Generation Z (or Gen Z), colloquially referred to as "zoomers" in the West, is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and the early 2010s as ending birth years, with the generation generally being defined as people born from 1997 to 2012.

In the late 2010s, Generation Z was often portrayed as a progressive cohort, showing strong support for social issues, such as climate change mitigation. The generation has been described as "pro-government."

This perception has been challenged in Europe and the United States where Gen Z voters have supported right-wing populist parties as well as left-wing populist parties. The political divide within Gen Z has become increasingly pronounced along gender lines in some countries. According to Politico, age may play a large role in political ideology of Gen Z depending on how young they were during world events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Older members of Gen Z leaned progressive while younger members were more conservative, particularly in the United States.

Movements associated with Gen Z so far include fourth-wave feminism, School Strike for Climate, March for Our Lives, Students Against Discrimination and Pro-Palestine movement. Gen Z protests have toppled governments in Asia and Africa, and are associated with internet activism.

Contrary to older generations, who mainly receive news from television news, Generation Z receives their information predominantly from social media.

Voting patterns According to Sean Simpsons of Ipsos, people are more likely to vote when they have more at stake, such as children to raise, homes to maintain, and income taxes to pay. The generational gap of political positions could be due to the fact that today's youths grew up in different sociopolitical environments to their parents and grandparents - environments which make them more likely to go to university, correlating with socially liberal views on certain issues. Since Gen Z are the second generation to own less than their predecessors at the same age, after Millennials, economically redistributive policies tend to be popular with the generation.

In recent years, a political gender gap between Gen Z men and women emerged, with Gen Z men leaning towards conservatism and right-wing populism, and women leaning towards support for liberal policies and left-wing populism, a gap that has been detected by various research and numerous countries, but more predominantly in Argentina, Brazil, the United States and South Korea.

Europe In the 2019 European Parliament election in France, the support of the far-right National Rally (formerly the National Front) among those 35 and under nearly halved as compared to the 2014 election, where the Front won the plurality of votes in that age group. Depending on how the generation is defined, the 2014 election either had one year or no years of Generation Z voters, while the 2019 election had four to six years. In the first round of the 2017 presidential election, National Front candidate Marine Le Pen won more votes from people between the ages of 18 and 35 than any other candidate. Moreover, the share of women aged 18 to 26 who backed the Le Pen political family rose from 9% in 1988 to 32% in 2017, closing the gender gap in the process.

In Austria, more than one in two men between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for the nationalist Freedom Party in the 2016 presidential election, and 30% of those ages 18 to 29 voted for the Freedom Party in the 2017 parliamentary elections. However, in the 2019 European Parliament election, the Freedom Party came in third with the same age group (17%), behind both the Greens (28%) and the Social Democratic Party (22%).

In the 2019 European Parliament election in Germany, 30% of voters aged 18 to 30 voted for the Green Party, beating every other political party by wide margins in that particular age group.

In Italy, the populist party Five Star Movement won the youth vote overwhelmingly in the 2018 national election. But in the 2019 European Parliament election, the right-wing party Lega Nord won the largest vote-share among both millennials and Gen Z.

In the 2019 European Parliament election in Poland, the national-conservative Law and Justice party came first among those aged 18 to 29.

In the 2022 school elections in Sweden, in which 80% percent of all Swedish teenagers participated, 9% voted for left-wing parties, 21% voted for centre-left parties, 8% voted for a centrist party, 41% voted for centre-right parties, and 21% voted for a right-wing party.

Political scientist George Tilley notes that, in the United Kingdom, while older people tend to vote for the Conservative Party, young people tend to choose the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, or the Green Party. In the 2019 UK general election, the Labour Party had a 43-point lead over the Conservative Party among voters aged 18 to 24. Winning the support of young people does not necessarily translate to increasing young voters' turnouts in the UK, and positive reactions on social media may not lead to success at the ballot box. Despite reports of a surge in turnouts among young voters in the 2015 and 2017 United Kingdom general elections, statistical scrutiny by the British Elections Study revealed that the margin of error was too large to determine whether or not there was a significant increase or decrease in the number of young participants. In both cases, turnouts among those aged 18 to 24 was between 40% and 50%.

Ahead of the 2025 German federal election, the left-wing party The Left saw a surge amongst younger voters in the last days before the election, and eventually, came first amongst 18-24 year old voters with 25% of the vote. The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany came second amongst the age group with 21% of the vote, stronger than with over 60-year olds. Amongst the 18-24 year olds, also a gender gap was visible, with 35% of women aged 18 to 24 voting for Die Linke and overall 60% of young women voting for left-wing parties (The Left, Social Democratic Party, The Greens), whilst amongst 18-24-year-old men, Alternative for Germany came first with 27% of the vote and about 50% of men voting for right-wing parties (also including Christian Democratic Union and classical liberal Free Democratic Party).

Americas United States

In a 2016 mock election of upper elementary, middle, and high school students conducted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump among the students, with Clinton receiving 46% of the vote, Donald Trump receiving 41%, and other candidates receiving 12%. A 2017 survey produced by MTV and the Public Religion Research Institute found that 72% of Americans aged 15 to 24 held unfavorable views of President Donald Trump. A 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that among those aged 13 to 21, only 30% approved of Trump's job performance, and in a 2020 Politico poll, only about 28% of those aged 18 to 23 approved of Donald Trump's job performance.

In the 2018 midterm elections, voter turnout among 18 to 29-year-olds went up to 36% from 20% in 2014, the largest percentage point increase for any age group. This increase in youth turnout has been attributed to a rebuttal of Trump among young millennials and older members of Generation Z, as well as to the get out the vote initiatives that were part of the student-led gun violence protest March for Our Lives, which was described as "Generation Z's first social movement". However, according to a field survey by The Washington Post interviewing every fifth person at the protest, only ten percent of the participants were 18 years of age or younger. Meanwhile, the adult participants of the protest had an average age of just under 49.

According to a Politico survey, a 2020 presidential election with only Generation Z voters would see Joe Biden win 51% of the popular vote, compared to Donald Trump's 25%. However, almost half of Biden voters said they were voting against Trump rather than for Biden, reflected in lower approval ratings for both Joe Biden and congressional Democrats than the general public. In the 2020 presidential election, 50% of those aged 18 to 29 voted, compared to 39% in the 2016 election. In addition, voter turnout among newly eligible voters (ages 18 and 19) was 46%, stronger than previous years. The increase has also been attributed to the expansion of postal voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Representative Maxwell Frost (born in 1997) has become the first and only member of Generation Z so far to be elected into the United States Congress. He ran for Florida's 10th congressional district representing the Democratic Party.

In the 2024 U.S. election, Gen Z voters displayed notable gender-based differences in their voting patterns. Gen Z women, more than men, tended to support progressive candidates, influenced by concerns about issues like reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and Fourth-wave feminism. This pattern was consistent with broader trends, where younger women were more likely to back Democrat candidates. Meanwhile, Gen Z men shifted further to Republican candidates like Trump. Explanations for Trump's gains with young men include the economy, appealing to them through podcasters like Joe Rogan, "speaking to" their mental health struggles, less outreach from liberals, and men feeling "left behind" amid progress for women. Some post-election surveys of Gen Z voters have found their rightward shift in the 2024 election may have been temporary.

South America In 2022, exit polls revealed that voters aged 18 to 24 intended to vote overwhelmingly (by a margin of over 35%) for Gustavo Petro in the runoff for the Colombian presidential election. Petro's victory marked the first time that a leftist politician was elected to the office.

The same phenomenon was seen in the 2022 presidential election in Brazil, where polls estimate that 51% of young voters between 16 and 24 years voted for the Workers' Party candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, elected with 50.9% of the votes. The Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), that targets young voters from the middle class, was the fastest growing party in Brazil since 2017.

Argentina, on the other hand, has seen an uprising of right-wing and pro-market movements in younger generations, as polls estimate that the majority of young voters between 16 and 24 years voted Javier Milei for president in the 2023 Argentine general election.

Social values

Family values and abortion

A 2018 Pew Research Center survey studied various family values among generations. Among Generation Z, 67% were indifferent towards premarital cohabitation. 49% considered single motherhood to be neither a positive or a negative for society. 62% saw increased ethnic or racial diversity as good for society and 53% for interracial marriage. In the case of financial responsibility in a two-parent household, majorities from across the generations (79% of Generation Z) answered that it should be shared by both parents. Across all the generations surveyed, at least 84% thought that both parents ought to be responsible for rearing children. About 13% of Generation Z thought that mothers should be the primary caretaker of children, while very few thought that fathers should be the ones mainly responsible.