For much of Australia’s history, each new generation has been better off than the last: better jobs, higher incomes, and improved living standards. But could this intergenerational compact – the promise that young Australians will be better off than their parents and grandparents – now be in doubt?

This report highlights how today’s young Australians differ from previous generations and explores what this means for their economic security, work opportunities, living arrangements, path to independence, and overall well-being.

Young Australians now have access to opportunities that were not available to earlier generations. They are achieving more in education, earning more in their early stages of their careers, and participating in the labour market in new ways. Young people have also benefited from technological advancements, including greater access to information through the internet, improvements in the availability of digital goods and cheaper consumer goods. They are building superannuation balances over longer careers at higher rates, and many will be the beneficiaries of larger intergenerational wealth transfers than prior generations.

But these dynamics could reshape patterns of consumption and wealth-building, leading to economic achievements occurring later in life – when people are less liquidity constrained – than past generations. Young people may also disproportionately experience the adverse impacts of climate change due to past emissions, as well as the cost of the transition to net zero. Many are also facing a more precarious path to adulthood. They are dealing with a changing social and economic landscape: higher student debt, slower wage growth, housing affordability challenges and unprecedented rates of mental illness.

Whether young Australians will be better off than previous generations remains an open question. The answer will, in part, depend on the choices policymakers make today. For policymakers seeking to seeking to ensure that the intergenerational pattern of improvement continues, this report offers three implications:

• First, policymakers need to distinguish between whether young Australians are reaching major life milestones – like moving out of home, starting families, and buying a home later than previous generations, not reaching them at all, or simply changing their preferences.
• Second, gender and geography are emerging as particular markers of inequity among young people, suggesting that one-size-fits-all solutions may not be effective.  
• Third, the trade-offs involved in economic, social and technological change must be managed carefully if the intergenerational bargain is to be maintained.