Written by 6/3/2019
When Ahsen Sayeed finished college at 18-years-old, he had failed his engineering course and was diagnosed with clinical depression that same year. After his second year of university, he dropped out. “I knew I didn’t want to be this person for the rest of my life,” he says. “I knew I was capable of much more.”
Trying to get out of this “vicious cycle”, Sayeed grew his business which he had started at 18. But, during this process he felt a lack of guidance from older generations. “90% of the time there was a barrier,” he says. “Say I go to some business networking event where I’ve gone to market myself, I’d always be told that I’m too young, or not skilled enough to do what I’m doing or I don’t have the equipment or I don’t know what I’m doing, that sort of stuff.”
Now 23, Sayeed works as a photographer for his company Last Minute Photographers, working on wedding, music, festival and corporate events. He has also put on exhibitions across Birmingham, his home city, and has had his work featured in the British Museum. The issue of a lack of support and unfair opinions from older generations is an obstacle that Sayeed and many members of Generation Z feel they face today.
Generation Z is made up of people born roughly between the mid-90s and mid-2000s. The people of this generation are next to finish education and start work. According to a study conducted in 2017 by Ipsos MORI for the BBC, older generations have many negative views of Generation Z, including the belief that they are ‘lazy’ and ‘care more about being on TV or famous’ than ‘having a job they love’.
In addition, Teenagency, a publication by RSA released in August 2018, revealed even more negative perceptions of young people’s abilities to make a difference. For example, 68% of young people (14-18-year-olds) have participated in volunteering or other forms of social action but only 5% of adults thought they were likely to do any social action at all.
Paul Fenton, a lecturer in social sciences at Nottingham Trent University and governor of a secondary school says: “The opinion is probably bred out of the fact that we have an increasingly intergenerational gap. I think that is worrying.” As the Office for National Statistics’ most recent report of the UK population shows, we have a longer-living population. The November 2018 report also states this presents both ‘opportunities and challenges for aspects of society’ which Fenton says has created “unknown ground” in terms of intergenerational relationships and expectations.“Simply pointing the finger at young people saying they’re lazy is not the way forward to that as a solution and ultimately we need to try to find a way forward together,” he says.
Janita Halsey has worked with young people for 12 years and is currently in her sixth year as a youth manager at Hackney Quest, a youth and community charity in the London borough of Hackney. One of their solutions to help young people break into the working world is running workshops. “We do employment focus workshops, CVs and stuff. They’re crying out for jobs, they’re not lazy,” she says. “They really want jobs but they feel not confident to get the opportunities. It’s really sad.”
According to a recent youth and employment study by Reed in Partnership, the proportion of young people citing a lack of confidence as a barrier to finding work has increased from 20% in 2010 to 27%. “It’s a real lack of self-belief. They give up. They feel a sense of helplessness they just don’t feel those opportunities are for them.” Halsey says. She expresses that there are “a lot of barriers” young people now have to face when getting employment. The same barriers which Sayeed faced starting up his business. One of which was gaining experience: “Once you apply for jobs they’re already asking for five or 10 years worth of experience which is virtually impossible because you’re only 22,” he says.
One of the youngest of Generation Z, 16-year-old Precious Oketikun, works in Youth Parliament representing the south London borough of Merton since last February. “I do think we are quite comfortable and lazy but in the work life in general, we’re not given a lot of chances,” she says. “I remember when I had to apply for work experience, it was practically hell because no one wanted someone so young. They need work experience but how can I get work experience if I'm not given the chance to gain that?” Oketikun believes that businesses “do have a role to play in our laziness” because they “prevent” young people from wanting to try with unrealistic expectations and constant rejection. According to Reed in Partnership’s young people and employment study, half of young people at university said they were not offered any work experience and 48% said their university wasn’t helpful in connecting them to employers.
Halsey, a millennial, says she remembers there would “definitely be someone who would take your application” when she was looking for jobs at 17, only the generation prior to Generation Z. “Young people go round and literally nothing,” she says.
A factor in this is the negative representation of Generation Z. “It’s a reflection of immediate saturated narrative that tends to demonise young people so I think it’s very difficult to ground that in any sort of fact,” Fenton says. “People aren't talking from first-hand experience, they’re making judgements from what they hear in a newspaper or what they see profiled in their own social media.” According to a report by Demos in 2015 on false stereotypes of young people, four-fifths of teens feel they are ‘unfairly represented in the media’. The majority (85%) argue that negative stereotypes ‘affect their chances of getting a job’. ‘Unemployment and access to work’ was the biggest concern of this age group as they look to enter the workforce.
Despite this Sayeed, who sits on the border of millennials and Generation Z, believes Generation Z have it “slightly easier” than millennials. “We tested the waters and we mentor and guide Gen Z. Whereas in my case especially, I didn’t have a mentor who could tell me where I’m going wrong or going right,” he says. Nevertheless, he does agree with Fenton’s opinion that Generation Z is one of the “most activist generations that we've seen since the 1960s”. “This generation is probably the most hardworking,” Sayeed says. “We’re always striving to do more and become more and I think it’s partially looking for acceptance in older generations.”
Oketikun believes in order for her generation to rid themselves of negative stereotypes they need to “change our laziness” and the “‘I wanna stay in my comfort zone’ kind of feeling”. “We lose that sense of ambition so we no longer aim to achieve something, we aim to get whatever we get. So what would be nice is to see more competition. ‘I wanna get somewhere with my life’ sort of thing than ‘I’ll just go with the flow’.” she says. Schools also have a part to play in this narrative. “We tend to continue to prepare them for a society that doesn't really exist anymore. We’re preparing them all simply to pass exams,” says Fenton. This doesn’t equip young people with the life skills they need when they leave school.
In 2013, the Association of School and College Leaders responded to an inquiry into how the education system and the national curriculum is equipping young people with skills for life. They stated that life skills in schools had been “poorly reflected in the national curriculum”. “There’s a lot more that could be put in place to prepare young people for the world. It’s a lot about just getting good grades,” Janita says. “They’re missing out everything else from social skills and skills young people need to live because it’s so educationally focused.”
Like every generation, Generation Z has its strengths and shortcomings but “we’re most definitely breaking barriers and changing perspectives,” Sayeed says. “I think the future's quite bright in that sense. We don’t necessarily come out of university or school or anything and climb a ladder from the bottom.”
According to a 2018 study by Ipsos on behalf of the Gates Foundation, ‘Understanding the Perspectives of Young People Around the World’, 51% of young people in Great Britain were ‘somewhat optimistic’ about their futures. Fenton, as well as Halsey, believes there is an issue surrounding Generation Z’s hopes and aspirations which he views as “different to their work ethic”. “Often it’s too easy to look at young people and say, ‘oh the younger generation’ but actually, we probably need to be honest and say ‘oh dear, the adult generation has not taken seriously the role of nurturing the younger generation’,” Fenton says. “Because if there is no hope, why haven't we given them it?”
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