SOCIAL FABRIC
This report reveals that Britain’s fraying social fabric is not just geographic in nature but generational, with each new cohort of young people less interwoven with, and supported by, wider society than the one before it.
We explore who is driving community decline and exposes a startling insight – that the fraying of Britain’s social fabric may be in large part a generational problem. Young people appear to be suffering from what can only be described as a collapse in community and epidemic of loneliness, and this crisis of belonging is getting worse over time. Combining analysis of longitudinal surveys with our own polling, we find that:
The proportion of under-35s saying they have just one or no close friends has trebled in 10 years, from 7% to 22% while the share with four or more has fallen from 64% to 40%.
Compared to 20 years ago, under-35s are a third as likely to say they regularly speak to neighbours and a third less likely to borrow and exchange favours with them.
Millennials and Generation Z are less likely to be members of a group or participate in group activities than previous generations were at similar ages.
The share of young people who agree that “generally speaking, most people can be trusted” has fallen twice as fast among under-35s as among over-35s in recent decades. Today just 30% of under-35s say most people are generally trustworthy, versus 40% for over-35s.
People under the age of 25 are three times more likely (48%) than people over the age of 65 years old (15%) to distrust their neighbours. Only around half (54%) of under-25s say they trust their family “completely”, compared to 80% among over-65s.
The proportion of under-35s saying they have just one or no close friends has trebled in 10 years, from 7% to 22% while the share with four or more has fallen from 64% to 40%.
Compared to 20 years ago, under-35s are a third as likely to say they regularly speak to neighbours and a third less likely to borrow and exchange favours with them.
Millennials and Generation Z are less likely to be members of a group or participate in group activities than previous generations were at similar ages.
The share of young people who agree that “generally speaking, most people can be trusted” has fallen twice as fast among under-35s as among over-35s in recent decades. Today just 30% of under-35s say most people are generally trustworthy, versus 40% for over-35s.
People under the age of 25 are three times more likely (48%) than people over the age of 65 years old (15%) to distrust their neighbours. Only around half (54%) of under-25s say they trust their family “completely”, compared to 80% among over-65s.
These figures expose what we might call a “paradox of virtue”. On the one hand, young people are ostensibly the most socially conscious generations in recent history, with more progressive views on social issues, such as inequality and the environment, than both older generations and previous generations of young people. But on the other hand, they are the easily the least socially attached to interpersonal networks or to their neighbourhood, and on most measures of social capital the gap between younger and older generations is widening, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
This suggests an enormous opportunity if we can transform the social intentions of younger generations into meaningful social action. Qualitative research for this paper reveals that young people are not detached from their communities out of choice, but through lack of opportunity, security and time. If policymakers can create meaningful routes for young people to engage, and the space and freedom to do it, we may emerge from the pandemic to a great civic revival of the kind witnessed at the beginning of the last century.
This report is published as part of Onward’s social fabric programme, which seeks to understand the changing nature of community in different parts of the UK, and explore ways to repair the social fabric of different places in meaningful and practical ways. It is currently supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Shelter and Power to Change.
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