Young people are no longer footloose and fancy free – and rent rises are to blame

an article by Lindsay Judge for i news [via the Resolution Foundation blog]

In 1997, moving from Telford to Birmingham would mean a 14 per cent financial gain. Today, it would leave someone worse off



Millennials, eh? They never stand still. Always on the move, with their ‘portfolio careers’, side hustles in the gig economy, and no loyalty to the companies they work for. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder they struggle to find decent work and pay.

There’s only one problem with this common trope though. It’s not true. Well apart from the struggle for decent pay – millennials who left education during the crisis are still feeling the effects in their pay packets and career prospects today.

In fact, young people today are moving jobs less than they were 20 years ago, and they’re even less likely to move areas to take up a new role. Resolution Foundation analysis of official labour market statistics finds that just 18,000 young people started a new job and moved home last year, compared to 30,000 in 1997.

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Should Politics be taught within secondary school?

a post by Elena Jones for the OUP blog


Classroom by Wokandapix. Public domain via Pixabay

Despite the higher youth turnout than originally anticipated, it has been estimated that around one third of millennials did not vote in the EU Referendum. Whilst the outcome of the EU referendum was disappointing for the majority of Millennials – statistically – if everyone within the 18-24 age category had participated in the EU referendum (and voted remain) the 3.78% required to equalise the leave vote would have been met, and the UK would have likely remained a member of the European Union. These statistics reveal that a large majority of young people are not realising their political power. So why did so many choose not to participate?

The truth is that many millennials have said that they did not understand the concept of the European Union and what it meant for the UK to leave it, evidenced by the tumult of bizarre notions which flooded social media. These misconceptions demonstrate that whilst our democracy gives people the right to vote, our education system is not reflective of this right. That is not to say that millennials were the only generation lacking an understanding of the EU; Google searches about the EU peaked following the referendum. But could a better understanding of the European Union, and political affairs in general be achieved if Politics were taught more widely in schools? Would more young people be willing to engage with politics?

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