An important survey has been carried out on the youth of Britain. It can now be scientifically proven that being conservative, religious and living in London makes you a more optimistic and a more pleasant person to be around. Not shocking.
The survey has been featured in the New Statesman who reported that ‘young women are radicalising.’ The New Statesman would have us believe that this is a much underreported fact, something I could believe if you were living in a cave. Pretty much everyone else knows that the young women are voting left and the men right and never the twain shall meet.
When young men vote right wing, this is seen as a very bad thing. But young women voting left wing is seen as normal. It isn’t. But there were other interesting numbers in there about the young women:
In fact, young women are not just pessimistic about the country’s culture, but the country’s economy too. It makes sense, with sky-high rental prices, a hardening graduates job market, and years of stagnated living standards, that Gen Z would feel worse about the economy than average. What is less clear is why young women are the most pessimistic group when it comes to the UK economy, with an astonishingly low net economic optimism score of -57 (18 points worse than men of that age group). Perhaps this is why younger women are much more likely to place prices for food and energy bills and housing affordability in their top issues than young men, although it does not fully explain their political priorities. One in three (31 cent) of 16- to 25-year-old women say the conflict in Gaza is in their top three issues, placing it above things like taxes and immigration (just 22 per cent of young men say the same).
Again, it is not immediately obvious why young women would report feeling more isolated than their male peers, but there does seem to be a loneliness epidemic among young women. A majority (53 per cent) saying they feel lonely, substantially more than the proportion of young men saying the same.
First I should say that I generally read surveys with caution for the key reason that it involves humans telling other humans stuff about them – and humans tend to lie. They often lie if they want to ingratiate themselves to another person, especially if that other person is a member of the opposite sex. I mean if you send in some little hottie armed with just a smile and a clipboard to ask a few men some questions – well they will just tell her whatever they think she wants to hear. This is why Chandler couldn’t quit the gym. It’s why Ross ended up with a joint bank account.
Or take those ‘why I’m childless’ surveys. The childfree will usually say it’s because they can’t afford children. This sounds better than I want to spend my money on holidays, fast cars and women. But deep down, deep down in the place you don’t talk about at parties or to researchers or maybe even to yourself, that’s the real reason. People lie, we lie to ourselves and we lie to others. Now, these surveys are done by AI. I still think people lie to the computers.
However, parking all those reservations, this Youth Poll was interesting. For context, despite the doom loop in the UK right now the youth are quite optimistic with 63% of respondent declaring they were either very optimistic (28%) or somewhat optimistic (35%) against only 20% who said they were either somewhat pessimistic (13%) or very pessimistic (7%).
Living in London and being religious also made you more optimistic. “Londoners were the most optimistic of all while young people in the North East declared the lowest levels of optimism. Men and women were broadly as optimistic as each other, as were the different age cohorts. Those who professed a religious affiliation were also more optimistic than those without one: 72% of non-affiliated Christians, 68% of Roman Catholics and 67% of Muslims said they were optimistic compared to 56% of those with no religion.”
Being right wing and religious is also much better for your mental health, in that you feel much more connected to your local neighbourhood and your nation. “Those with a religious belief felt much more connected to their neighbourhood than those with no religion. Those young people on the right had a much higher sense of connection to their nation than those on the left: by 74% to 56%. On connection to the UK, the figures were 76% to 52%.”
Despite what the media tell you, the Rising Generation are not materialistic. They place a very high value on family and friends. Good for them.
And overall 81% of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that if they needed help, there would be people there for them. Only 15% somewhat or strongly disagreed. “I’ll be there for you…”
There was also a question, how much do you agree that so-called toxic masculinity is becoming more common among young British men? I found it shocking that only 11% of men strongly disagreed with this statement and a mere 3% of women.
Indeed, 74% of women agreed with this statement overall and 61% of men agreed overall. Within these numbers a full 23% of men strongly agreed with the statement that toxic masculinity is becoming more common among young British men. A full 37% of women strongly agreed.
Interesting. How very interesting. I think this is entirely media driven, with programmes such as Adolescence painting young men as a threat in need of anti-misogyny classes.
So a full 23% of men are sell-outs that strongly agree with the idea that toxic masculinity is becoming more common among their own sex. I wonder if they thought they themselves were guilty of ‘toxic masculinity’ or if it was just other men out there.
Not me mind, just the others. Next they will be asking the researcher back to their place to discuss what are the best ways to tackle this awful toxic masculinity that is everywhere, all around them.
It is worth noting that toxic femininity is not a thing, nor is toxic feminism. Impressing the researcher however, always is.