A long-term study has revealed psychological stress among Australia’s young people was soaring even before the pandemic hit, as their economic and personal wellbeing deteriorated.
The latest edition of the University of Melbourne’s landmark HILDA study shows younger Australians were taking longer to find full-time work in the years leading up to COVID-19 than at any time this century and that graduate earnings were in decline.
Kathryn Moran and James Rutherfurd.Credit:Eddie Jim
Young adults were living longer with their parents in 2019, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey found, and home ownership was slipping further out of reach as house prices continued to rise.
Thirty per cent of respondents aged 18 to 25 reported feeling psychological distress – a 41 per cent increase since 2007.
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The latest edition of the longitudinal study, which has followed the lives of more than 17,000 Australians each year since 2001, gathering data on households, relationships, income, employment, health and education, found the nation remained generally prosperous despite flat income growth in the past decade compared to the period of 2001 to 2010.
But one of the lead authors of the report, which will be published on Tuesday using the data gathered in 2019, told The Age that there were worrying signs in the finding for some groups, particularly single-parent households and young adults, and that the economic challenges of the pandemic were expected to make things worse.
Professor Roger Wilkins said the survey had detected a number of different ways that life was getting harder for young people and the pandemic had made things even more difficult, which he expected to see reflected in next year’s edition of the survey.
“It’s becoming harder to sort of make that transition into what we traditionally think of as adulthood, where you’re economically independent and you can buy a home and start a family and all those things,” Professor Wilkins said.
Young, broke and overwhelmed: Life gets harder for young Australians
Source: Philippines Alive
