A wave of financial pressure is leading Gen Z to put off major milestones.

Some 72 percent of those aged 19 to 30 say that money challenges have forced them to postpone at least one major financial or life goal, according to a survey of 4,375 Americans aged 18 and older from financial services firm Northwestern Mutual.

Some 31 percent have delayed buying a house, 26 percent have pushed back paying for higher education, 24 percent have put starting a family on hold and another 20 percent have postponed marriage.

What’s more, some 34 percent of Gen Z members are concerned they’ll never be able to buy a house compared to 19 percent of all adults. And 20 percent say they may never be wealthy enough to afford children, compared to 7 percent of previous generations.

“What's striking isn't just that young adults are delaying milestones - it's that many are questioning whether those life events are achievable at all,” Northwestern Mutual Chief Field Officer John Roberts said in a statement.

The math isn’t mathing

Yet how America’s youngest working adults view their delayed financial and life goals differs from older generations, said Nick Avila, CEO of United Debt Relief.

“The clearest difference I see is that Gen Z treats the delay as a plan rather than a setback,” Avila told The Independent in an email. “Older clients tended to describe postponing a house as something that happened to them. Younger clients describe it as a decision they made because the math did not work.”

And the math is painting a gloomy picture for Gen Z.

Their concern about buying a home comes amid historically high property prices and an average mortgage rate that’s peaking near 18-year highs, according to federal data. Those numbers have had a significant impact on the cost of owning a home.

Ten years ago, the average home, at the average mortgage rate, and with a 20-percent down payment would’ve cost $1,952.04 per month. Today, that monthly cost is $3,470.95, according to mortgage data site Mortgage Calculator.

College costs have increased over the past decade, too, though not quite as fast as housing. The average tuition and fees for a public university were $8,778 in 2016 compared to $10,340 today - an increase of 18 percent, according to data and analysis site Education Data Initiative. Private college tuition is up 42 percent over that same period.

Facing the pressure

Gen Z has a heightened sensitivity toward comparison as social media bombards them with curated, idealized images of their peers, said Achim von Bodman, a certified financial planner at Maryland-based accounting firm Watters CPA.

“They see what everyone else is doing in [real] time,” Bodman told The Independent in an email. “Older generations just waited quietly; did not talk about it. Gen Z sees a wedding, a new house and a baby on social media every day and it all looks perfect.”

To deal with these pressures, Gen Z has focused on a long-term savings strategy, the Northwestern Mutual study noted. The young generation aims to retire at age 61, three years earlier than millennials and six years earlier than Gen X. Gen Z started saving for retirement a decade before Gen X and six years before millennials.

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