Opinion | Gen Z Is Barely Holding On to the American Dream

Avalos has lots of relatives in Guadalajara, Mexico. He said that while he would worry about violence if he moved there, “at the same time, you know, a lot of my family in Mexico, like, their kids have degrees, they own their homes, and I don’t see them struggling that much to put food on their plates.”

Partnership is still a goal, but kids seem out of reach

For all the hand-wringing about how Gen Z and gender polarization has made dating more difficult, nearly all the people I spoke to were married or saw a permanent, long-term relationship as part of their life plan, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. “Not everybody wants to have kids or anything, but I think almost everybody wants to be married at some point,” Gilleylen told me.

As a happily married lady who thinks good marriages are good, I was glad to hear that these whippersnappers hadn’t given up on the institution. This makes a lot of sense, given the generation’s overall conservatism — a supportive, loving relationship and another potential income can get you through a lot of difficult times.

But as Gilleylen expressed it, kids are a question mark. And it’s not because the young people I spoke to were anti-kids. It was because they thought they could not afford to have children. Aimee Wang, who is 19 and in college in Pittsburgh, said it almost seems that having kids is now a financial privilege. Even though her parents achieved the American dream in its purest form — they were immigrants who came to the United States with no money and opened a successful noodle restaurant — she isn’t sure that it’s possible for her to do so as well. She joked, “If you have the money, then you should get a kid. But if you really don’t have the money, you should just have a cat.”

This all seems bleak, I know. But Scanlon was able to frame this for me in a way that seems a bit hopeful, because she thinks that Gen Z’s changing view of the dream reflects the fact that they’re paying attention. “Young people aren’t zombie-walking the path,” she said. “It comes with a lot of worry and fear,” she added, but the rethinking means “that you’re awake — and that’s what building something new requires.”