaders. They included Paula White, a well-known pastor and televangelist; and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a leading organization in evangelical efforts to embed “family values” into politics. These panel members heralded <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2020/october/of-course-evangelicals-should-vote-for-trump.html">gestures by Trump</a>, such as signing the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty,” which targeted enforcement of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-does-the-johnson-amendment-curtail-church-freedom-73165">Johnson Amendment</a>, a 1954 tax law requiring houses of worship to stay out of politics in order to remain tax-exempt. </p>
<p>Although it’s debated what specifically <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/evangelical-christian/418236/">constitutes an evangelical</a>, many agree that they are conservatives who are highly motivated by culture war issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and sexuality. </p>
<p>But even though evangelicals are often presented as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/12/evangelicals-donald-trump-capitol-riot-voter-fraud/6644005002/">monolithic in the media</a>, current research signals <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7695/evangelicals.aspx">a more complex picture</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past six years, I have been working with an interdisciplinary team of scholars at the <a href="https://www.aarweb.org/">American Academy of Religion</a> to analyze generational shifts in evangelicalism and religion more broadly in the United States. We are finding that some of the younger evangelicals are openly questioning their religious and political traditions. In short, the majority of <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/29/the-graying-of-white-evangelicalism/">white evangelicals are aging</a> and a portion of younger evangelicals are engaging in both religion and politics differently. </p>
<h2>Leaving the faith versus reforming from within</h2>
<p>My research consists of hours of participant observation within younger evangelical faith communities, along with 50 in-depth, qualitative interviews with individuals who were raised in the politically charged evangelicalism in the southeastern United States, a region dominated by evangelicals. </p>
<p>Taken together, this research indicates increasing disaffection among white millennial and Gen X evangelicals with the cultural and political preoccupations that have strongly motivated their parents and grandparents. There is a growing number of “<a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2019/04/09/the-rise-of-exvangelical/">Exvangelicals</a>” who disavow their previous stances on same-sex marriage, race and sexuality. </p>
<p>Evangelicals, often citing the biblical text, typically maintain that marriage is <a href="https://www.prri.org/spotlight/americans-are-broadly-supportive-of-a-variety-of-lgbtq-rights/">between one man and one woman</a>. <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/ncsweb/files/2020/10/Racial-Diversity-in-U.S.-Congregations-1998-2019.pdf">Over 75% tend to worship in racially segregated congregations</a> and <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/08/29/which-religions-support-gun-control-in-the-us/">favor gun rights and ownership</a> more than other faith groups. </p>
<p>But my interviewees tend toward intense critiques of their previous religious tradition, as well as rejecting the evangelical faith completely.</p>
<p>This data parallels other scholarship unearthing racialized structures within white, American evangelicalism like the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Too-Long/Robert-P-Jones/9781982122867">work of</a> sociologist <a href="https://www.prri.org/staff/robert-p-jones-ph-d/">Robert P. Jones</a> and religious studies scholar <a href="https://africana.sas.upenn.edu/people/anthea-butler">Anthea Butler</a>. Likewise, historian <a href="https://calvin.edu/directory/people/kristin-kobes-du-mez">Kristen Kobes Du Mez</a> <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469661179/white-evangelical-racism/">examines how hypermasculinity is</a> embedded in <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495731">American evangelicalism</a>. </p>
<h2>Expanding religion and politics</h2>
<p>My research reveals communities of younger evangelicals who are expanding their religious boundaries and rethinking their stances on culture war issues, as well as questioning the merits of the culture war.</p>
<p>These younger evangelicals are trying to reform their communities from within the tradition as loyal but highly critical members. Sometimes these groups are called “emerging evangelicals” or “progressive Christians,” with some debating whether “evangelical” as a label is redeemable. </p>
<p>I observed several younger evangelicals working within their religious communities to encourage acceptance of those outside of the Christian tradition as co-religionists on similar faith paths. They herald interfaith interactions as positive. One interviewee proudly detailed to me how her church partnered with the local imam and Muslim community to educate each other on their religious practices and volunteered together at a local food bank. This kind of attitude typically is resisted by their older evangelical counterparts, as I learned in <a href="https://irstudies.org/index.php/jirs/article/view/237/203">previous research</a>. Many traditional evangelicals believe that their faith is the sole path to religious redemption, and interfaith cooperation might harm their followers. </p>
<p>Additionally, some younger evangelicals tend toward adopting spiritual resources outside of the Christian tradition. Whether incorporating meditation techniques or yoga, my interviewees highlighted the ways in which they are exploring their religious and spiritual beliefs. </p>
<p>This contrasts with older evangelicals who perceive their tradition as providing all necessary resources for spiritual growth and reject any outside or Eastern influences. One interviewee noted that she had to change evangelical churches after her evangelical church prohibited her from being both a church member and a local yoga instructor. </p>
<h2>Losing interest in the culture war</h2>
<p>Many of the younger evangelicals in my study stated that their stances on culture war issues were significantly different from the evangelical majority of the past 50 years, which aligns with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/04/though-still-conservative-young-evangelicals-are-more-liberal-than-their-elders-on-some-issues/">the findings of a 2017 Pew Research Center poll</a>. This survey found that younger generations of millennials are more liberal than older evangelicals on numerous political issues. </p>
<p>My interviewees cited an acceptance and welcoming of those who identify as LGBTQ into their communities as both members and leaders. They support and ally with the objectives of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In sum, they are actively dismantling many of the insider/outsider distinctions established by older white evangelicals and transforming what it means to be a politically engaged evangelical in America.</p>
<p>Furthermore, many of the people that I spoke with cited a culture war fatigue. Some believe that evangelicalism’s multi-decade investment in campaigning for these conservative stances and alliance with the Republican Party actually harmed the evangelical tradition instead of empowering it, while others are simply trying to opt out of the culture war and focus on their faith instead. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Donald Trump takes his seat next to National Rifle Associations (NRA) Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre, right, and Pastor Paula White, left, of the New Destiny Christian Center, at a 2017 White House meeting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Influential figures like Paula White, left, helped rally evangelical support for Donald Trump, who in turn rewarded them with advisory and other roles in his administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionPaulaWhite/d34a2fc5ce034461ac2a52c3d81efdcf">Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interviewees also told me that often their views are creating <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050341">familial conflict</a>, since their parents and grandparents cannot understand why any evangelical would not be committed to the older generations’ conservative political causes. </p>
<h2>Political conversion</h2>
<p>Research to date, including my own, has yet to measure how widespread these shifts of attitude and belief among young white evangelicals may be. But there is other evidence of internal unraveling. </p>
<p>Take a recent announcement by Beth Moore, an influential evangelical speaker and author, that she <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-a-southern-baptist/">has decided to leave</a> the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest evangelical group in the U.S. – and end her relationship with a prominent evangelical publisher. </p>
<p>Or consider the <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/06/02/leaked-russell-moore-letter-blasts-sbc-conservatives-sheds-light-on-his-resignation/">recent departure</a> of pastor Russell Moore, the former president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who resigned from his position over the denomination’s handling of racial issues. These developments indicate a growing internal struggle over who can legitimately claim authority for the evangelical tradition. </p>
<p>The last several decades of American politics have been dominated by culture war issues, with white evangelicals in positions of national power. But as my research is documenting, a political transformation seems to be underway. With younger, white evangelicals rethinking their alliances and continued participation in the culture wars, it is possible that conservative politicians may not be able to count on white evangelical support for much longer. </p>
<p>This could have broader implications for the American political landscape. Without evangelical support and influence, the issues that are often at center stage could drastically change. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s faith as a conservative Christian and pastor Russell Moore’s title.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Shoemaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Growing numbers of young evangelicals and ‘Exvangelicals’ are pro-LGBTQ, support #BlackLivesMatter – or are fed up altogether with mixing faith and politics.Terry Shoemaker, Lecturer, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.