In Taking a Stance: Examining millennial and gen-Z political issue positions, we established that despite being more likely than millennials to self-identify as conservative, gen-Z is decidedly progressive in its political leanings. It is possible, however, that gen-Z’s flavor of conservatism is distinct from that of millennials, and it will be important for brands to understand the nuances of gen-Z’s social divides.

Collage Group has sought to explain these differential outcomes, making them a core focus of our Ad Rating Survey. As part of the survey, we asked respondents to take an unambiguous stance on 13 selected social trends, in four categories:

After analyzing the results for both generations and race and ethnicity we found several interesting takeaways:

Rather than featuring a strict divide between liberals and conservatives, the generational ideological battleground has three categories.

The largest group is Social Liberal (44% of the population), which tends to approve of trends across all four categories, followed by Social Conservative, with 29% of the population tending to disapprove of all the mentioned trends. A third group, however, responded positively to trends regarding race, youth, and activism, but negatively on non-traditional family trends.

gen-Z consumers are substantially more likely to feature Family Values than Social Conservatism

While gen-Z is more comfortable with same-sex parents and interracial couples than millennials, they are more wary towards single mothers, stay-at-home dads, and unmarried partners. This implies that for gen-Z, Family Values is more concerned with family structure than family membership.

Women are at the center of youth Social Liberalism

Given the salience of the 2016 Women’s March, the 2017 #MeToo movement, and the surge of women running for political office in 2018, the importance of gender in discussions of social ideology cannot be ignored. Among gen-Z and millennial panelists, a strong majority of women are Social Liberal (58%), while only 45% of men fall into that category. Millennial and gen-Z women are more united in their liberal social leanings than men of the same age.

Understanding how Family Values shapes generational social views is essential for marketing to these fast growing and influential consumer segments. To learn more about how you can leverage these preferences to produce valuable brand outcomes, please email info@collagegroup.com.