When they have the opportunity to help others and make a positive impact, Gen Z says “yes.”
The vast majority of members of the younger generation want to help others through work, and these caregiving jobs can contribute to their overall mental well-being, new research finds.
Nearly 80% of Gen Zers in the United States said they are interested in jobs that aim to help other people, according to a survey released Wednesday by Gallup, in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation and Harvard University’s Making Caring Common Project.
“At a time when loneliness and mental health issues are an issue for Gen Z, this data shows that they want to help people and are struggling to find meaning and purpose in life,” said Katherine Senseman, research consultant at Gallup.
The study “Gallup Voices of Gen Z” highlights a correlation between two aspects of life. Among those who agreed with the idea of making a positive impact on other people’s lives, 89% strongly agreed or agreed that they felt their life had meaning. “Helping others is good for our mental health, and many Gen Zers lack meaning and purpose, which really isn’t good for their mental health,” said Richard Weissbourd, faculty director of the Making Caring Common Project and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “They are finding meaning and purpose in helping other people.”
This data helped researchers better understand how purpose manifests itself in people’s lives and how it may be linked to the intention to do things for others, said Anthony Burrow, an associate professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the research.
However, members of Gen Z also cited reasons for not finding such meaning.
Barriers to a meaningful life
As digital natives, Gen Zers are aware of their connection to screens, with more than half citing unproductive technology use as a significant barrier to developing a meaningful life. Almost half acknowledged mental health issues, and 34% felt a lack of personal relationships was a contributing factor to their feeling of a lack of purpose.
While care-oriented jobs can lead to overcoming some of these barriers, the jobs themselves present some concerns.
Nearly half of Gen Z youth cited concerns about finances and personal well-being as factors that discourage them from seeking jobs focused on helping others. Young people felt that this type of work did not pay enough and felt that the roles were often more emotionally draining than others.
Half of those surveyed cited a job that paid enough money as what they wanted most in their career — so low-paying, high-stress care work conflicted with their priorities.
Additionally, the pressure of simply finding meaning in life can be overwhelming. More than half of Gen Z adults agreed that the pressure they felt to achieve something in life stressed them out, with especially high agreement among younger adults ages 19 to 21.
The pressure to achieve and the pressure to find purpose in life go hand in hand, Weissbourd noted.
“It’s partly the amount of pressure to achieve, but also why you’re achieving something,” Weissbourd said. “If you have a purpose for it, you’re likely to have better mental health.”
Gallup and its partners conducted the survey in December 2025 and interviewed 2,436 young people, ages 13 to 28, living in the United States.
How to Motivate Gen Z’s Drive to Help Others
When asked whether they would take a higher-paying job over a more meaningful job, nearly half of Gen Zers said yes. But, if money were not a problem and they were already living on a comfortable salary, most young people said they would stay in their original job.
More than half of Gen Z youth said doing personally rewarding work was among their top three priorities, and 25% also ranked helping and caring for others as a top priority.
“This is a story of opportunity,” Burrow said. “When presented with an opportunity to do something with purpose or meaning, this generation generally says, ‘I want to do that.'”
He urged hiring managers, educators and older generations to use this information as a way to review their views on the younger generation.
This could also take the form of hiring recruiters to add information to job openings about some of the community outreach a company does, or school administrators establishing programs that explore aspects of careers that can give students a sense of purpose.
“These barriers then become opportunities for organizations or companies — or even schools — to do preparatory work, to show how experiences, tasks, and workflows can actually support and sustain something like life purpose,” Burrow said.
