COVID-19 and the Future of Gen Z

Every generation has at least one. These are defining historical events sure to leave a lasting mark on those coming of age during that time. There was the Great Depression, World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, September 11…

Now, for Generation Z, that forging event is the global coronavirus pandemic. Lives that had been focused on school, university, sports or traveling abroad vanished overnight as the global pandemic struck.

While a lot of focus was put on older people at risk from COVID-19, those in your generation—born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s—saw their worlds turned upside down in 2020.

Just the move from physical to virtual classrooms was enough to turn routines on their heads.

So what mark is this new world of quarantining, masks, online learning and social distancing leaving on Gen Z? News organization Reuters profiled seven young people ages 17 to 23 around the world to find the answer.

Shut up in bedrooms—many forced to move back in with their parents—some went from being students, athletes and workers to caring for sick relatives and doing whatever they could to earn money to support their families. One teen even became a mother. Like everything to do with the pandemic, nothing was equal. Some were hit harder than others, depending on personal circumstances, location and how quickly the virus was contained.

Those interviewed shared their concerns about 2021. Beyond the immediate damage to education and job prospects is the risk of what economists call “scarring,” or long-term harm to earnings, training, career prospects and even mental wellbeing.

These are all legitimate concerns. Even though you know God’s Way and can claim His blessings (I Cor. 7:14), you have likely wondered about your future as the pandemic wears on.

When reading the interviews, keep in mind that each young person is living in the world. There are examples of making the best of bad situations. There is grit and determination. Yet there are also stories of hardship brought on by negative trends in the world.

The lives of those interviewed by Reuters begin to show how COVID-19 will affect Gen Z. There are many lessons to learn from their stories such as helping you better recognize God’s protection and guidance in your life.

Crema, Italy

At the start of 2020, Elisa Dossena had turned 23 and was looking forward to getting an undergraduate degree and pursuing a master’s from one of Italy’s most prestigious universities.

Then Italy became the first European country to be hit by the pandemic. It turned her world upside down, putting her plans on hold and forcing her to become the de facto head of a stricken household.

While Elisa was studying in Milan, COVID-19 began ravaging her family and relatives in the town of Crema about 30 miles away in Italy’s first “red zone” in the northern Lombardy region. She returned home to help.

Both her 59-year-old aunt and her 90-year-old grandmother succumbed to other illnesses and died after the virus weakened them. Her father had severe breathing difficulties, although it was never determined if COVID-19 was the cause.

“I had to take care of the house, I had to manage everything for everyone because my mother was busy looking after my father, busy with my grandma, helping my cousin when her parents were ill. So I felt a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility,” she said.

“It was a very negative period for me. But it also made me grow a lot,” said Elisa, sitting in the living room of her family home in Crema.

Elisa’s story brings to mind a great life lesson: Hardship can spur on growth. Ecclesiastes 7:14 encapsulates this: “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.” Whenever adversity strikes, be sure to look for ways you can grow personally.

For Elisa, a new spike of the virus in late autumn meant her graduation ceremony was held via webcam, denying her the extended family celebration that usually accompanies the personal milestone.

She is now studying remotely for a master’s degree in management and hoping for just a bit of normality in 2021.

“I hope people can leave their homes freely. I hope it will be possible to go for a coffee with friends at the bar. I hope it will be possible to return to school desks, places of work and university,” she said.

“I don’t ask a lot but I hope for this.”

McFarland, California

Valeria Murguia was finishing her junior year at California State University, Fresno, studying communications and working part time at the campus health center when the pandemic hit.

All of a sudden, classes went online and her modest income from crafting social media messages to help students stay healthy evaporated. Living in Fresno, a fast-growing city where housing costs were rising, quickly became too expensive. Within a few weeks, Valeria found herself back home with her parents in the small farming town of McFarland.

Like many college-age adults in the United States, Valeria’s young life took a somber turn as the pandemic raged on. She and her friends started taking their health more seriously, working harder at part-time jobs or on homework, and cultivating deeper personal relationships.

At home, Valeria concentrated on schoolwork, and on skills she would need after graduation: She learned how to build websites, improved her graphic design proficiency and studied event planning. She also worked with her parents, both immigrants from Mexico, picking grapes in California’s Central Valley vineyards.

Valeria employed one of the guiding principles that lead to success: resourcefulness.

In Mr. Pack’s booklet The Laws to Success, he wrote about this trait: “You must carefully train yourself to remain calm in crisis. Panic accomplishes nothing, except to panic others around you and waste time. I learned long ago that fretting, worrying and panicking never removed the obstacle that I was facing. It did not change or even diminish it. This reaction merely delayed me, often causing loss of precious time that could have been spent traveling toward the next obstacle, had I employed resourcefulness immediately after spotting whatever problem confronted me.”

Yet Valeria has noticed a negative effect the pandemic has had on those her age.

“It made people more serious,” she said of the pandemic, “not so loosey-goosey…It’s going to for sure leave a mark on our generation.”

Now 21, Valeria will graduate in May into a tight job market. While the advertising business lost relatively fewer jobs than most other sectors, it has shown effectively no job growth since wider employment began recovering in May.

The California native is determined to stay optimistic for the future.

“I’m really staying positive, because if I start looking at the negative things, I just start playing games in my head,” she said. “And I don’t want to end in that space.”

Cairo, Egypt

Abdullah El-Berry, a 22-year-old trainee sports journalist, entered 2020 thinking life would be tough. A severe knee injury needed daily physiotherapy and seriously affected his three-hour commute to Cairo from his home in the Delta city of Shebine al-Qanatir.

After the pandemic hit, he could not continue physiotherapy as Egypt’s hospitals were overrun with patients. He could not present his graduation project or attend his long-awaited graduation ceremony. The suspension of sports made it near impossible to do his job. And his daily commute was thrown in disarray by night curfews.

Now, he believes 2021 will be even tougher. Paid very little as a trainee at a state-owned newspaper, the young graduate worries he will struggle to find a proper job.

“We already suffer to find a job,” he said. “Now, many people lost their jobs due to coronavirus and the economic crisis. It will definitely impact us all.”

Having survived years of tough economic reforms and austerity measures, many Egyptians are unsure how to weather the coronavirus storm. Lockdowns have paralyzed tourism and other vital sectors, hitting the economy hard and cutting growth forecasts.

Abdullah believes social distancing and wearing masks will continue to control lives in 2021, and make young people of his generation less likely to travel and explore new opportunities.

His wish list for 2021 includes advancing his career and resuming work on a YouTube channel he abandoned due to his studies and the coronavirus.

Nairobi, Kenya

Kenyan teenager Jackline Bosibori wore baggy sweatshirts to hide her pregnancy from her mother as long as she could, reluctant to add to her family’s troubles.

“If I was in school, I could have not been pregnant,” the 17-year-old said.

Jackline, who gave birth in November, is just one of many adolescent girls to become pregnant during the pandemic. Her story is part of a sad trend in the nation. Many Kenyan advocacy groups fear teenage pregnancies increased during 2020 as girls were forced to stay home from school while parents still went to work.

The father of Jackline’s little girl—an adult—has avoided Jackline’s family since learning of the pregnancy. Kenya’s president in July ordered an investigation into rising reports of sexual abuse, including statutory rape, amid the lockdown. (Statutory rape is the crime of having sexual intercourse with a person below the age of consent.)

For Jackline, school closures have made her dream of becoming a lawyer seem far away.

“I feel I have not progressed in any way this year,” laments Jackline. “If I was in school, I could have improved in my goals.”

The situation makes her anxious, she said from the one-room home where she lives with six other family members.

“There are people who lost jobs. There are students who will not go back to school; they have stayed out for a long time and have adapted to being at home,” Jackline explained as she took a break from studying while her baby slept.

Kenyan schools have been shut since March. Jackline wants to return when they reopen in January, but she worries about the fees.

“My mom lost her job…at this time, we don’t have rent,” she said. “I am stressed.”

“2020 was a bad year to me and it was a good year to me,” Jackline said. “It was a bad year to me because I got pregnant unexpectedly.”

“But it was a good year to me because I delivered my baby and she is OK.”

Wuhan, China

Xiong Feng, a 22-year-old graduate, teaches a dance class in Wuhan.

The city’s surprise 76-day lockdown, which cut the city off from the rest of China overnight on January 23, began long before other countries began to feel the pain of the pandemic.

Feng, like many other Gen Z people in Wuhan, saw his life, education and business thrown into turmoil. The pandemic meant he was unable to graduate alongside his classmates, and lockdown meant he lost the opportunity to form tight friendships at a formative time in his life.

“I think I’ve lost some friends. The relationship faded away because we didn’t get in touch with each other during the epidemic,” he said.

For Feng, growing apart from friends was accentuated because of quarantine rules. Yet this is something all grapple with as they grow older. You may have even seen this happen after the Feast of Tabernacles or Ambassador Youth Camp. Despite best intentions of staying in touch with the other teens in God’s Church, it is easier said than done. When you get home and back into your routine those budding friendships fizzle.

The lesson here? Relationships take work. They need to be cultivated and regularly attended to. Such bonds are hugely important for those striving to live God’s Way.

Notice Ecclesiastes 4: “Two are better than one”—we cannot do this alone!—“because they have a good reward for their labour” (vs. 9). Good friends will help you succeed.

Verse 10 helps drive the point home: “For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.”

Even without the pandemic, 21st century life has God’s teens spread all over the world. With quarantines, we must all diligently keep up with our friendships.

Back to Feng’s story. Wuhan has now largely returned to normal, after strict controls meant it has not reported a case since May.

For Wuhan’s Gen Z, the economic outlook is perhaps better than for some of their peers abroad, as businesses and offices have reopened and China is set to become the only major economy to grow in 2021.

At the end of 2020, local businesses in Wuhan told Reuters that the crowds were slowly but surely coming back, and young people—cooped up for months—were looking to spend more on hobbies and social experiences.

For those like Feng embarking on a first solo business, the post-pandemic flurry has helped attract new customers. For others, including Chinese who study abroad, the pandemic has proved difficult despite China’s comparatively strong control over the disease.

As the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, Wuhan suffered deep trauma during the first quarter of 2020, locals agree. But Feng says the experience has yielded important lessons for young people in China and elsewhere.

“I think the world should have more peace and love, and people should not be fighting against each other anymore,” he said.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Joao Vitor Cavalcante, 19, had trained hard throughout 2019 for his budding career as a professional cyclist. He thought 2020 would be his best year so far.

But the pandemic upended that dream, prompting him to take a job at a car repair shop and give up his plans for a career in cycling.

“Cycling is not easy, it is cruel, although I enjoyed that cruelty,” Joao told Reuters. “Now I don’t want to live off of that anymore. Instead I want to live to do it.”

Joao is one of millions of Brazilian members of Generation Z who have had to drastically adjust their aspirations due to the pandemic’s effect on the economy.

According to a survey financed by several Brazilian nonprofits, about 23 percent of Brazilians aged between 15 and 29 looked for new ways to make up lost income during the pandemic. About 60 percent signed up for emergency government payments, which handed out more than half of Brazil’s minimum wage to any citizen without a formal job.

For Joao, there was no other option. His parents were forced to shut down the family clothing store during the first few months of the pandemic and his sponsor left him when cycling competitions were canceled.

His uncle, aware of the economic constraints, asked him to work at his car repair shop.

“He was my salvation,” Joao said. “Either I took that job or I would be working for nothing. Last year, I sort of had a future [in cycling], but that time has passed.”

Joao now works eight hours a day repairing cars, although he says he dislikes washing dirty auto parts. But it is a job that helped support his family during a rough time.

He wants to compete again in 2021, but only as an amateur.

“For 2021, I hope that things return to normal and that people can see their friends and family again and that they value their affection,” he said.

Diepkloof Township, South Africa

When South African fencer Nomvula Mbatha finished top in a national women’s saber competition in 2019, she seemed set for the Olympics via the African Championships in Egypt, scheduled for April 2020.

Then COVID-19 hit. All competition was suspended and a strict lockdown at the end of March seriously curbed training for the 23-year-old and her team.

“The pandemic has been disastrous for us,” said Nomvula at her home in the Diepkloof township, southwest of Johannesburg. “We basically didn’t get to accomplish anything. This year was canceled in our lives.”

Even when competition resumed, Nomvula, ranked number one with 17 gold medals, faced enormous difficulties raising funding to attend the international events that would secure her a berth at the Tokyo Olympics, postponed to 2021.

A member of the Soweto Fencing Club, she is just one of the country’s next generation of star athletes struggling to raise cash to compete in an economy hit by low growth and high unemployment, especially for young people.

Between July and September, unemployment among 15- to 24-year-olds rose to 61.3 percent from 52.3 percent in the previous three months, according to Statistics South Africa.

As officials look to a program that can stimulate employment, Nomvula’s focus is on the next African Championships. Once again, though, the pandemic looms. A recent spike in infections has prompted new restrictions.

“What if we go back to lockdown?” she said. “I don’t have a resolution for 2021…I don’t have anything because I am scared.”

What About You?

Think back on the hopes and concerns these seven members of Gen Z have for 2021 and beyond. Elisa simply wants it to “be possible to go for a coffee with friends.” Valeria is desperately trying to avoid negativity. Abdullah worries he and his peers will be less able to pursue new opportunities. Jackline is trying to see the silver linings in a bad situation. Feng hopes for “more peace and love” throughout the world. Nomvula is “scared” to even have hopes for 2021.

 

A student arrives for a graduation ceremony at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School on May 6, 2020, in Bradley, Illinois.

Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Finally, read Joao’s words one more time: “For 2021, I hope that things return to normal and that people can see their friends and family again and that they value their affection,” he said.

What about you? How should you feel about 2021 and beyond?

The pandemic has touched and changed nearly every part of society. It can loom large in our minds. It can be the thing we focus on more than everything else.

Yet those who know God’s Way are to look at world events from a different perspective.

In Matthew 24:7, Jesus Christ listed some of the trends set to occur right before God establishes His Kingdom: “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.”

Pestilence—rampant spread of diseases—is one of the signs that the Kingdom is close. There has never been a pandemic like COVID-19. That means the events of 2020 are Bible prophecy coming to life!

With whatever time remains in this age, there will be hardship you will have to endure. Yet when you see this, remember what is occurring. God has given man 6,000 years to try out his own ways of governing and free rein to fashion society. Our Creator wants us to see that our ways do not work.

You can see the bad results of man governing himself throughout the world—especially during the spread of COVID-19.

Look at how it started. Humane Society International explained: “The strongest evidence of the virus’s origin points to a section of [a Wuhan] open-air market where more than 75 species of stressed wildlife were stacked in wire cages and slaughtered on-site for buyers.”

“You almost couldn’t design a more perfect setting for the transmission of disease,” HSI’s vice president for wildlife stated.

So, the coronavirus began from poor conditions for animals. Then governments attempted to limit the spread with lockdowns and quarantines. These have been effective at limiting the spread, but they also are putting significant stress on small businesses and driving up joblessness.

For members of Gen Z, this is disheartening. As they are heading into adulthood, there is a lot to be concerned about.

Little does your age group know. They think the coronavirus pandemic will be the defining event of your generation.

Yet you can take solace knowing it will be God setting up a righteous supergovernment—soon. Because you already know God’s Way, you will be able to help those your age—perhaps including some of those written about in this article—to know what is going on.

Continue to claim God’s promises now. As you diligently strive to live His Way, He will protect you for whatever time we have left.

Do not forget all of those in Gen Z around the world. Your heart should go out to them. As you consider their stories—and your future—pray daily for that defining moment of your generation: “Your Kingdom come”!

This article contains information from Reuters.