Is Society getting too difficult for the young?

Deebles McBeebles wrote: »

Jesus you would want to be a space cadet to expect that. I would fully expect to get the necessary rooms habitable and work on the house as I could afford it.

You are well grounded in reality. Unfortunately lots of people aren't.

ChrissieH wrote: »

but even me, personally, being in my early 40s and having never owned my own house, I'm realising that it's very unlikely that I ever will be a home-owner and I'll never have much disposable income

You mightn't be able to afford a house on Aylesbury Road but if you are willing or able to relocate, then there are affordable houses if you are willing to make the sacrifice (such as a longer commute to work etc.).

speaking for myself, I feel drained and fed up a lot of the time from working hard in a mediocre job for an average wage, only to afford the basics in life, and most of my friends feel the exact same way.

This is a big difference from my parent's generation. You can afford the basics in life. They really struggled to afford the basics.

There's no extra money to enjoy our free time, and not really enough free time to enjoy life, it's a highly pressured and stressful way for humans to live, but I do agree that the current young generation are possibly the first ones trying to grow and develop in this pressured environment

There wasn't much spare money knocking around when I was a kid either. A lot of youngsters are putting unrealistic pressures on themselves to have everything asap. Yes, we'd all love to be set up at 25 years of age with a nice house, good car etc. but that's not realistic.

It's not unusual to have a new car nowadays but nobody in the area where I lived had a new car when I was a kid. Nobody.

The middle-aged/elderly people who possess all the wealth will eventually die and the young we speak of here will gradually inherit their parents/grandparents wealth.

harr wrote: »

I was at my nieces 13th birthday party at the weekend and a group of girls all sitting around in same room with nothing being said. Instead they were all chatting through snapchat it was bizarre.
.

Sounds normal enough to me. It's always hard to talk in front of relatives(even when there in a another room when your that age.

BattleCorp wrote: »

More like the taxman will inherit most of the wealth.

no, you can inherit a lot tax-free if you're family

Deleted User wrote: »

Myself and my wife have been talking about starting a family soon and it really got me thinking about society in general and how hard it is for young people currently, and how much harder it might get.

Harder it's not harder, it is easier far easier than when I was growing up.

1) Getting a job - Can't get a job without experience, can't get experience without a job. This really sucks for young people and there is no easy way around it. Take an internship and deal with low wages until you have a few years behind you.

Compared to the 1980's it is a doddle to get an entry level job these days. It may not be in the field they want but there are loads of jobs out there. In the 1980's and early 90's you couldn't get a job anywhere. I remember when my mother sold her place and I was clearing out my stuff I found PFO letters from bloody McDonalds for jobs there.

The problem is that some people seem to think they should be handed a job. You have to work at it and always will.

2) Getting a driving licence - You need to do a theory test, at least 12 lessons and pass a driving test. Sounds easy enough but the laws around unaccompanied learners mean you will probably need to pay for way more lessons to get practice in. Then you have the insurance. Its not too uncommon to be quoted 3 or 4K for third party insurance in your first year. You won't get insured any kind of reasonable price for an older starter car.

If you haven't even had the kid yet then the chances are that they will never own a car and they will not need to drive one. My eight year old probably won't need a driving license and if he does he'll only get to use it a couple of years.

3) Property - Lets face it, most young people don't want to live at home well into their adult lives. The only option they really have is to rent. But eventually they'll want to buy their own place and realize how tough it is to buy while paying a large percentage of your salary towards rent. More and more are left moving back home with their parents or getting a lend from parents if possible. Single people have no hope unless they have a very very good job.

Again in 18 years time I would expect this to change. This country has been obsessed with owning homes and I think that will be reduced in the future with renting becoming the norm. I would hope that there will be more protections put in place to give people secure tenure within those rented homes as well. My hope is that the government will allow councils build and hold rental homes to help control and manage the rental market.

4) Having a wedding - Most young couples want to have a wedding, its a traditional thing to do. Unfortunately a very expensive thing to do also. Average wedding is probably somewhere between 10 and 20K these days.

Really, I don't believe most couples want to have a wedding. You can get married for the cost of going to the Registry Office. Everything else is window dressing. If you wanted a big wedding then you have always had to pay for it. Also if you guys are traditionalists and you have a little girl you're going to be picking up that bill

5) Savings / Investment / Pensions - Most young people have too many things to pay for now and can't even get any of these going until much later in life.

Really, people can still save. If you can't afford it there's this wonderful concept of doing without. I think the problem you are highlighting here is the inability to manage their finances properly and wanted everything now.

In previous generations for example, it seems like 2 minimum wage workers could be married, have a house, have some kids and a family car all by the age of 25. Thats closer to 35 now.

But in reality that wasn't the case for everyone was it. I had friends who started families young and got on the property ladder young and didn't have much of a social life. I had a great time in my 20's & 30's, traveled partied and enjoyed life and only got hitched and mortgaged in my late 30's. There is no one size fits all solution, there never has been. If you have people who are aware of their finances and who can sacrifice and get support or a deposit from elsewhere then they can of course get on the ladder.

Anyways, I don't really want this thread to turn into a who had it harder debate... but more what do you think it will like for the next generation?

Do they stand a chance without major changes in society? What do you think society will look like for a young person 10 or 20 years from now?

There are going to have to be major changes in society anyway. We are on the cusp of Industry 4.0, Automation and AI making reams of jobs obsolete so there will have to be some moves on that both for existing workers and the up and coming generations. That will mean economic models, educational models and the way we live will have to change to suit the new reality.

The only thing you can be sure of is that there will be major change in the future and one thing us humans excel at is dealing with change.

As someone in her late 20s having kids already I think things aren't too bad, it's just different.
We're having better medical care than ever. Our kids never had a better education and more possibilities. The world has never been more connected.
The systems might be run quite inefficiently but it's a hell of a lot better than at least 160 countries have it. We've never had so much freedom, individualism and got encouraged to be self-aware.
It's advocated to keep an eye on your mental health, don't just bottle up and see how long you can do it.

The only thing that might be a real bug bear of mine is how education is run. Secondary education is purely a point race that put a huge pressure on teenagers to make a pretty essential decision in life. Many can't decide at 17 what they wanna do because they are still figuring themselves out.
If you fail to have a certain number of points you aren't deemed worthy to become X.
It's a factor too how much your parents can pay for grinds. I think this is poorly handled and instead of having a crazy point race certain courses should have separate exams that assess your capability.

Also the separation that you have to do a degree or your life will be a complete fail. Third level still is not for every person, but an awful lot of jobs require it. Manual work is looked down at. Different education paths are looked down at.
Young people leave college with a piece of paper stating how qualified they are when on reality they still just start and are perfect for exploitation since some fields are so competitive that people beg to work for free.

Other problems are very high living costs in relation to young people wages so they can't afford health care or pensions. Partner has a pension via work, I don't because at the moment I can't afford it since money needs to go into childcare.

But all in all times are good and safe in my opinion. Yes I hate my car insurance bill, I hate the TV licence, I hate other everyday life bills but I don't think too much about it and am generally happy enough that we have quite some opportunities nowadays.