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The year 2023 ends as one more episode in the series of struggles faced by young people in this world of uncertainty caused by precariousness. For most of them, time is already stretched too far. As if being young never ends, or it does, but only for the good things. Too much effort on the tightrope balancing between the passage of time, frustrated expectations and reality. Because in spite of the improvements - not negligible thanks to the modification of the labor reform - the unemployment and precariousness data are insistent. The unemployment rate of the population aged 16 to 29 is almost double that of the population aged 16 to 64, which is not good either. But let us also dare to ask uncomfortable questions: What kind of employment are we talking about? Is there really enough for everyone? Is it in line with their expectations and efforts? Does it allow them to have access to a full and dignified life? To be empowered? To have leisure? How will the green and digital bet have an impact?
The hidden reality of youth: work balance and mental challenges
Unfortunately, we have no positive answers and the reality is even more complex than the numbers. Young people have become experts in living in an uncertain tightrope walk, balancing on tense ropes that allow (or rather prevent) them from developing their future and potential. The study on precariousness “transitions in disadvantage” has allowed us to know that only 23% of youth have a job that they consider “satisfactory”, understanding this word only as part of a successful transition from their studies, or simply that allows them to meet their basic needs without living in precariousness. And all this is not their fault, although many believe it and we also face the respective mental health problems that these ideas entail. We would be deluded and somewhat dishonest if we insisted that it is an individual problem, a problem of laziness, lack of skills or luck. And the data don't lie either. Some 40% of young people face educational and/or labor disadvantages that hinder their integration into the market and accentuate precariousness. Yes, that's right, almost half of young people between the ages of 16 and 29 suffer some kind of disadvantage, so we should start to understand why young people are angry and without expectations. It is not their fault, it is because they are competing with stones in their backpacks and, on top of that, for the crumbs.
Inequality, precariousness and deferred dreams
Their situations, although diverse and with great heterogeneity, have shared structural causes: inequality, education, sexual division of labor, precariousness and unattainable basic goods. Not only are many of them unemployed, extending their studies, or doing unpaid internships, but those who earn something are far below the rest of the population, exploited, with an average annual income of 19,089.1 euros, up to the age of 30. On average, I insist, let us take into account here the disparity that within the same figure there will be between the least and most privileged, thanks to the enormous differences in the social and economic inheritance that persist.
So that flimsy unicycle on which they strive and turn their aspirations is again and again dangerously wobbly. And in cases such as housing, a basic need for the essential development of a person who is beginning to become an adult, it is an impossible leap. Our “young people” cannot be emancipated on average until they are 30.3 years old, and according to prospective studies this situation will worsen if something else is not done.
The social crossroads of youth
We have two options. Either be part of the crowd that observes, accuses them of being NEETs, of being whiners, or just watches and applauds those chosen few who undertake, ascend and succeed. Or we ask ourselves the uncomfortable questions, the ones behind those data where a young tightrope walker struggles to stay on the rope, facing economic winds and their own storms.
For them, idleness is normal, as the world looks more and more like a circus. Those of us who were able to benefit from a social contract with rights prior to the chain of crises (economic, international, health, ecological) must at least rethink who and why is increasingly left on the margin, who has never been able to get out of it, and what responsibility the rest of us have in this.
Because it is the inheritance received. The youth is screwed and these data prove it.
