Younger Australians feel particularly punished by cost-of-living pressures, a new survey shows, and have an increasingly bleak social and economic outlook. Source: ABC News.
The third annual Australian Youth Barometer — a Monash University survey of 571 Australians aged between 18 and 24 — found they face “vastly different structural pressures” compared to previous generations.
Lead researcher Lucas Walsh said the findings are “much darker” than previous years, with 43 per cent of young Australians saying they feel they’re missing out on their youth.
Professor Walsh said the pandemic, inflation and low rental vacancies had “created a perfect storm that is affecting young people negatively”.
Seventy per cent of young Australians believe affordable housing is an issue that needs immediate action from governments, up 9 per cent from the 2022 report.
On education, while 71 per cent said they have taken some form of informal online classes, nearly half of those surveyed said they believed their education had not properly prepared them for their future.
Consistent with 2022 data, nine of 10 of those surveyed said that they had experienced financial difficulties in the past year, with one out of five saying they had experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months.
More than a quarter said they were “extremely” or “very” concerned about climate change, with only 31 per cent believing it is likely to be combated in their lifetime.
“The last five years in particular have been really characterised by disruption to their education, work and social life. They’ve come out of the pandemic and into a period where, despite youth employment prospects [being] relatively good — on other indicators, they’re faring much worse,” Professor Walsh said.
Housing availability and affordability was a significant day-to-day concern for young people, citing unmanageable rent increase, short-term leases and limited housing availability.
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Younger Australians feel the brunt of cost-of-living crisis, report shows (By James McManagan and Jasmine Kassis, ABC News)
