COVID-19 hit Gen Z during some of the most formative years of their lives, disrupting education, social development, mental health, and early career trajectories in ways that are still unfolding. Those born roughly between 1997 and 2012 were teenagers or young adults when the pandemic struck, meaning lockdowns landed squarely on the years typically spent finishing high school, starting college, entering the workforce, and building social foundations. The effects cut across nearly every dimension of young life.
A Sharp Rise in Anxiety and Depression
The mental health toll on young people was one of the pandemic’s most measurable consequences. Global anxiety disorder rates among people aged 10 to 24 had been climbing slowly for years, but between 2019 and 2021, the annual pace of increase jumped dramatically. The incidence rate rose at roughly 12.5% per year during that two-year window, compared to less than half a percent per year in the preceding decade and a half. Social isolation, economic uncertainty, disrupted routines, and the stress of adapting to online learning all fed into that spike.
By 2024, an American Psychiatric Association poll found that 30% of adults aged 18 to 34 reported feeling lonely every day or several times a week. The U.S. Surgeon General had already declared loneliness a public health epidemic the previous year. For Gen Z specifically, loneliness isn’t just a feeling. It’s tied to the developmental reality that many of them lost years of in-person social interaction during a period when identity formation, friendships, and romantic relationships normally accelerate. Nearly half of Gen Z respondents in early pandemic surveys reported feeling anxious or depressed, and information overload from social media compounded the problem. Constant exposure to pandemic news on platforms like Instagram and TikTok created a cycle of fatigue and fear that left many young users psychologically worse off, even as those same platforms served as their primary lifeline to the outside world.
College Enrollment Dropped, Especially for Low-Income Students
The pandemic didn’t just change how Gen Z learned. It changed whether they pursued higher education at all. Students became less likely to enroll in college immediately after high school graduation, and the declines hit hardest among those who were already most vulnerable. Hispanic students saw their immediate enrollment drop by 11 percentage points in 2020 and another 4 points in 2021. Black students experienced a combined 9-point decline over the same period. White students saw about a 5-point drop.
Income gaps widened even further. Before the pandemic, higher-income students were already 17 to 20 percentage points more likely to enroll in college than lower-income students. That gap grew substantially during 2020 and 2021, and lower-income students continued falling further behind in the pandemic’s second year. Among all high school graduates, the share still enrolled in their second year of college dropped by more than 8 percentage points between the 2018 and 2021 graduating classes. Just over half of lower-income students who graduated high school in 2021 enrolled in college at all.
The choices students made about where to attend also shifted. Wealthier, White, and Asian students moved toward in-state public universities and away from private schools. Lower-income, Black, and Hispanic students saw broad declines across every type of institution. These enrollment patterns suggest the pandemic didn’t just delay education for many in Gen Z; it may have permanently altered who gets a degree and from where.
Physical Activity Took a Hit, Then Partially Recovered
When gyms, sports leagues, and school facilities shut down, young people’s physical activity plummeted. During the initial lockdown period, only about 37% of youth maintained regular exercise, mostly at home, averaging around four hours per week. That’s a steep drop from the structured sports and physical education that had been part of daily life for many teens.
Activity levels did recover over time. By late 2020, roughly 70% of young people were physically active again, and weekly hours crept up slightly from 4.0 to about 4.7. But the recovery was slow, the increase was statistically modest, and the disruption came at a critical window. Adolescence is when exercise habits tend to solidify, and physical activity directly reduces stress hormones, supports mood through endorphin release, and improves sleep quality. Researchers have flagged that even a temporary disruption during these years could ripple into long-term health patterns.
Wealth Grew Surprisingly Fast for Older Gen Z
The economic story is more nuanced than many people expect. Older Gen Z members and younger millennials (those born in the 1990s) actually experienced a dramatic wealth swing during the pandemic era. In 2019, their wealth sat about 44% below what historical trends predicted for their age. By 2022, it had surged to 39% above expectations. That’s an 83 percentage-point reversal in just three years. In real terms, the median wealth of this group more than quadrupled to $41,000.
Several factors drove this: pandemic-era stimulus payments, reduced spending during lockdowns, a booming stock market through much of 2020 and 2021, and a tight labor market that pushed wages up for younger workers. According to the St. Louis Fed, every generation born from the 1940s through the 1990s exceeded wealth expectations by 2022, but the youngest group saw the most dramatic swing. This doesn’t mean Gen Z is financially comfortable across the board. Housing costs, student debt, and inflation have eaten into those gains, and the wealth data skews toward those who were employed and saving rather than those who dropped out of school or couldn’t find work.
A Generation That Wants the Office, on Their Terms
One of the most persistent narratives about Gen Z is that they prefer working from home. The data tells a different story. A Gallup survey found that only 23% of remote-capable Gen Z workers prefer fully remote work, compared to 35% among every older generation. Instead, 71% of Gen Z workers prefer a hybrid arrangement, and just 6% want to be fully on-site.
This makes sense when you consider that many Gen Z workers entered the workforce during or just after lockdowns. They missed out on the organic mentorship, hallway conversations, and relationship-building that older workers take for granted. Fully remote work can feel isolating for someone who never had the chance to build a professional network in person. But having experienced the flexibility of remote work, they’re unwilling to give it up entirely. The hybrid preference reflects a generation trying to recover the social infrastructure they lost while keeping the autonomy the pandemic showed was possible.
Missed Milestones and Accelerated Activism
Beyond the statistics, the pandemic erased a set of experiences that previous generations took for granted: proms, graduation ceremonies, first college semesters, study-abroad programs, early internships, the casual socializing that defines late adolescence. These aren’t trivial. Developmental research consistently links these milestones to identity formation, independence, and social confidence. Many Gen Z members describe a sense of lost time that’s difficult to quantify but deeply felt.
At the same time, the pandemic catalyzed a form of civic engagement that was distinctly Gen Z. Locked indoors with smartphones and strong opinions, young people turned to TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter to organize around causes ranging from public health to racial justice to climate action. UNICEF research found that adolescents increasingly used digital spaces to develop civic identities and express political positions in creative, non-traditional ways, from viral dance challenges promoting hand hygiene to coordinated voter registration drives. Studies show that young people who engage in digital activism are significantly more likely to participate in offline politics, including voting. The pandemic may have interrupted Gen Z’s social lives, but it also compressed years of political awakening into a few intense months, shaping a generation that expects to be heard and knows how to use platforms to make it happen.