3 biggest issues affecting youth today

A group of 10 young leaders, all under the age of 20, will be attending this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos for the first time.

Alongside their – slightly older – peers among the Global Shapers Community, they will be championing the involvement of the next generation in policy decisions that will affect them for decades to come.

The need to engage younger people in this process has perhaps never been greater, and the challenges they face are complex, interconnected and seemingly intractable.

More than two-thirds of young European adults live at home with their parents. While that might sound great for those parents dreading the moment their kids leave home, it's also an indication some young adults across the developed world simply can’t afford a place of their own.

While their parents’ generation enjoyed high wage inflation and benefitted from rising property values, the young face relatively low levels of income and social mobility, particularly in the US and the UK, but elsewhere in the developed world, too.

Incomes for 25- to 34-year-olds have only increased by 19%, which might explain why home ownership among the same group fell from 55% in 1997 to 35% in 2017.

A similar pattern exists in the United States, where housing costs have quadrupled since 1950 and homelessness rates have hit highs not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Between 1949 and 2018, mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP grew from 15% to 80% in the US.

In addition to struggling to afford a home of their own, studies show young people today suffer from more mental health challenges. And in some developed countries, life expectancy rates have slowed or even reversed.

In the UK, life expectancy for under-50s has fallen behind some other European countries. This is fuelled, in part, by a wave of drug-related deaths, most acutely in Scotland.

In the United States, between 2010 and 2017, mortality rates for working-age people, between 25 to 64, increased from 328.5 deaths per 100,000 people to 348.2 deaths per 100,000. The main causes were drug and alcohol abuse and suicide.

By most measures, youth unemployment is likely to be higher than that of the overall working population. Around 621 million young people between the ages of 15 to 24 are not in education, employment or training.

Across the 36 OECD countries, three stand out for very high youth unemployment: Italy, Spain and Greece. There, youth unemployment rates are 32%, 34% and 40%, respectively. South Africa, which is not a full OECD member, has a youth unemployment rate of 53%.

Although some countries, such as Japan, face the challenge of an ageing population, the world is dominated by young people. One-quarter of all people alive today are younger than 14 and the global median age is just 30.

For one young leader attending the Forum’s Annual Meeting, now is the time to elevate the position of young people. Grace Gatera, a mental health worker in Rwanda, says, “Young people are largely ignored when decisions affecting them are being made.”

Doing so is a tragedy, she says: “It’s time to pass the mic.”