Via Kim Johnstone who is a demographer with Astrolabe Group at Domainfax on the triumph of Millennials:
In our cities, where most of us live, they can’t afford rent, much less a toehold in insane property markets…Making home ownership utterly unimaginable for the great majority is a singular generational achievement. It has been driven by policy settings designed by the people who got in when property was cheap, watched the value skyrocket and gave themselves tax holidays on each additional property they accrued.
…Millennials are better educated than any previous generation, yet struggle to find secure work. Youth unemployment has been above 10 per cent ever since they entered the workforce. A third of 15-24s are un- or under-employed. The sheer size of the Millennial generation means there is intense competition for the available jobs, such as they are.
As we approach our next round of elections, Australian politicians had best take note. Millennials are now numerically dominant. They are about to take charge and many are not happy.
They see a deck stacked against them by the greediest generation in Australian history: self-satisfied with its wealth, loath to pay its taxes, happy to saddle the youngsters with eye-watering public debt and indifferent to its legacy of environmental degradation.
All true and bravo!
But there is still one missing ingredient from the Millennial vision for greater intergenerational fairness. I’m yet to see any acknowledgement of the the role that mass immigration plays in their marginalisation. Until that sorry truth is recognised, after the correction Millennials will risk turning into the Boomers that they so despise.
