Young people are becoming more alienated as a shared sense of community and belonging collapses. A new report from Onward entitled Age of Alienation outlines the way this stark trend has been greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain.
Authors Will Tanner, Fjolla Krasniqi, and James Blagden highlight the key trends of low social trust and community attachment in the country:
- The proportion of under-35s saying they have just one or no close friends has tripled in 10 years, from 7 percent to 22 percent, while the share with four or more has fallen from 64 percent to 40 percent.
- Compared to 20 years ago, under-35s are a third as likely to say they regularly speak to neighbours and a third less likely to borrow and exchange favours with them.
- Millennials and Generation Z are less likely to be members of a group or participate in group activities than previous generations were at similar ages.
- The share of young people who agree that “generally speaking, most people can be trusted” has fallen twice as fast among under-35s as among over-35s in recent decades. Today just 30 percent of under-35s say most people are generally trustworthy, versus 40 percent for over-35s.
- People under the age of 25 are three times more likely (48 percent) than people over the age of 65 years old (15 percent) to distrust their neighbours. Only around half (54 percent) of under-25s say they trust their family “completely”, compared to 80 percent among over-65s.
The report offers several recommendations to combat these trends:
- Introduce national civic service to revive civic participation among young people.
- Offer young people civic rewards to incentivise community engagement.
- Democratise public spaces and high streets to give communities places to come together.
- Give young people greater security by creating 500,000 new reduced rent homes.
