The new moral compass: A generational shift in support for extramarital children, abortion, and the death penalty
Never-before-seen Gallup and Walton Family Foundation data shows Gen Z adults are more accepting of extramarital children and abortion and less accepting of the death penalty than older generations.
A note to readers
Today marks the third edition in a series based on never-before-seen data points from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation’s Gen Z Panel, an ongoing partnership to examine young Americans’ experiences in and outside the classroom. These data sets have been pulled from prior research, but have not previously been reported on. Last month, I covered the gap between Gen Z and millennials when it comes to a desire to go to college and how Gen Z teens identify as more conservative than their parents at higher rates than millennials did 20 years ago.
Thanks to a Walton Family Foundation grant, I’ve had the opportunity to conduct listening sessions with potential young voters. I’ll be doing much more of that and publishing anecdotal takeaways in the lead up to the 2024 election.
These quantitative data sets provide another vantage point into the psyche of today’s youngest potential voters. I hope you find them as interesting as I do.
The new moral compass: A generational shift in support for extramarital children, abortion, and the death penalty
Gen Z adults are more likely to approve of extramarital children and abortion than older generations and, on the whole, Gen Z is less accepting of the death penalty than older generations, according to a Gallup and Walton Family Foundation study conducted last fall. The survey polled Gen Z and the parents of K-12 Gen Zers on whether they believed the ideas to be “morally acceptable or morally wrong,” which allows for a direct comparison between the generations’ current levels of support for each. According to prior Gallup research, national attitudes overall around acceptance for extramarital children and abortion track in this direction, too.
74% of postsecondary Gen Z say they personally believe having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable, whereas 69% of millennials and just 63% of Gen X say the same.
68% of postsecondary Gen Z say they personally believe abortion is morally acceptable, whereas 52% of millennials and just 50% of Gen X say the same.
52% of postsecondary Gen Z say they personally believe the death penalty is morally acceptable, whereas 70% of millennials and 70% of Gen X say the same.
My point of view
In recent listening sessions with young adults and teens in Michigan, Florida, and New York, they’ve highlighted how social media continues to provide an up-close-and-personal view into the lives and experiences of their peers, leading to greater overall empathy and acceptance. In thinking about this data, that understanding of lived experience may have altered this generation's perception of what is and what isn't "morally acceptable" and forces them to be more accepting of the decisions' others make, even if they wouldn't make the same choice for themselves.
A bit about Gallup’s methodology
According to Gallup, they collected responses “via web survey, with invitations sent by email to members of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based panel that includes roughly 100,000 members." The respondents included 12-18-year-olds living at home with parents or guardians, as well as 18-26-year-olds. To reach the younger Gen Zers, Gallup said they, “contacted adult members of the Gallup Panel who indicated they have at least one child between the ages of 12 and 18 living in their home."
“This study explores comparisons to data collected across multiple waves of the Gallup Youth Survey conducted from 2003 through 2005, among 13- to 17-year-old millennials. For waves conducted during 2003 and 2004, the Gallup Youth Survey was conducted via web surveys, using an online research panel designed to be representative of the entire U.S. population. For the wave conducted in 2005, results are based on a combination of mail and web surveys with a randomly-selected national sample of 13- to 17-year-old teenagers from households in the Gallup Panel,” according to a Gallup spokesperson.
Both datasets were “weighted to correct for unequal selection probability and nonresponse; samples were weighted to match the U.S. population according to gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, educational attainment, and Census region,” Gallup said.
Youth vote in the news 🗞
The Youngest Voters and the Oldest President, Astead W. Herndon, Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O’Keefe for The New York Times, 4/18
Biden may be the first Democratic president since Vietnam era to face this problem, Jeff Zeleny for CNN, 4/18
Young Women Are More Liberal Than Young Men, and It’s Affecting Dating Culture, Fortesa Latifi for Teen Vogue, 4/17