Gen Z is turning away from military service in record numbers; here’s why | Parami News

To some extent, only 80% of the required population of 69,000 that would be used in countering future challenges has enlisted. To cover this shortage, the government has recently announced recruiting foreign citizens.

This February, during a Senate inquiry, Australian Defence Chief General Angus Campbell said the military was not achieving intended growth; it was actually declining.

As present, there exist two main root causes for stagnation in the recruitment process.

The first is economic – low rates of unemployment and private sector jobs offering better pay and conditions as well as better prospects in life.

Another reason is cultural: a decreasing tendency of Generation Z to identify with their country and defend it at any cost.

In either case, understanding what motivates this generation is crucial if one should hope to solve the recruitment crisis since Gen Z represents the bulk of potential recruits today.

Under an Australian Defense Force-funded study we conducted interviews with 19 serving Australian soldiers from different backgrounds (of whom two were Gen Z) across all three services of the ADF.

We wanted to know how they could recruit more members from Gen Z for national service.

Generation Zoomers

The future generations such as baby boomers up to generation Xs (like authors here) and millennials are usually analyzed by researchers who want to have a glimpse into the future generations or predict behavior patterns within them.

The most unique among these groups seems to be Generation Z or Zoomers which refers to those individuals born around 1997 through 2008.

They are considered the first group that grew up along with smartphones and social media. In his current bestseller on The Anxious Generation, Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that rampant depression and anxiety among young people is directly caused by unsupervised use of social media while growing up by he cites massive rise in depression and anxiety amongst teenagers due to unmonitored use of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram during adolescence stages .

Lieutenant Matthew Weiss’s book on Gen Z military recruitment highlights that Zoomers suffer from mental health issues that prevent them from getting into the army.

This was proved by Australia’s Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide, which showed that a military career may have a detrimental effect on psychological well-being. The force’s stringent entry requirements for mental fitness could exacerbate this perception.

Our interviewees said mental health is an issue for selection. On one hand, they agreed that service is mentally challenging, and that younger soldiers are more psychologically vulnerable. On the other hand, interviewees said the force’s mental health support has been improving. This is a step in the right direction – it may well be that media coverage of veterans’ mental health issues worries Zoomers considering enlistment.

Weiss argues private sector jobs (and money) afford much more online currency than military service. The respondents in our interviews agreed younger recruits were very savvy about pay and conditions.

Diminishing Patriotism

However, Andrew Hastie, shadow defence minister claimed during an ABC interview: “People who join the defence force don’t just do it for economic reasons; they do it because they love their country.”

Thus when patriotism reduces from one generation to another recruitment falls as well. In America low levels of patriotism also help explain why Gen Z does not want to join up according to Weiss.

Nationalism of tradition played only a minor part in motivating young people to enlist as per our respondents’ accounts. They thought there was less obligation and sense of doing service for others.

Also, the black and white picture of “my country right or wrong” has been unclear from media coverage of supposed Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. The data proves that among young Australians patriotism is on the wane. We examined data available publicly from World Values Survey, a worldwide survey on people’s values since 1981. It shows that in 1981, 70.3% of Australians were very proud of their nationality; this decreased to 60.8 per cent in 2018 with Gen Z featured for the first time in the study.This was the only year where a lesser percentage (41.6) twentysomethings (including some millennials) were ever very proud to be Australian than any other age group at any point since it began.

All else being equal, older adults tend to be more nationalistic as surveys in different periods and countries show. But this nationalism gap between old and young people has grown further with Gen Z. According to the survey information by 1981, around two-thirds (69%) of Australians aged between twenty–nine considered their country worth fighting for- this was slightly higher than the proportion of over seventies(65%). This situation had been reversed by 2018 when only 44%of young Australians would join fight compared with58% out of those above seventy.

Morality

What our interviewees suggested was that if nationalist beliefs serve as motivation then Generation Z do it on terms that promote good cause only”. Thus recruiters have another ground: changes which occur within military service as long as it is concerned about peacekeeping operations and disaster relief attract those who possess humanitarian values.

This describes Zoomers perfectly well – research suggests and our respondents agree that Gen Z care about environmental issues, diversity, equity and inclusivity.This is how they approach work.Zoomers want vocations not careers(let alone jobs). Young entrants are interested primarily in factors inherent in labor like skill acquisition, adventure and challenge according to our sources.

So how do we boost recruitment?

Our own research, as well as other studies, suggests that Gen Z is driven by factors that support their personal development and well-being in material and spiritual terms rather than giving to others. These are referred to as “pro-self” motivations by researchers.

Hiring Zoomers might be hard as there is a war for talent rising; still they have plenty of things to offer the military.Among previous generations, they may be the most achievement-oriented ones.They have an unprecedented ability to handle digital technologies that are becoming increasingly important in the military.

The inaugural National Defence Strategy unveiled in April has conceded “the need for a fundamental transformation of defence’s recruitment and retention system.”

Many of the proposals to raise military recruitment in Australia are general. For instance, recently the government raised pay and bonuses in the defence force.Some other measures include simplifying enrolment procedures, making military service opt-out based on conscription rather than volunteerism, reducing medical requirements or raising maximum recruitable age and mobilizing young junior officers so that outmoded traditions hampering enlistment can be changed.

Our study shows that going forward we should build a force that appeals to Gen Z’s social values and intrinsic motivators.Needless to say these strategies must be personalized.