Risk‑geist: Gen Z’s selective risks

Young people are not simply 'risk‑averse' or 'reckless' — they are selective: avoiding personal health and family‑level hazards while pursuing status or speculative risks (crypto, attention economics) that deliver social capital. That selectivity arises from a sense of polycrisis (climate, economic precarity, AI) that makes long‑term investments feel both uncertain and morally fraught. — If policymakers, employers and cultural institutions misread Gen Z as uniformly timid or foolhardy, they will design the wrong incentives for entrepreneurship, family policy and labour markets.