No matter how many sparks it sets off in Spanish politics, independence has been losing support in Catalonia for years, in an unstoppable trend. And the latest survey by the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) of the Generalitat provides data that is not optimistic for the future of the cause of the process: generation Z, between 16 and 26 years old, favors Catalonia to be an autonomous community before an independent State. The Zs are much more interested in feminism, the environmental movement and, especially, labor rights or housing rather than independence.
The survey on generations and political participation, known on Thursday, indicates that, in fact, the preference for independence as a formula in the Catalonia-Spain relationship is reduced to the boomer generations (from 59 to 77 years old) and X (from 43 to 58 years). Those older than 78 and the youngest – the Z and the millennials (aged 27 to 42) – are supporters of autonomy.
In terms of ideology, the survey confirms that Catalonia is rather left-wing, except for those over 78, who are in the center. And a fact that is not new: the extreme right is disappearing among the youngest.
“I am not surprised that the boomers and the X are the ones who believe in independence the most, they are the protagonists of the idea, the ones who forged the process a decade ago. On the other hand, the younger generation want more stability, they are not waiting for changes. They are rebellious, but they have a lot of uncertainty and they need routines in life, points of anchorage”, emphasizes the political scientist Ana Salazar, director of Idus3 Estrategia.
Salazar emphasizes the fact that the interviews took place from May 2 to July 29, in the middle of the election period, which means that society is more mobilized. However, the results fit, he points out, with the ideological position for generations. “The older ones tend not to want changes. It is difficult for them to assimilate them, in particular if they are relative to the established order”, he underlines, while in the boomers and the X, the preference for independence has more to do with the will to change.
“But the fact that the extreme right has a gateway among the youngest, even if it is a minority, since they vote left, we must worry as a society, we have an unprotected generation”, underlines Salazar.
For Jordi Mir, professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), “it is understandable that part of the young people, who are connecting with politics at a time of emergency in the far-right discourse, are “decanti in favor of it, just as older generations do and in the same way that the influence is translated into the parliamentary arc and also in the media”.
The Z, in this Mir agrees, want more stability, as reflected by several survey data. “Work and life insecurity affects several generations, but the youngest have great difficulties in becoming independent, they need to improve their material conditions”, he adds.
The CEO incorporates three items to measure the psychological trait of the “need for chaos”, associated with behaviors such as spreading rumors and hostile information on networks. “Sometimes I have the fantasy of a natural disaster…” says a question that raises the possibility of starting over. The Z are the ones who are most in favor of it, and the boomers, the ones who are the least. “Sympathy for chaos is linked to the fact that younger people want stability, in the current model there is no way out and they would like to start from scratch”, says Mir.
The sociologist Josep Maria Antentas agrees that “the young generation has only known chained crises since 2008, they have a permanent dissatisfaction”. And unlike the generations that experienced the changes of the previous decade, the 15-M or the process, “they have not had the great epic battles, but only disappointments, and they feel a certain demoralization, which is not Passotism, but the awareness that these are problems that are beyond them and that they cannot solve”, he adds.
Antentas links it to feelings about climate change. “Eco-anxiety is a phenomenon among young people, the idea that climate change is a disaster and it will be their turn to experience it”, he points out.
