‘Shredding of the future’: 2024 Australian Youth Barometer highlights Gen Z’s worries

A “wave” of unprecedented events suggests Gen Z are facing more challenges than their parents, creating a generation of anxious and pessimistic young people.

2024 Australian Youth Barometer report highlights Gen Z’s worries across finance, government and relationships.

Food insecurity, financial difficulties and housing stress are causing significant levels of distress for Australia’s young adults, as they face more challenges than their parents did at their age.

The 2024 Australian Youth Barometer survey of more than 600 Australians aged between 18 to 24 has revealed the key areas of concern for young people as they face a “shredding of the future”.

A staggering 98 per cent of respondents reported they felt either anxious or pessimistic about their life, while 86 per cent experienced financial difficulties to some extent in the past 12 months.

Lack of money prevented 70 per cent of young Australians from going out to eat with friends or family.

In Victoria, Gen Z called for free university degrees, younger voices in parliament and for their opinions to be heard, while nationally the top three issues needing immediate action were affordable housing options, employment opportunities for young people and climate change.

“I think universities should be free because it’s such a formative part of our lives,” one Victorian woman, 18, said.

“(It) really forms our career, where we are going to work and how that will affect us being able to afford houses and to be paying off (university fees).”

Another Victorian woman, 23, feared young people’s concerns weren’t being heard because there were “a lot more older generations in the government”.

“Maybe we do have less of a say because they say, ‘Oh, you’re young, you’re naive, you haven’t lived’ … at the same time they’re also stuck in the generation of what they had and it’s different.”

Looking towards the future, just under half of respondents said they might not have children, while 62 per cent said they will be financially worse off than their parents.

Monash University’s Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice director Professor Lucas Walsh, who was also the lead author of the report said an “unprecedented wave” of challenges suggested Gen Z were likely worse off than their parents.

“We’re seeing very high levels of mental ill health, and we’re seeing a wave of conditions, starting with the global financial crisis and the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis,” he said.

“I think (Gen Z) are worried because they’re seeing a shredding of the future, a shredding of the near future and a shredding of the far future.”

Young Australians also voiced their worries about government support saying there wasn’t enough help for housing, finance or mental health.

“The political parties want to satisfy not just the biggest population group, but the biggest money group because that’s where the taxes come from,” another Victorian woman, 23, said.

On a more positive note, Professor Walsh said Gen Z were more engaged in volunteering and wanted to make and inform change.

“As our youth reference group has previously told us, they just want older people to meet them halfway,” he said.

One in five young Australians said they received mental health support.

Professor Walsh added stereotypes suggesting Gen Z were “snowflakes, disengaged or unwilling” needed to be “put to bed” with the survey and other evidence suggesting otherwise.

“We should just stop with the generational references, because they’re unhelpful,” he said.

“In getting rid of those stereotypes, we can start a conversation about intergenerational responses to generational problems.”

The Independent Evaluation of the Raise Mentoring Program final outcome report was also released on Thursday, highlighting how some young people were also not satisfied with the current education system.

Raise Data and Youth Insights director Lucy Snowball said without good educational achievement, young people are finding it hard to enter certain careers.

“At a time when rates of loneliness and mental ill health in young people are at a crisis, we know that (Raise Mentoring) is a key part of the solution for parents and schools,” she said.