Do people understand that many of us have lived through high periods of unemployment?

[marymarkle]

There are major issues for young people today with zero hour contracts and high housing costs. But I do get a bit fed up with comments that state that life is much harder for young people now that ever before.

I left school during the Thatcher year. Unemployment was very high and outside London whole communities were decimated by this, I still remember a classmate just before we left coming into school excited because they had secured a job in a factory. Jobs were very hard to get, reaching a peak of 10.8% unemployed in the early 1980's, and that was with them fidding the unemployment figures. And there was no MW, wages were often very very low. Yes house prices were cheaper, but that only benefited those already doing well.

I remember it as a very grim time in our country. While the City was booming and people earned massive bonuses, street homelessness soared, use of illegal drugs soared, as did crime. And many adults in their 50s who lost jobs during this time, never worked again. It was a grim time economically to be young.

OhTheRoses

She destroyed the most important thing of all. The Wall

Absolute and utter bollocks. Historical illiteracy at its finest.

Just because she was in power when it fell does not make her responsible for the fall. David Hasselhoff did more to bring down the the wall than Thatcher!

I left school in 1981. I remember just before doing my A'Levels, going to the schools career officer who told me she had no idea what I was expecting from her, as she didn't even know if she was going to have a job for much longer. There were riots, strikes, unemployment getting on for four million [in a much smaller population]. Vandalism, racial tension and youth violence was rife.

Yes, my generation had an easier time getting mortgages. I can remember banks around '84 - 86 positively falling over themselves to lend. I took advantage and bought my first, tiny flat in West London in '87, 3 years after leaving university. It was a terrible struggle. I had no furniture besides a couple of wooden crates for chairs [There were no stores at that time offering cheap self build furniture] and I had to take in a lodger who took over my microscopic living room.

Interest rates reached 18% at the end of 1989 which finally tipped the balance. Fixed rate mortgages, generally, were not available then. My overdraft was going up by about a quarter of my salary every month. I struggled on despite this, but I lost the flat eventually and ended up homeless pretty much, with colossal debts. This was not an uncommon thing in those days. The '80s property boom went on to collapse spectacularly, putting millions of people in negative equity and many, lost their homes. There's nothing young people of today need envy about that. At around 1989, during the time of the 'Warehouse party', many of my friends had 'foreclosure raves'. The banks were slinging them out so they'd have a huge party on the weekend before they had to leave, get a sound system in, and they'd leave the place wrecked. Often spraying very rude things about their respective bank / building societies, on the walls as well. I remember one bloke I knew, pooed on his living room floor and stuck his repayments book in it....It was quite a desperate time.

There's no question that today's young people [25yo's] have a harder time than mine did ,saving for a deposit and getting a mortgage, but if they can get over that hurdle they'll find the mortgage repayments much cheaper than my generation did. Today, it is possible to obtain a two year fixed-rate mortgage at 1.5%, reverting to a variable rate of 4% after two years.

Young people today have technology that my generation couldn't have even imagined, Very cheap air travel, far more jobs, a minimum wage. Life spans are going up. Between 1960 & 2010 a man’s average life expectancy increased by 10 years; a woman’s by 8. Cancer survival rates have improved dramatically, HIV is no longer a death sentence. In Matt Ridley book "The Rational Optimist", he writes, ‘that the average British working man in '57, when Harold Macmillan told him he had “never had it so good”, was earning less in real terms than his modern equivalent could now get in state benefit if unemployed with 3 children.

The challenges young people have today are different ones to the ones previous generations faced. No worse, no better, just different.

She certainly didn't destroy Britain. Wilson, Callaghan and Healey almost did that.

DH's grandad was sent down the mine on his 14th birthday. On his 18th he walked to Cardiff and joined the army. His words "I don't understand why any father would fight for the right to send their son down that hell hole". He served from 1927 to 1947 and left to start a good career. He thought active service in WW2 was a better option. All his DC were educated until they were 18. All of them did vocational quals such as nursing/teaching/forces. He gave all of them choices. 10 of the 14 grandchildrwn went to russell group uni's, three to Oxbridge, and two doctors. All successful. That's what happens when yiu want better for yourself and others. That's what sets the Europeans apart from the Brits - they shift themselves for a better life.

Turning this into a political debate is a total red herring. The fact that the most extreme right wing prime minister we'd ever had up until 2010 didn't destroy our higher education and benefits systems is a real indicator of how they were valued. Perhaps it was because she was a grammar school girl who recognised their benefits.

True only 5-10% of the population were graduates but that meant far greater opportunities for those with "A" levels. My contemporaries went into jobs that now "require" a degree and there's no on the job training any more. Today's generation has been conned and I don't blame them for being angry.

No on the job training. A huge apprenticeship scheme from L3 to degree level has just been introduced. What planet are you on?

minisdriver you are right about the challenges being different not better or worse.

The point is they should be doing better. Each generation should fight to improve the quality of life for their children. My grandparents were a lot better off than their parents, my parents were a lot better off than their parents.

We are passing on some benefits and a load of difficulties - many of them self inflicted. We are the generation that has not fought for our children and now resent them.

We have let them down by not improving society just snarking and saying we had it bad too.

My DC aren't angry. They're working hard to be successful. One of them is earning £150 pw whilst doing a Masters.

We were the last of the baby boomers. Our babies will have the same start that we had because some of ours will be redistributed.

We have fought well worked very very hard for our children and don't resent them in the slightest. How sad if others have done otherwise. Not the style of any of our friends and contemporaries.

I don't think the OP needs to be bashed so much, it's good to discuss this.

I think it's complex: housing is much harder but other things are easier: more equality, better medicine, the internet to name a few. We do have higher standards now which is good but there's always a price.

HE more available to all is a boon: a better educated public are happier, more socially mobile. Degrees are not over priced, the fee barely covers the cost of delivery. The mistake is to make individuals pay. It's actually more expensive to the government to administer the loans than to give grants.

Oh and it's a fact that far more people go to HE than before
Some surprising numbers:
"In 1950 14% of 16 year olds and 7% of 17 year olds were in full-time education in England and Wales."

Opportunity for bettering you lot was much lower.

51,000 got a degree in 1970 (15,000women) and 350,000 in 2011 (men and women equally split).

So things have improved in some ways but I think we as a society have slipped from a social democracy to a much harsher dog eat dog world, undoubtedly triggered by Thatcher.

An apprenticeship scheme has JUST been introduced, so what about the previous 20 years then? Regardless of whether one's own children are angry, an entire generation IS angry, I wish they were angrier personally.

Bettering your lot isn't just about accessing degree level education, it's about opportunity, you didn't need a degree to do better than your parents 40 years ago. You could get a decent job with good prospects for advancement straight from school, start earning money, not get into debt and start saving for your first home. Which is what most of we boomers, who apparently hold all the wealth, did. Strange, that.

The point is they should be doing better. This makes no sense to me.

Everyone should now be equally successful? Own their own home, have equal incomes and wealth? Higher wages and living standards than their parents had? They should all be in a better state of health and have greater access to benefits and/or credit to get themselves to an equal level of wealth and income as someone else? I don't see what you mean!

People are doing better today in many different ways to my generation. Opportunities abound via the internet that were impossible in my day. Look at the jobs and business/marketing opportunities that particular invention has created. Over the last gen' (ie, 25 years) average pay's up by 62% with more holiday entitlement (5 weeks instead of 4), fewer strikes, and a higher employment rate for women.

Yes graduates have a difficult time finding jobs, [though whether it is more difficult for today's gen' than it was for mine, is debatable], but that’s partly because there are so many more graduates. It's very often tough to get a start in your chosen profession - due to competition and inexperience. After graduating from University I applied everywhere, eventually I worked for 9 months for no wages at all, just to get a foot in the door. This is probably illegal now.

Of course I'm not saying "they don't know how lucky they are". But it's a myth that any generation has ever left school and walked straight into home ownership, well paid, secure jobs with guaranteed, upwards-gradating incomes and lots of sundry benefits. In many ways it's tough being young. But each generation faces its difficulties and challenges that are unique to them, and they must do that in their own way. This is essential it seems to me, and equips you better for life.

In the case of home ownership, looking back, life for me got a whole lot better after the bank kicked me out of the flat I bought, as I was no longer locked into a mortgage. I was willing to take on career risks, I became an entrepreneur and I no longer had to stay in that one place. I failed and failed again, but eventually, and after many years and after changing careers entirely [something that for my Mum and Dad's gen' was a lot harder], I've had a modest level of success.

Home ownership is not the best thing at all for young people when they are most likely only just starting their careers. It is far more difficult to take risks when you are forced to pay a mortgage, why would young people want that level of responsibility when they seemingly don't in any other area of their lives?

What we need and what there can never be enough of, in my view, is equality of opportunity...

With few exceptions generations pass on better conditions to their children.

As I said my grandparents were born in the early 1900s passed on better conditions to my parents who were born in the 1930s. I was born in the 1960s and while my children have technology they do not have the clear feeling that life is better.

While we argue over scraps we are failing our children's generation. And while I can point at my children and point out their individual successes as a generation they have been let down.

The key advantage historically and not available today was social and employment mobility. Me! Born London 1940 . A german bomb destroyed house next door as I was being born. Unmarried mother shamed out of a rural village in N.Ireland. Childhood Orphanages. Middlesex. Trades School at 12 Gloucestershire. First job at 15 - pig man. Moved to Belgium when 21. Voluntary work with displaced survivors from Concentration Camps. 2 years later to London trained in Nursing. After 10 years in hospitals became Social Security Officer. Then 7 years Director in a London Refuge for Men & Women. Resigned. Retrained specialising in drugs and alcohol misusers with Grant from Manpower Services Commission. Obtained government post in alleviating street homelessness & rough sleeping in London. Retired at 55 having attained Principal Officer status. Author of 4 books: Scenes From An Examined Life published by tredition.com. Now living in Germany. Two professional children: Son: Teacher Daughter: Clinical Psychologist.

I was born in 72 and remember really tough times of high interest rates, parents unable to pay mortgage and unable to sell the house, strikes galore and layoffs galore. No childcare unless you had relatives to step in so a second job was hard for a woman until the kids were old enough to have a key to the door. Some might see this as a good balance but it left lots of women vulnerable, totally dependent on men for money.

Expectations around quality of housing were lower and it was seen as more acceptable to live in a health and safety death trap. Expectations around consumables in general were lower it was not generally seen as acceptable to get in to debt for furniture or clothes, I had hand me downs or nothing.

I remember graduating in 93 from a top uni. I was the first year of the student loan but it was being phased in. Most people had overdrafts though. I didn’t but I had worked whenever I could from age 14 on. In the northwest that was hard in the late 80’s,
Early 90’s. Unemployment was terrible. No stepping in to jobs.

I went on to doctoral/ post doc 94-2000 and I started to notice a few things. First, the students seemed better off than me! They shopped in stores I only looked in and had electronics that were out of my reach. As loans took over, I think the attitude towards debt changed. I lived in fear of debt but once you embrace it as inevitable you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

I think it was easier and more socially acceptable to be frugal back then. Today, I think people do make different choices but there are more things that are essential like mobiles. One that hasn’t been mentioned too is car insurance. It has always been a tax on youth but today it is so eye popping I don’t know how younger people manage.

I've read where several people are traveling round the world and blogging or offering people to join them on holidays. They are making a living. I guess the equivalent in the past, was traveling and writing a book. These type of people don't own a house, they have no need for a base. I've seen stories of people living long term in Airbnb, because it allows them flexibility for jobs and to explore a new place to live. The world has become a lot more accessible, than the past. The older model of a mortgage d property, with one long term job, may now be on the decrease. Few people had these opportunities in the past

I think it was easier and more socially acceptable to be frugal back then.

This is one of THE most important comments made on this thread!

I agree, in a similar vein it was probably more socially acceptable for an adult to live with their parents in the past

The option of living with parents is only an option if you can find a job in commutable distance to your parents' house.

If you have to move away to find work then you have to be able to afford housing.

Life is much harder now re employment - cost of living - finances than ever before in history.
Heat or eat is a major problem in today’s working class society. People are a lot more isolated these days families were more supportive and united in the 60’s in most cases.

Having a job now full time on minimum wage is unlovable if you have your own 1 bed flat. Rent council tax water gas electricity tv licence travel food and clothing mean nothing’s left.
In years gone but having a job full time on the equivalent to minimum wage having your own place and going out have a social life we’re doable.

Kate Where I was brought up there was virtually no work. I had to move away to get low paid work. It was pretty shit living in a bedsit a few hundred miles away from any family with no money.
It is wrong, but poorer people have always been in the situation of not turning on the heating when money is tight. I have done it myself. When my DP moved in to my bedsit, we used to snuggle under the blankets to watch TV. Last year when things were tight, I used to try and manage some cold evenings with no heating to save money. I am not defending it, but it is nothing new sadly.

Also there was no way I could have afforded to rent a 1 bedroom flat. Far too expensive. I remember Marc Almonds Bedsit Land hit. That was about the many many young people like me living in tiny bedsits. I know the bedsit I lived in is still rented out.
The issue is inequality. There are some very well off people with so much money, and people who can not afford to put the heating on. Everyone should have the basics.

*Free university education
Maintenance grants
Housing benefit as students
Unemployment benefit in vacations
Booming employment market
No zero hours contracts
Houses affordable on one income
100% mortgages
Council housing
Employment stability
Reliable benefits in sickness and unemployment with no sanctions

All that's gone. I'm glad you see being able to sit around on your arsed and not work as virtuous and desirable, it speaks volumes, but kids now have to work far harder than I ever did. And very, very few people born in the 50s had only an outside*

What you are listing are what was probably available to the middle and upper classes and a few working class people who went to the Grammar school.

What happened if you lived in a council or rented property or with a single parent in rented accommodation in a more affluent area the HT would have the final say after you had done your 11+ on who went to the grammar and who went to the secondary modern.

Very few people were ft students beyond 16 as you had to work to support your family and also you probably didn’t take the right exams to get you to university in the first place so the first 4 on you list didn’t apply to most people.

I left school in the 70s, strikes, 3 day week, 3 million unemployed certainly not a booming employment market.

I will give you the zero hours contracts but maybe because they could get people on a pittance and tie them in all week as with the unemployment and queues of people going for 1 job you took what you could. I was doing a 40hour week for what worked out as 46p per hour.

Houses had to be affordable on one income only and that applied to men as only men were able to get a mortgage.
You couldn’t even get a credit card without you fathers or husbands signature.
Having said that you wouldn’t be able to get a house in a nice area unless you worked either in a factory (which paid quite well) or higher up in an office as a supervisor or manager.

Yes you could get council housing but again not in a nice area. I went with friend to the council office and she asked about getting a council property.

The areas she liked had a minimum wait of 14 years and the ones that were on offer were in such bad areas and cockroach ridden that she decided to private rent and that was in the early 80s.

There was as much employment stability as there is today and if you went off sick depending on the company you could be sacked and have no recourse.

And as for an outside loo.

Even in the 70s I knew a few people who still had an outside toilet and no bathroom. In the 59s and 60s only posh people had indoor plumbed in bathrooms.
I certainly remember the tin bath and 10 people bathing in it in the 60s.

I think young people are more interested in what's happening now than in the past because they do not possess time machines. Yes life was hard, sorry about that but life is also hard now and you could actually do something to help...

The official unemployment rate was over 10%. It was much higher as they fiddled the figures. And once you took the south east out of the equation the unemployment figures were sky high.

Yes there was zero hours work. Casual workforce still existed. You turned up at the factory gates or building sites looking for work that day.

And we had fewer employment rights. The EU gave us lots of new employment rights.

Also if you were disabled, gay or lesbian, or different in some way, life could be much tougher than today. One of my friends as a young adult had cerebral palsy. She could walk with sticks. She would be in a mainstream school today with no issues. She was bitter that she went to a special school with very little chance to do academic exams. She will be about 60 now, and will have been impacted by her very poor education.

I also know a woman who spent a good few years in a mental hospital for being a lesbian.

The middle class are worse off today if you are young.

If you are disabled, have mental health problems, are lesbian or gay, are a single parent, are a woman in a shit marriage, things are much much better for you today. So much better it may be hard for young people to grasp.

If you are working class things may be better or they may not be. Things are getting worse. And sadly I think they will continue to get worse.

shartgoblin I have been an activist all my life and very active in the trade union. I am sick to death of some young adults moaning about baby boomers but they won't even join a fucking union. If you want to change things, you have to do something about it.
Although in Scotland young adults have got very active and are politically engaged, so I am well aware it is not all young adults.
But at the very least, join your union.