The Youth Poll, which surveyed over 2,000 people aged 16 to 29, found that only 38% would be willing to fight for Britain under some circumstances. Just 36% now believe their future prospects will be better than those of their parents, marking a stark decline in intergenerational optimism. The poll was commissioned by the John Smith Centre at Glasgow University and sponsored by Nationwide Building Society.
Defence and security rank low among youth priorities, with only 9% placing them in their top five issues for the UK. Young people's main domestic concerns are inflation and the cost of living, housing affordability, healthcare, immigration and asylum, and jobs and job security, according to the survey.
The idea that the next generation will have it better than previous ones has been a founding belief for decades. Today’s poll shows that the majority of this generation of young people no longer believe it to be true. And it reveals their loss of belief is collapsing at speed.
Economic pressures are intensifying for this generation. Research from the Intergenerational Foundation shows that under-30s now spend almost 70% of their total expenditure on essentials, up from around 55% in the early 2000s. Home ownership has also collapsed, with the share of 16 to 24-year-olds owning a home falling from around 27% two decades ago to just 11% today.
On international matters, 43% of young people believe the UK has a responsibility to intervene in other countries to challenge human rights abuses. The survey did not break down the 38% willing to fight under some circumstances by what those specific circumstances might be, nor did it provide demographic breakdowns by gender, region, or socioeconomic status.
On the upside, young people remain broadly optimistic about their future and want to engage in politics and public life. But locked out of the housing market, pinned down by low wages, loaded by student debt, and increasingly worried about the rise in AI, young people today feel a growing sense of unfairness about the world around them.
Experts link the economic pessimism directly to defence reluctance. Eddie Barnes, director of the John Smith Centre, suggested that lack of optimism and perceived unfairness contributes to young people's reluctance to fight for their country. Barnes noted that the survey finding that 50% wouldn't fight under any circumstances reflects this sentiment, paraphrasing young people's perspective as questioning why they should fight for a country that isn't fighting for them.
Conor Nakkan, senior researcher at the Intergenerational Foundation, said that two-thirds of young people expecting to be worse off than their parents should set off alarm bells across Westminster. Barnes called on governments across the UK and all political parties to set out practical policies to restore young people's faith in the future, though specific policy proposals were not detailed. The long-term implications of this decline in optimism for UK defence and national security remain unclear, as do comparisons with attitudes among young people in other European countries.
In those circumstances, it should be little surprise that 50 per cent say they wouldn’t fight for the country under any circumstances. Or as many young people might put it: why fight for a country that isn’t fighting for you?
Governments across the UK and all political parties need to listen and set out the practical policies that will restore young people’s faith in the future.