Trendspotting: Rich Countries Have Lost Faith in Upward Mobility

NewsWire: 12/2/21

• Poorer countries are much more optimistic than richer ones, according to a new Gallup/UNICEF report. In the U.S., only 43% of young people think the next generation will be better off than their parents are. (The New York Times)
• NH: In the developing world, people are optimistic that life is improving with each successive generation. In the West, however, that hope is scarce.
• For this report, Gallup and UNICEF surveyed 21,000 people from all over the world in two age groups: 15 to 24, and 40 and up. Across all 21 countries surveyed, 54% of young people said that children today will be better off economically than their parents are now. But in high-income countries, youth are almost twice as likely to think children will be worse off than their parents economically (59%, on average) than to think they will be better off (31%). Older people are even more pessimistic: Just 28% believe that kids will be better off.
• In the six richest countries surveyed, just one-third of youth said they thought that children today would be better off than their parents. The least optimistic of all was Japan (28%), with France and Spain (both 30%) and the U.K. (32%) closely following.

• When asked what factor plays the biggest role in determining success, American youth were most likely to say hard work (37%), but that only barely edged out family wealth and connections (35%). Education was a distant third (21%). Older Americans were slightly more likely to say that hard work was most important (41%), but around half as likely to cite family wealth (20%). Other rich countries were much less likely to cite wealth or connections. In fact, the only other country where a comparable share cited wealth as the most important factor was Nigeria's corruption-plagued neighbor Cameroon.

• To some degree, the attitudinal differences between those in rich countries and developing countries are to be expected. People in developing countries have seen huge improvements in living standards in recent decades and see education and work as their ticket to a better life. Rich countries, in contrast, are either seeing slowing improvement or outright regression. These numbers simply an extension of what people have been experiencing.
• It's no wonder that college enrollment rates are declining (see “College Enrollment Continues to Fall”) when American youth see education as considerably less important than hustling. And it's no surprise that most of them believe that America’s best days are behind us (see “Teens Optimistic About Their Personal Lives, But Not the World”).