People do become more conservative as they age due to lifestyle changes, but not to extent some think. I believe millennials (not sure about Gen Z) are truly more left wing than previous generations due to fact with Great Recession and now COVID-19, they've faced greater economic barriers than previous generations thus more open to left wing ideas. GI Generation was much the same due to Great Depression and indeed in many rural southern areas that were Democrat until recently, much of that was due to FDR's New Deal coalition and they started voting GOP as that group died off. Boomers and Gen X generally were a lot more successful in early parts of career and economy was good thus more favorable to capitalism.
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This is a fairly good read:
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/6/14/progressives-control-the-futureCohorts of voters tend to get more conservative and Republican as they age. This is a complex phenomenon that we will unpack in detail, but first, note that younger cohorts are drifting Republican and conservative at a much slower rate as they age. In the chart below, we show that the average year on year shift to Republicans in party identification and conservative ideological identification has been declining significantly. Presidential vote tends to be a bit more stable over time, and also exhibits some cyclical patterns as some voters jump back and forth between parties in each election. This can make it a bit more difficult to interpret the average rate of change for presidential voting. But what we observe is that since the base level of Democratic voting preference for millennials is so strong, unless something happens to cause a rightward shift in their politics at a rate that is substantially faster than what has occurred for any past generation, they will remain solidly Democratic.
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Looking beyond the formative years, there are several cultural, economic, and demographic factors that make it unlikely that we will see a large rightward shift among millennials any time soon. Millennials are getting married and having kids later than past generations, thereby delaying key life events which tend to cause voters to become more conservative. Millennials lag behind past generations in accumulating wealth, and their prospects for future wealth accumulation do not look great, removing yet another factor that can drive voters to become more conservative over time.
Millennials also lag behind past generations in home ownership and face soaring housing costs relative to their income. For the bottom of the income distribution, this is largely explained by stagnant wage growth. But for the higher end of the income distribution, whose wages have grown significantly, this is explained entirely by rising housing prices. Policies to favor housing wealth have been implemented over the past several decades, and the housing share of national income has nearly doubled over that time period. These policies are designed to inflate house prices, and the fact that now many well heeled young professionals still can not afford to buy a home is proof that they work as intended. From a political perspective, this means that a demographic that would have been likely Republicans in generations past is now largely shut out of homeownership and therefore are less likely to move rightward.
TL;DR The damage done by previous generations has effectively stunted future generations and the major events that tend to make people somewhat more conservative are not happening for many, or happening much later - families, wealth accumulation, buying houses, etc. I'd expect it to eventually be the same for gen z, given the main problems causing this are not likely to be solved any time soon.
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