Housing, jobs and anxiety dominate for young Australians
Affordable housing, employment opportunities and climate change topped the issues young Australians wanted addressed in a five-year national study of people aged 18 to 24.
The Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice released the report on 11 August 2026. It is titled Young Australian Lives During Polycrisis: Five Years of Key Trends from the Australian Youth Barometer (2021-2025).
Researchers tracked the views of more than 2,700 young Australians from 2021 to 2025. The annual study examined education, work, wellbeing, relationships and civic participation after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Housing concern climbed from 60% in 2022 to 82% in 2025. Employment opportunities rose from 48% in 2022 to 64% in 2025, while climate change reached 44% in 2025.
Meanwhile, 82% to 90% reported some financial difficulty in the previous 12 months across 2021 to 2025. A further 25% to 28% said those problems happened often or very often.
Property confidence falls
Just 41% to 49% thought it was likely or very likely they would buy a property or house in the future between 2021 and 2025. The report found the wish to buy stayed fairly steady, but confidence in doing so declined.
Anxiety or pessimism stayed near universal in the survey. Rates stood at 98% in 2022, 97% in 2023, 98% in 2024 and 99% in 2025.
Professor Lucas Walsh, director of the Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice and lead author of the Australian Youth Barometer, said the figures showed “interrelated challenges ranging from insecure work to climate change”.
The report defines the pandemic as one part of a wider polycrisis. That polycrisis brings together economic, environmental, political, social and technological emergencies, with each one worsening the others.
Following the worst of COVID-19, pandemic impacts eased. However, economic pressure, shifting work patterns, and changing attitudes to education, mental health and political engagement still need attention.
A 19-year-old respondent from Queensland described the strain in the report: “Cost of living and [the] housing crisis are pretty big barriers at the moment, but also just for me particularly it’s yeah, a lot of mental health difficulties and then the physical health stuff on top of that doesn’t help either”.
