Young Kiwis cling to carefree youth

Young New Zealanders are postponing the usual commitments of adulthood, just like their international contemporaries in what has been called the "Peter Pan generation".

A study has found that "Generation Y" Kiwis aged 20 to 24 are more likely to be still studying and living at home with their parents, and less likely to be working or living with partners, than preceding generations of young people born 10, 20 and 30 years earlier.

Legal marriage has almost disappeared in the age group and religious affiliation has almost halved.

But welfare dependence and sole parenting, which peaked when the previous "Generation X" reached adulthood amid record postwar unemployment between 1985 and 1999, have declined among today's youth as jobs again became easier to find in the first years of this century.

The study by David Rea and Paul Callister of Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies concludes that the changing levels of unemployment have affected many key outcomes for youth, and warns that the recession may hit young people hard.

"Over the next two years, as well as higher youth unemployment we are likely to see more young people living at home, possibly increased participation in education, fewer young people employed, increased sole parenthood, increased benefit receipt, lower incomes and possibly higher rates of mortality amongst young men," the study says.

Dr Callister welcomed Government steps to minimise these effects, such as Job Ops work subsidies and this week's announcement of 30,000 places in school holiday programmes.

"I think they have reacted reasonably quickly," he said.

The study is based on Census data for young people born in New Zealand, excluding the growing numbers born overseas so as to spot underlying trends. The numbers of 15- to 19-year-olds born overseas rose from just 9 per cent in the 1976 Census to 23 per cent in 2006.

The main driver in "postponing adulthood" is staying longer in education. The proportion of 20-year-olds enrolled in education has doubled from 23 per cent in 1971 to 48 per cent in2002.

Conversely, fulltime employment dropped from 89 per cent of males aged 20 to 24 in 1976 to a low of 66 per cent in the 1990s recession, recovering only slightly to 69 per cent in 2006.

Partly as a result, 20- to 24-year-olds still living with their parents have also increased, but only from 24 per cent to 31 per cent.

In the "baby boom" generation of 1976, more than half of that age group were almost certainly living with partners. There was no separate count of "partners" in those days, but 48 per cent of the group were already legally married.

"Despite the protest and counter-culture, as young people the [baby-boomers] were more likely to be married and having children than all other generations in the 20th century," the study says.

Since then, the numbers living with partners have roughly halved to 27 per cent in 2006, while those legally married have plunged to 5 per cent. Religious affiliation has dropped from 75 per cent to 43 per cent.

Although the study does not discuss it, contraceptives and the growing acceptance of abortion and sole parenthood may also have encouraged young people to put off commitments to children and lifelong partners.

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