Gen Z and astrology: written in the stars

Astrology has often been seen as the preserve of more mature people but younger generations are believed to be flocking to it in huge numbers.

A recent US survey found that 80% of Gen Z and younger millennials "believe in astrology". In addition, the "astrology" hashtag on TikTok includes 4.5 million videos, spending on fortune-telling apps is soaring and the UK's Astrological Association has launched an online magazine targeted at younger generations.

'Contextualise the chaos'

While millennials have "already said yes to astrology", said Harpers Bazaar India, Gen Z "continues to keep the belief alive", despite being regarded as a generation that "majorly insists on scientific evidence". Gen Z are "conscious about ourselves", so astrology is "a way of validating ourselves", said the magazine's social media editor.

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Gen Z are growing up in "an uncertain world", said the Times of India, a period marked by "economic challenges, political unrest, and environmental concerns". So astrology "helps contextualise the chaos, whether it's a bad day explained by Mercury retrograde or a tough year blamed on Saturn return".

Although technological advances "tend to weaken pseudoscience", said The Economist, in astrology's case they seem to have "expanded its reach". AI is "making access to prophecies even easier" – rather than needing to see an astrologer in person, people use digital services.

'Subcontracting challenging choices'

Not everyone is excited about all this. "I hate to sound like a curmudgeonly cynic," said Helen Coffey in The Independent, "but I can’t help it." Watching the "slow creep" of teenagers from "reading their weekly horoscope in Mizz magazine" to "being taken seriously by great swathes of Gen Z adults" has left her feeling "confused, out of touch" and "so very, very old".

I understand the appeal of astrology for the younger generation because in "an increasingly broken world" with climate change, the "rise of the far-right to positions of power" and "some of the worst men in human history" being "also the richest in human history", who "wouldn't want to turn to the galaxy at large for help"?

But "don't make the mistake of thinking that burning orbs thousands of light years away know you better than you know yourself", nor that "learning about the lunar nodes" can "help you take back control in a chaotic universe".

As for The Times, it thinks it's nothing new. "Faced with paying off student loans while finding the rent for a matchbox and a partner to boot," Gen Z would "rather have something else in charge of their lives than themselves". But in "substituting Venus and Mars for mum and dad they are merely following in the ancient human tradition of subcontracting challenging choices and responsibility for events to a higher power".