Why does the younger cat rarely meow?

It just depends on the cat. My friends cat isn’t even a year old & it never shuts up. My cat is like 9 & he didn’t meow ever until he turned like 6 or 7 years old, now he’s very vocal.

My 2 cats cried on the way home cause they knew they were close, but when we got home, my younger cat barely meowed until it grew.

I have 5 inside cats, 1 doesnt meow at all, one never use to meow, now she started holding a toy in mouth walking around meowing like she is in heat, two meow so softly you often dont hear them and they do this only when they want affection. One, Riley meows with such a high pitch that you cant hear most of it. Only the end of it is audible and sounds like “aah”. They all had the same mother but are from 3 different litters. I think the mother taught them not to meow or do so very softly.They are all rescue cats.

We have a female cat that almost never meows, on the other hand our male cat meows constantly.

It depends but from books that i have read in the past, these have said that older cats generally meow more because they have learnt that this is the way to get the owners attention for something whether it be food, to go outside etc.