New data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey reveals a stark decline in the mental health and cognitive skills of young Australians. The survey, which has tracked over 17,000 lives across the nation for 25 years, released its 2024 findings, painting a grim picture for the nation's future generations. Young people aged 15 to 24 show a marked drop in average performance on cognitive tests, including the backwards digits span test and the symbol digits modalities test, indicating a worrying trend in foundational intellectual capacity.
Self-reported mental health for women across most age groups has plummeted since 2001, with young women aged 15 to 24 experiencing the most significant deterioration. A similar pattern holds for young men, whose mental health has also declined across decades, though their reported levels remain higher than women's. This widespread mental and cognitive erosion among the nation's youth signals a profound societal malaise.
A Generation's Decline
The proportion of young Australians living with their parents has surged since the turn of the century, with 85 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds now residing in their childhood homes. Most of this growth occurred up until the mid-2010s, remaining stable since, suggesting a systemic failure to launch the native youth into independent adulthood. This demographic shift reflects deep economic and cultural pressures preventing the next generation from establishing their own households and futures.
Food insecurity has also worsened for Australians over 15, with more people reporting they couldn't obtain adequate food in the past year due to lack of money. This increase occurred over just four years, highlighting a rapid decline in basic living standards for a segment of the population. Housing stress, consistently high for single parents with children, has recently surged for single older men and for couples with children, further burdening traditional family structures.
Relationship quality drops significantly for Australians in their 30s and 40s, with women consistently reporting lower relationship quality than men throughout their lifetimes. Even at its lowest point for women, the average rating for relationship quality stands at about four out of five, indicating a pervasive undercurrent of dissatisfaction within the nation's foundational social units. Teenagers show the greatest percentage of problematic social media use, a factor that may contribute to the broader decline in youth well-being.
Elite Policies and Shifting Norms
While the native working class faces increasing precarity, the political class has overseen shifts in social policy. Both mothers and fathers have taken more paid parental leave, with women averaging over four months and fathers four weeks in 2024. The report attributes these increases to the federal government's extension of paid parental leave during this period, a policy choice that reconfigures traditional family roles and labor market participation.
The percentage of people with a university degree has risen across all ages and genders over decades, but this increase has been much faster for women. The largest gender gap in degree attainment now appears in the 35-44 age groups, signaling a significant cultural reorientation. Despite these educational shifts, the gender pay gap has persisted, with women earning less on average, even as average hourly earnings for workers have generally risen since 2001.
A smaller share of Australians now receives government income support payments; about 13 percent of 18- to 64-year-olds receive such aid, down from 24 percent in 2001. While Australians aged 65 and over rely more on benefits, that share has also dropped across the survey period. This reduction in the social safety net occurs as younger generations face unprecedented challenges. In contrast to the youth, older Australians, specifically men aged 65 and over, saw an increase in self-reported mental health, and those aged 45 and older performed better on cognitive tests compared with 2012. This divergence underscores a generational chasm in the nation's well-being.