Several recent news reports have painted a gloomy picture for younger Australians. Apparently many of them are facing credit repayment difficulties and most will face further stress from increased rents as they are unable to afford to purchase their own homes.
Considering their employability in a 'young image' world and the consequent incomes they enjoy that revelation is astounding.
A fact of life is that every generation considers the next one to be lazier, more spoilt and less responsible than their own. Baby-boomers faced those criticisms from their own parents. Those parents themselves received the same admonishment from their elders and so forth.
There is no doubt that perception failures account for a great deal of that criticism, since while an apparent slide seems real to older generations the reality is that societies and economies charge forth irrespective of the altered values and behaviours of their younger members.
I don't like to harp on a hackneyed theme but there is another aspect to those generation variances that is not often publicly aired, but which recent developments have highlighted to me personally.
In days not that long ago young people received poor wages compared to their older and more experienced counterparts. Today's young are very well paid. Their spending power gives them a large degree of control over the directions that society takes.
The overall spending power of the meagerly-paid baby-boomers as teenagers sparked the explosion of Rock and Roll music, then of the pop era of the 'sixites. Their eagerness to buy the records and attend the concerts of Elvis and the Beatles relegated the likes of Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Mantovani to the background. Likewise, the even greater dollar power of Gen-X and Gen-Y has similarly redefined popular trends. Their choices decide who and what is popular. They also buy latest technology far more quickly than older people, hence they accelerate technological advancement.
Youth-driven change is no doubt beneficial to society. But there are other aspects to the story that need considering.
Baby-boomers, particularly those who like to dance, are being rapidly moved on from hotels in Adelaide whose managements are determined to cater for and attract much younger clienteles. The reason is because those publicans have hard figures to verify that for every one dollar that older patrons spend on drinks, younger ones spend four. This is the young dollar-power exerting its influence. But to whose advantage? The young people themselves?
These are the days when brand names often command a much higher price for nothing more than a new fad logo on a T-shirt that comes out of the same Asian factory that an unbranded one does. The young have to have that logo. They believe that without it they risk being osrtracised by the 'in crowd'. They are also the days when all youngsters from high school students upward have to have mobile phones and run up usage bills that leave older people horrified.
These are the days when empowerment of young people from a very early age is considered to be highly beneficial for them. According to a theory popular among some professions, it gives them the best chance of making good in life. South Australia's Mullighan Enquiry into sex abuse of state wards even recommends empowerment of young people as a means of helping them to avoid becoming victims of callous advantage-taking by older people.
Many older people regarded that empowerment theory as hogwash from the outset. There have been significant indications available since the nineteen-eighties that the young learn a great deal about power and how to wield it but far less about obligations and responsibilities. Are school children old enough to learn how to wield power to their own advantage?
There appears now to be an undertone of resentment about the wealth gain of older Australians, particularly from residential property investments. So many of their tenants are from Gen-X and Gen-Y, those being the 'empowered' generations.
Gen-Y are the first generation of Australians to start giving up on mass the idea of home ownership because they view it as an unattainable dream. Yet, members of their generation also have greater disposable incomes then any others before them.
Mature citizens cannot help believing that the young empowered generations have been caught out by something they just didn't see coming.
The young have chosen their direction for themselves and for society. If they choose to blow their money on the latest, trendiest amusements and frivolities they will create a new range of benefits all around, but there is always a sacrifice. They will ultimately pay a price somewhere along the line.
That aspect of society does not appear to have changed, and it was never going to. Empowerment doesn't mean you get to have it all ways going. It can easily mean that you get enough rope to hang yourself with. But again, that is merely a perspective issue, since societies and economies will to advance.
But it still means for today's young as it did for those of a century ago that their own choices will generally determine how they live in future. That is the very essence of empowerment.
