A comprehensive analysis from the last five years of Australian Youth Barometer reports has found that young people are living in a polycrisis, which continues to disrupt their lives.
Released today by the Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice (CYPEP), the report titled, Young Australian Lives During Polycrisis: Five Years of Key Trends from the Australian Youth Barometer (2021-2025), tracked the the experiences of young Australians in the aftermath of the COVID‑19 pandemic, across education, work, wellbeing, relationships, and civic participation.
The comprehensive national study, which has been conducted every year since 2021, has examined the views of more than 2,700 young Australians aged 18-24 and found that affordable housing, employment opportunities and climate change were the top three issues that needed immediate action.
The COVID-19 pandemic was one dimension of a polycrisis, which involves the convergence of overlapping economic, environmental, political, social, and technological emergencies, where each one worsens the others, resulting in compounded effects and typically unpredictable consequences.
Findings of the report found that there was an easing of pandemic‑related impacts, but persistent economic pressures, shifting work patterns, and evolving attitudes toward education, mental health, and political engagement continue to need attention.
Key findings included:
- Young people identified the top priorities as:
- Affordable housing options (increasing from 60% in 2022 to 82% in 2025)
- Employment opportunities for young people (increasing from 48% in 2022 to 64% in 2025)
- Climate change (44% in 2025).
- The overwhelming majority of young Australians reported having at least one feeling of anxiety or pessimism (98% in 2022, 97% in 2023, 98% in 2024, & 99% in 2025).
- From 2021 to 2025, the proportion of young Australians who experienced financial difficulties to some extent in the last 12 months fluctuated between 82% and 90%, with the proportion reporting they did so often or very often fluctuated between 25% and 28%.
- The proportion of young Australians who think that it is likely or very likely that they will be able to purchase a property or house in the future fluctuated between 41% and 49% from 2021 to 2025. Although the desire to purchase property is relatively consistent, young people express decreased confidence in being able to do so.
A 19-year-old respondent from Queensland explained how the cost of living crisis was a major concern. “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… There is heaps of stuff going on in the world so I don’t even know what things are going to look like in the next five years and there could be new barriers popping up.”
Professor Lucas Walsh is the Director of CYPEP and lead author of the Australian Youth Barometer, having launched the study more than five years ago “In 2021, we started tracking the experiences of young Australians during the pandemic, but the data speaks to interrelated challenges ranging from insecure work to climate change,” Professor Walsh said.
“Young people are growing up in a polycrisis. They face existential challenges on a variety of fronts.
“With young people and Gen Xers now dominating voting age cohorts at a federal level, governments around Australia have started to listen, but more needs to be done to support young people during multiple crises.”
Young people generally believed that it was possible to achieve change, though consistently discussed caveats to this. Pessimism around the possibility of achieving change appeared highest in 2023 and 2024. Young people expressed more positivity about the possibility of change after the 2025 Federal Election, but not after the 2022 Federal Election.
As a 24 year old respondent from New South Wales said: “As our generation gets older… we will be put into more positions of power and hopefully once we are in positions of power, we can make more change.”
Interview data around mental health suggests that young people are less aware of mental health concerns, or are resigned to mental ill health as an ordinary aspect of their lives.
The proportion of young people who sought and received mental health support generally decreased from 31 per cent in 2021 to 23 per cent in 2025 and an increased proportion did not seek mental health support from 53 per cent in 2021 to 65 per cent in 2025, though fluctuations existed. This suggests that young people are not seeking support because they are resigned to not being able to access it, rather than not needing or wanting it.
A 19-year-old, bi-gender person from South Australia explained: “The biggest barrier is people not believing you because they don’t think you are actually in as much pain as you say you are, or they don’t believe you are having these symptoms at all and it’s such a problem. It took me an entire year to get diagnosed.”
Professor Walsh said young people needed support now more than ever.
“Young people are entering a world of escalating employment uncertainty, climate change and geopolitical instability and they are acutely aware of this. Arguably, young people have been navigating a polycrisis since the global financial crisis of 2007-9. This might seem dramatic, but for young people these pressures are converging and they need our help now more than ever,” he said.
To view the report: Young Australian Lives During Polycrisis: Five Years of Key Trends from the Australian Youth Barometer (2021-2025), please visit: https://doi.org/10.26180/31797583
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Professor Lucas Walsh, lead author and director of the Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice (CYPEP) in the Faculty of Education
