They weren't unhappy with now. They were terrified of next.
In the autumn of 2020, a Swiss generational survey captured something rarely made so explicit: a near-unanimous consensus that the young will inherit less than their parents received. Across 3,285 respondents, the old compact of progress — each generation rising above the last — was declared broken. The anxiety belongs not to the present moment but to the horizon, where climate instability, pension fragility, and widening inequality wait. A society long defined by consensus now finds that consensus resting on a shared foreboding.
- Ninety-four percent of Swiss respondents agreed that today's youth face worse prospects than their parents — a near-total collapse of intergenerational optimism that once defined the country's self-image.
- Young people aged 18–24 are not suffering in the present so much as dreading the future: 42% report lacking confidence in life, with climate change and environmental collapse driving their unease.
- Structural fault lines are widening beneath the surface — 71% see the wealth gap growing, 57% feel political polarization deepening, and one-third fear the erosion of solidarity between generations.
- The pension system has become a flashpoint, with 55% believing younger workers will bear an unsustainable burden — a political problem already in motion that the young will be left to resolve.
- Deep cultural divergences compound the economic ones: two-thirds of young adults accept non-monogamous relationships as normal, compared to just 26% of those in their late forties — a signal that the generations are not merely disagreeing about policy, but about the architecture of life itself.
In September 2020, researchers surveyed 3,285 Swiss residents and received an answer that was almost unanimous: 94% believed young people today would not live better lives than their parents. The finding, part of the Generation Barometer 2020, marked a quiet rupture in Switzerland's self-understanding — a country where generational progress had long been assumed, not debated.
The pessimism was sharpest among those with the most future ahead of them. Among 18-to-24-year-olds, 42% said they lacked confidence in life — not because of present hardship, but because of what they saw coming. Climate change and environmental degradation dominated their fears. The instability they dreaded had not yet fully arrived, but they could feel its approach.
The survey also mapped fractures spreading across Swiss society more broadly. Seventy-one percent saw inequality growing between rich and poor. Fifty-seven percent felt the left-right divide widening. Nearly half noticed urban and rural communities pulling apart. One-third worried about a loss of solidarity between young and old — a particularly charged concern in a country where intergenerational cooperation has historically been a cornerstone of civic life.
The pension system crystallized these tensions. Fifty-five percent of respondents, across all ages, agreed that younger workers faced structural disadvantages in sustaining Switzerland's retirement system — a problem already in political circulation that the young will ultimately inherit. More than half of young adults also reported experiencing disadvantages simply because of their age.
Cultural distances widened the picture further. Two-thirds of young adults considered non-monogamous relationships normal; only 26% of those in their mid-forties agreed. Similar gaps appeared in attitudes toward domestic labor. These were not minor differences in preference — they reflected divergent visions of how life itself should be organized.
What the survey ultimately revealed was a society whose social contract feels strained, but whose members still share enough common ground to name the problem together. Young people are not in crisis today — they are anxious about tomorrow. And the fact that their elders largely agree may be the most unsettling consensus of all.
In September 2020, researchers at Sotomo asked 3,285 Swiss residents a straightforward question about the future: Will young people today live better lives than their parents did? The answer came back almost unanimous. Ninety-four percent said no.
This finding, released as part of the Generation Barometer 2020 survey, marks a rupture in how Switzerland sees itself. For decades, each generation could reasonably expect to do better than the one before—more money, more security, more opportunity. The current cohort of people aged 65 to 74 was the last to feel that way about their own lives. Everyone younger than that, the survey suggests, is entering a world that feels narrower, not wider.
The pessimism runs deepest among those who will live longest with the consequences. When researchers asked 18-to-24-year-olds how they felt about their prospects, 42 percent reported lacking confidence in life. But here's the crucial detail: they weren't unhappy with how things are right now. Their anxiety was almost entirely about what comes next. Climate change and environmental degradation topped their list of worries. The future felt unstable in ways the present had not yet made fully real.
Beyond generational optimism, the survey uncovered widening fractures across Swiss society. Seventy-one percent of respondents believed the gap between rich and poor was growing. Fifty-seven percent saw the divide between left and right deepening. Forty-nine percent noticed urban and rural communities drifting apart. One-third expressed concern about a "loss of solidarity" between young and old—a particular anxiety in a country where intergenerational cooperation has long been a social foundation.
The pension system emerged as a focal point of intergenerational strain. Fifty-five percent of all respondents, across every age group, said younger people faced disadvantages when it came to the sustainability of Switzerland's retirement system. This wasn't abstract worry. The pension question has been a live political issue in Switzerland for years, a structural problem that younger workers will inherit and have to solve.
Young people also reported feeling disadvantaged simply because of their age. Just over half said they experienced some form of age-based disadvantage, a perception that cuts across the usual categories of privilege and hardship.
The generational divide extended into how people actually live. Two-thirds of 18-to-24-year-olds said non-monogamous relationships were acceptable and normal. Among those aged 45 to 54, only 26 percent agreed. The same gap appeared in attitudes toward how household labor should be divided between men and women. These weren't trivial differences in taste. They reflected fundamentally different ideas about how to structure intimate life.
What emerges from the survey is a portrait of a country where the social contract feels frayed. Young people aren't in crisis today—they're anxious about tomorrow. Their elders sense the fractures too, and most agree that the young have drawn a shorter straw. In a nation built on consensus and intergenerational stability, that agreement itself may be the most unsettling finding of all.
Notable Quotes
The current generation of 65-74-year-olds was the last to report feeling their life had been clearly better than their predecessors— Generation Barometer 2020 survey findings
Young people were not particularly dissatisfied with the present, but rather worried about future scenarios, especially climate and environmental change— Generation Barometer 2020 report
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that 94 percent agree on this? Couldn't that just be realistic?
Because for most of modern history, that number would have been the opposite. Parents expected their children to do better. That expectation shaped everything—how people saved, what they taught their kids, how they voted. When it flips, the whole social foundation shifts.
The young people surveyed weren't actually unhappy right now, though. They're worried about the future. Isn't that different from real hardship?
It is different, but it's also its own kind of hardship. You're 22, your life is fine today, but you can't see a path forward that feels secure. That shapes how you think about everything—whether to have children, whether to stay in your country, what risks are worth taking.
Climate change came up a lot in the youth responses. Is that the main driver of their pessimism?
It's part of it, but it's tangled up with pensions, housing costs, job security. Climate is the thing they name, but it's really about feeling like the world is being handed to them in worse condition than it was handed to their parents.
The survey also found people worried about solidarity breaking down. Do you think it is?
The worry itself is the signal. When a third of people fear you're losing something, you probably are. And if young people feel the system is rigged against them and older people agree, there's not much glue left.
What happens next? Does this change policy?
That's the question. A survey like this is a warning. Whether Switzerland listens—whether it actually reforms pensions, addresses climate, makes housing affordable—that determines whether this pessimism becomes self-fulfilling or gets interrupted.