To think our quality of life can’t keep going up forever?

I certainly agree that we need to overcome our assumption of perpetual growth and, in terms of society as a whole, learn to live with less. There are multiple reasons why but climate change is of course the big one.

But you can't get far talking about "society as a whole" before you have to address the question of inequality, and on what basis resources are allocated to different individuals or groups.

And we know that inequality is increasing. It's measurable, and has been measured. So how much of the adjustment to living standards that will be necessary should be met by everybody becoming poorer - including those who are already really poor - and how much by bringing levels of inequality back to something more like they were before Thatcher, so that the reduced size of the pie doesn't actually impact too much upon those with the smallest pieces?

I think one reason politicians don't like to talk about this is because both of the available options seem impossible to accept for different reasons. Either the wealthiest are going to have to give up a LOT of their wealth, or everybody is going to have to give up some and those already on the breadline will fall below it. (And if you look at it in global terms, which climate change forces us to do, "the wealthiest" may well include most of us in the UK.)

Can you expand on what you mean? Like living together multigenerationally or in other ways?

I know someone is going to say birth rates are declining. Well, yes, but not everywhere.

They are declining but still high in some parts of Africa. Much of the west has an ageing population which is a massive issue. We already have more over 65s than under 15s.

This. Social media etc drives the impression for young people that they need to have it all. I have a relative who works pt, partner in a low income job yet they have already had 2 family holidays abroad this year and a staycation next month. I have friends who complain they are skint when it comes to bills but get coffees and lunch out daily, nails, hair done constantly. People seem to have lost the idea these are luxuries not essentials

But coats and clothes were of much higher quality with better fabrics and would have lasted much longer.

I know I mentioned growing up with the toilet at the far end of the backyard but I'm not a Victorian, post WWII baby in a city where the housing was decimated by bombing and the poor housing/lack of housing was alive and well in the 50s and 60s.

Actually looking back I could put up with the ouside loo but I'd have given anything for my own bedroom.

@dhfkabduuori 😆

I’d say our quality of life is declining for sure, partly because of overpopulation. There are just too many people crammed into this small island. Actually, there are too many people on this planet, full stop. The statistics are shocking. In 1900 there were a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It’s now eight. I think we’re meant to peak at ten billion in 2060, just as climate change is causing wars and revolutions and mass migration. Hopefully I’ll be dead by then.

I know someone is going to say birth rates are declining. Well, yes, but not everywhere. Africa’s birth rate is so high the African population is going to double. Also, there will soon be medications to slow and reverse ageing (google senolytics), so people won’t be dying and making room. Even Yuval Harari believes this is inevitable.

All over the U.K. developers are taking advantage of the booming population. They know demand is high, so they’re building disgusting little rabbit hutches and jamming them on top of one another. Frankly, we are building new slums. The traffic near me is so bad we’ll soon be booking time slots to use the roads. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for vile new estates, and we’ve recently learned that the fields in the centre of the village are going to be built on as well. But no matter how many of these horrible ratholes they build, we always need more, more, more. If I was young I’d leave the U.K. If you begin a career as, say, a teacher or plumber, what’s the best you can hope for? Why bother working hard? What for? So you can buy one these horrible new builds on some godawful estate? You can’t even escape the anti-social ‘problem families,’ because every new estate has to include social housing. And though many of the people in social housing are ordinary and nice, there’s always the feral, criminal type who play the system and make everyone else’s life a nightmare. I’d advise any young person to move to Canada - somewhere you can breathe, enjoy personal space, and be alone with nature.

Why do you think they aren’t improving? And what would ‘improving’ look like to you?

wage stagnation & GDP per capita

"Much attention has been paid to the stagnation in income growth since the 2008 financial crisis, and for good reason. The last 10 years are the first time in over half a century where real incomes did not grow by a meaningful amount."

Plus regional inequalities

@Wildflowers99 why do you think they are improving? more washing machines?

You know that baby boomers were born 1946-1964? So think Dolly Parton to Courtney Cox.

You're a bit late to the party...

Sorry have I done that really annoying thing of coming to a thread whilst it's well underway, not reading through it, and rocking up with what I hope to be a mic dropping comment that's actually been said and discussed to death well before?

My bad

I'm in my 70s and know plenty of young people.

dont agree with the OP. In one breath posters moan people expect too much these days, but we’re talking stuff like having a decent family home or having a few treats like having your hair done. Should we just work to afford food on the table and a two room home? Should we not expect in the UK in 2025 that our standard of living is good??
Post war housing was built for normal, average families to live in. Now the same houses in the SE and the nicer part of other towns and cities in the UK are only available to high earners and those lucky enough to be gifted money to buy a house. Of course people are going to moan about that!

I mean if we are saying people need to be happy with kids sharing a room, and dated kitchens from the 90s, why not go further and live in one room and have the loo outside like in Victorian times. I think it’s sad that people want to go backwards and see kids growing up in conditions we thought we had left in the past.
People are getting annoyed because they work long hours, get taxed a lot but everything is costing more and civic standards and public services have declined. People are also seeing better standards in other countries with lower tax rates and wondering what the hell is going wrong in the UK.

How old are posters on this thread because I don't think they know that many young people...

@strappyshoe the one eight of annual salary for a home computer.

@brunettemic , we all shared bedtooms, unless the family had one child of each sex, or several small bedrooms.
Only one of my friends was an only child.

Agree, silent generation rather than boomers.

I'm a boomer, that sounds more like my gran than me. I didn't have a front room 40 years ago, we used mugs not tea sets as for a grandfather clock they were expensive antiques weren't they? I've never known anyone with one and that even goes for my grandparents.

@DuchessOfNarcissex what figures?

I'm late 60s ... pretty solid middle class upbringing in the 1960s / 70s. I didn't have a single shop bought jumper until I was in my teens. All my jumpers were knitted by my mother, grandmother or my big sister. All my friends were the same. When i was 18 my sister and my grandmother both knitted me new jumpers to take away to university as a fresher!

Didn't know a single family with 2 cars - absolutely unheard of.

A close friend was the middle child of 3 girls. Couldn't wait for her big sister to go to university. It meant that, at 16, she'd finally be able to move out of the bedroom she shared with her little sister and have her own room. This was typical middle class life.

The response will be to have fewer children, not bigger houses. The more developed and educated a country becomes, the fewer children families have. 3 children families will reduce.

You're a bit late to the party...

I just don't buy into the idea that the majority of people have all this extra income to fritter away, I think what people spend money on has changed. Wage stagnation is a thing for one.

Back in the late 90s/00s I had some amazing travel experiences because I could get those £20 Ryanair flights. It's more expensive now

Yep, I agree.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s and things like eating out (and when I say eating out, I mean at the Harvester!) were a special eg birthday treat. Now for some people it's an every week thing.

Special trips and days out were mostly confined to holidays, not an every day weekend thing like now. As a kid, a weekend trip out was either into town or to the supermarket! If we were lucky, a birthday party would break things up a bit.

Even cinema trips/renting a video were mostly saved for the school holidays.

Only ever had one car... (Though that is the same for us now).

Holidays until we were mid-teens were camping or caravanning in the UK.