The UK is moving beyond putting a high value on working - millennials and Gen Z acutely so
Photo by Dor Farber on Unsplash
Some really interesting statistics on changing UK attitudes to work, taken from the latest World Values Survey, as contributed to by King’s College London.
For our purposes, the more that people don’t define themselves by standard labour-market jobs, the more mental and energetic room they have for embracing new styles of planet-friendly, eco-civilisational living.
That process is really picking up speed in the UK - and particularly between generations. As the KCL report says:
Most generations’ opinions on whether work should always come first have remained relatively stable, but Millennials have become much less likely to agree with this view over time: in 2009, 41% felt this way; by 2022, this had fallen to 14%.
Both Gen X (17%) and Gen Z (19%) are similarly unlikely to think work should be prioritised above all else, but Baby Boomers (28%) and the Pre-War generation (43%) are more supportive of this view.
And in 2022, 52% of Millennials said it would be a good thing if less importance were placed on work – up from 31% back in 2005. Over the same period, views among the two oldest generations went in the opposite direction, and they are today considerably less likely to hold this view than other cohorts.
A third of Baby Boomers (34%) and a fifth of the Pre-War generation (22%) think this would be a positive development, compared with around half of Millennials (52%), Gen Z (52%) and Gen X (50%).
In general, the UK is internationally at the low-end of esteeming the general importance of work:
The UK has one of the most favourable views of people who don’t work: only Sweden (32%) is less likely than the UK (40%) to say such individuals turn lazy.
The UK (60%) ranks 18th for agreement with the view that work is a duty towards society, and several peer countries, including Norway (86%) and Germany (74%), are notably more likely to hold this opinion.
We are among the most welcoming of a future where work is less important to our way of life:
The UK (43%) ranks fifth for the belief that it would be a good thing if less importance were placed on work – above the likes of the US (29%), Italy (27%) and Norway (21%).
And 19% of the UK public think it would be a bad thing if less importance were placed on work, with Canada (18%) and Australia (20%) the only countries where such a small proportion feel this way.
As the report lead Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said:
…the data shows a long-term shift in preferences for work-life balance across a wide range of richer countries, where over the last 40 years across many major economies, more now say that it would be a good thing if less importance was placed on work.