By Ryhs Blakely, Science Correspondent @ TheTimes.co.uk, Oct. 20 (free access link; with graph)

Millennials in democracies throughout the world are more disillusioned with their system of government than any young generation in living memory, a study has found.

A survey of nearly five million people showed that those in their 20s and 30s, born between 1981 and 1996, had less faith in democratic institutions than their parents or grandparents did at the same stage of life.

The collapse of confidence is particularly pronounced in the “Anglo-Saxon democracies” of Britain, the United States and Australia. However, similar trends are seen in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Europe.

“This is the first generation in living memory to have a global majority who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works while in their twenties and thirties,” Roberto Foa, lead author of the study from the Centre for the Future of Democracy at Cambridge University, said. Of the 2.3 billion people in countries covered by the report, 1.6 billion, or seven out of ten, are in nations with declining democratic satisfaction from one generation to the next. This did not mean that voters would support autocratic alternatives, Dr Foa said. Rather, they were frustrated that their systems were not working for them [....]

The study, the most comprehensive of its kind, drew on data from 4.8 million people in more than 160 countries between 1973 and 2020. It found that millennials and members of Generation X had grown steadily less satisfied with democracy as they aged [....]