Europe’s Kids Are Moody and Depressed

By Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Center

Special to Foreign Policy

The future belongs to the young. So how the next generation feels and thinks matters to people of all ages. As much as baby boomers may lament it, it is millennials — those coming of age in this new century — who will shape the world’s economic and geopolitical destiny for years to come. At a time of renewed economic turmoil in Europe, growing tensions with Russia, and new evidence of China’s European ambitions, how Europeans ages 18 to 33 see their prospects, their ability to shape the future, and Europe’s relations with Russia, China, and the United States promises to have a profound effect on Europe’s role in the world.

Given Europe’s status as one of America’s largest trade and investment partners and its principle military and diplomatic ally, the sentiments of Europe’s millennials are of vital current and future interest to the United States.

Read more at Foreign Policy

For more analysis:

• Who are Europe’s Millennials?
• U.S. and European Millennials differ on their views of fate, future
• European Millennials are cool toward Russia, but warmer than older generations
• European Millennials more likely than older generations to view China favorably