The Good, The Bad & The Lonely: What we need to know about Gen Z
“Social ties are a bulwark against parental mental health problems and an avenue for material and emotional support. ”
Idea in Brief
Parental loneliness has direct and intergenerational impacts on parent and child mental health.
Capita’s report shows that loneliness is a particular challenge for Gen Z compared to other generations.
To address the crisis of parents’ loneliness, we must now identify innovations and new strategies to promote parents’ and children’s connection and well-being. We also have the opportunity to rebuild our communities, neighborhoods, and platforms to promote stronger social connection.
By Elizabeth Erickson
Parents are lonely.
In a recent survey of parents in North Carolina commissioned by Capita, as many as one-third of respondents across the state reported feeling lonely. Given the implications of loneliness and a lack of social connection to a person’s overall physical and mental health, this finding should alarm us all.
A Young Mother Carries Her Baby and Pushes a Stroller on the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh, North Carolina/Shutterstock.
Relatedness, connection, and belonging have been identified as important for maintaining human well being. Conversely, loneliness is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Parental loneliness has direct and intergenerational impacts on parent and child mental health. A child’s connection to their parent is the central relationship in their lives, and a wealth of evidence shows that parents’ well-being also has a direct impact on their child’s overall development. Given the growing body of evidence on this, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently published, ‘Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering With Families and Communities to Promote Relational Health’. In this policy statement, the authors write that “an individual's degree of social isolation is a powerful predictor of mortality, much like traditional clinical risk factors (e.g. obesity or hypertension)”. They also stress that safe stable nurturing relationships “are biological necessities for all children” and are a foundation for their development.
Our report, The Ties That Bind and Nurture, provides useful insight into the nature of parental loneliness. We surveyed 800 parents across North Carolina (aged 18 to 50) with young children (aged zero to five) to explore social connection, trust, and civic and community engagement. Our report shows that loneliness is a particular challenge for Gen Z compared to other generations. While many consider people in this generation to be younger, they are, in fact, the cohort beginning to graduate college, enter the workforce, and become parents. In fact, based on our analysis of CDC data, by 2027 around 12 million moms in this generation will have already had their first child.
“We found that 46 % of Gen Z parents of young children said they are lonely, which is about 12 % more than older parents.”
In many ways, this finding is not surprising. COVID, of course, is the defining event of their generation and has escalated the problem of social isolation across the US and beyond. We’re learning more about the effects of school closures, child care stresses, and the many other disruptions the pandemic has caused and how this is showing up as the dissolution of connectedness. The social ties that had already been unraveling, thanks to social media and other causes all but dissolved in the face of the global pandemic. While many have heard that “it takes a village to raise a child” our report shows that “the ‘village’ that parents knew and trusted before [the pandemic] may look very different in the future.”
While the pandemic brought about an avalanche of tragedy, it also made us realize that our old models of social connection and association are not fit to accommodate the needs of a new generation.Too many of us operate under the belief that we are simply autonomous, utility-maximizing individuals bound to one another by vague social contracts. This deep cultural current only furthers our isolation and loneliness by structuring society to discourage authentic and dependent social connections and relationships that prevent loneliness.
Marshall Park, Charlotte, North Carolina/Shutterstock.
To address the crisis of parents’ loneliness, we must now identify innovations and new strategies to promote parents’ and children’s connection and well-being. We should treat the need to promote relationships as a public health imperative. We also have the opportunity to rebuild our communities, neighborhoods, and platforms to promote stronger social connection. For example, more parks and other green spaces promote healthy connections that are an antidote to loneliness. We may need to reconsider our reliance on car centric developments that reduce social contacts. Sound housing policy is also important since unstable housing and frequent moves disrupt important social connections.
Social ties are a bulwark against parental mental health problems and an avenue for material and emotional support. In finding ways to address parents’ loneliness and improve their well-being, we are not just improving their lives, we will improve the connection and well-being of their children across their lifespan. This has huge implications for our society over the coming decades, to help those children become resilient and deeply connected adults in our society.
Dr Elizabeth Erickson is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University in North Carolina. Her career to date has focused on clinical care and the promotion of Early Relational Health in clinical spaces.
Dr Erickson is particularly interested in how literacy and reading with young children can promote healthy attachment and development. As the inaugural Early Relational Health Fellow for Reach Out and Read, she has solidified a position at the center of national conversations on this topic. Dr Erickson also serves as the co-lead for the Carolinas Collaborative, a cohort of academic pediatric residency programs in North and South Carolina dedicated to promoting advocacy education in pediatric residency programs.
The Ties that Bind and Nurture report was commissioned by Capita with funding from Reach Out and Read Carolinas. In her role as inaugural Early Relational Health Fellow Dr Erickson served as an advisor to the project. Capita gratefully acknowledges the support of Reach Out and Read Carolinas.