"Doing life" used to be pretty much straight forward.
You know the drill: Finish school, get a job, travel the world, get a better job, settle down and buy a home.
So, what are today's youth doing? Well, it seems, worrying a lot.
"I'm quite disappointed by the continued inaction on the degrading environmental situation in Australia," says Sam Johnson, a 20-year-old wildlife conservation student in Sydney.
Mr Johnson also works part-time in the environmental sector and says the recent flooding events across Queensland and New South Wales "really scares" him.
And Mr Johnson thinks the latest budget shows the Australian government isn't taking environmental issues seriously enough.
"It may not be considered the primary cost of living issue right now, but it's quite unbelievable with all these extreme weather events that there's little to no action on climate change as the evidence stacks up," he said.
COVID-19, climate change, equality top concerns for young Australians
According to the latest Mission Australia National Youth Survey, the top three worries for Australians aged between 15 and 19 years include:
- the COVID-19 pandemic
- climate change or the environment
- equity and discrimination — or everyone being treated fairly, regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender.
Roughly 85 per cent of these Australians were studying when surveyed.
Alarmingly, more than half these students say worries about life and mental health concerns get in the way of their learning.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females also experienced higher levels of personal concern about mental health.
The data suggests, to cope, young Australians are escaping behind a mobile device.
Three quarters of those surveyed said they were spending more than five hours on screens per day.
As life gets more serious, it seems the hurdles to "getting ahead" only grow.
'Getting ahead' is getting harder, taking longer
Take landing a full-time job, for instance.
This graph shows the process has become significantly more challenging for Australians aged between 15 and 34 years over the past four decades.
Roughly one-fifth of younger Australians are underemployed, which means 20 per cent need more work to help with the rising cost of living.
It means many younger Australians are not earning enough money and are at risk of going backwards, as this bar chart shows.
If you add up all the income those aged between 15 and 24 years earn, adjusting for inflation, the amount is down on what it used to be more than a decade ago.
And this is where it hits home.
A long way from home ownership
Grattan Institute data shows that, in 1995, it took a couple seven years to save a 20 per cent deposit for an average house on a typical income.
Despite a brief correction in property prices in the early 2000s, it still took a couple roughly nine years to work up a deposit.
It now takes well over a decade before a young couple can confidently jump in the car and go searching for a property.
It's no wonder then data from the Melbourne Institute's HILDA survey shows as many as a third of men stay at home with their parents well into their late 20s.
Mr Johnson grew up in Brisbane but lived in the UK with his parents and younger sister until he was 18.
Two years ago, he moved on his own to Sydney, with a little help from his parents, but he doesn't think he can stay in the city long-term.
"I'm never going to be able to afford a house in Sydney, not in my line of work," he says.
Not because the pay is bad, many jobs in his sector are on par with or above the median wage.
What's in the budget for young Australians?
This year's federal budget attempts to tackle some of these problems head-on.
For example, $53 million has been earmarked, over five years, for a pre-employment program to help an estimated 5,000 people aged 15 to 24 years.
Also, $2.4 billion is to be allocated over four years for a revamped apprentice scheme, to help younger Australians with the typically challenging task of landing their first full-time job.
In addition, $138.7 million has been set aside over seven years to allow more first home buyers to find a property with a smaller deposit and without needing to pay mortgage insurance.
For Sam, he thinks the budget measures for first-home owners do not go far enough.
"I don't think it's targeting the root cause of what's causing house prices to rise in the first place," he says.
"And what's being offered is a drop in the ocean in the place where I live in the inner-west of Sydney, where houses are in the millions of dollars."
Sam plans to eventually move to a regional or rural area for work.
The question is: Have younger Australians already carved out a new kind of economic path? A path that is not reliant on these kinds of government assistance.
