The impact of COVID-19 on young people in the EU

00:00:00    Intro 
            
00:00:31    Mary McCaughey
Hello and welcome to this edition of Eurofound Talks. In today's podcast, we're going to look at the situation of young people in Europe today, their quality of life, their work, their career prospects and how they feel. We will discuss what COVID has done to them, their mental well-being, their independence and we will also have a quick look at the broader intergenerational solidarity issues. Next year, 2022, is set to be the European Year of Youth and we will talk about whether this makes a difference. Joining me this morning to delve into these details is Massimiliano Mascherini, buongiorno. He is our in-house expert on all things youth. Welcome to the podcast this morning.

In terms of COVID-19, the pandemic has obviously had a wide-ranging impact across all aspects of society and all areas of the economy, but when it comes to the impact on young people do you think there's a sense of déjà vu? Are we seeing exactly the same impact on young people as there was previously for example with the great recession?
                
00:01:47    Massimiliano Mascherini
The answer is complex: yes and no at the same time. Yes, because young people are more vulnerable to unemployment that the other age cohorts. From Eurostat data, we saw that unemployment for the adult population increased from 6.3% to 6.7%. Among young people, the increase was larger, actually it was almost double. The COVID-19 crisis is a more complex crisis: youth were hit hard in terms of most social dimensions like mental health and access to housing. It was more complex so it's more limited but this does not imply that was not deep. 
                
00:02:29    Mary McCaughey
Is it fair to say that, in terms of labour market participation, COVID has impacted sectors that youth were more actively involved in? 
                
00:02:37    Massimiliano Mascherini
Definitely. The sectors that have been hit the hardest by the crisis are hospitality, leisure and retail. These are all sectors where young people are overrepresented among employees. In this crisis, those with temporary contracts are those who have been affected the most, and unfortunately young people are more represented among the population holding a temporary contract in the labour market. 
                
00:03:08    Mary McCaughey
You were also talking about mental health and well-being; young people have been badly affected in terms of their mental well-being. Can you talk us through that?
                
00:03:18    Massimiliano Mascherini
This is a very complex crisis. It started with a health crisis and then, as a result of the pharmaceutical intervention put in place in order to control the virus, it developed into an economic crisis and social crisis. These three crises affected the various groups in society very differently. The health crisis affected more severely older people, who were more vulnerable to the fatal consequences of COVID-19, but younger cohorts were more vulnerable to the economic and social aspects of the crisis. In particular, young people were more vulnerable to the implications of the lockdown and social distancing measures, which led to the closure of society and events, limiting their ability and possibility to gather and network with their peers. So their lives were profoundly modified, which resulted in an incredibly strong impact in terms of mental health. 
                
00:04:31    Mary McCaughey
Is there a gender dimension to this? Are young men or young women more likely to be affected? 
                
00:04:39    Massimiliano Mascherini
In terms of mental health, women are a bit more vulnerable in comparison to men. This is due to the incredible burden they had to shoulder, especially for young women with young children. When society and schools closed, those who were working from home had to do two jobs: one was to work for their employer; the other was to take care of the education or to provide support in the education of young people. These placed women in a very difficult position, also as a result of the uneven distribution of family responsibilities of among men and women. That is still there, unfortunately. 
                
00:05:22    Mary McCaughey
As we've seen elsewhere, yes. You've mentioned the closure of schools and universities and how that more directly impacted on young people and their exclusion from what we know as normal educational processes. What do you see as the medium to longer term impact of those closures? 
                
00:05:41    Massimiliano Mascherini
Unfortunately the consequences of the closure of schools will be deep and will be in the long term. An entire generation of young people were disrupted in terms of human capital accumulation and psychological development, which are acquired at school when meeting children, meeting their peers and studying at school. Unfortunately this may bring two consequences. One is that the disruption in human capital accumulation may cause in the future an increase in early school leavers in high schools and a lower share of young people going to college, for example. In terms of lifelong impact, we could expect that these children may be penalised in terms of lifelong earnings in comparison to the generations that will enter the labour market before them and after them. They risk bearing this scar in terms of human capital and earning opportunities for their entire lives. 
                
00:07:00    Mary McCaughey
This is very interesting in terms of how it's going to impact on their satisfaction with life in general. Previously, they had higher levels of satisfaction. We saw that the great recession had a negative impact on that. I'm sure that's been exacerbated now, but it's probably going to have a longer term impact on other aspects, for example trust in society and institutions. Have you seen that in your research? 
                
00:07:24    Massimiliano Mascherini
Yes, this is an interesting development. We have seen how strongly young people have been hit by this crisis, how they were the generation that paid the highest price in terms of employment participation and mental health. Therefore, we could also expect a fall in trust in institutions; however, this is not yet there. The trust of young people in institutions is still high, both at national and EU level, and it is higher than among the other age cohorts. This is very important. We need to be very careful not to disrupt the social capital and trust of young people, because they are the citizens of today and especially the citizens of tomorrow, both as a national citizens and as Europeans. After paying such a high price, it is very important that their expectations are not betrayed again, and that they receive the necessary level of support in order to re-enter fully in employment and successfully complete their educational trajectory. 
                
00:08:41    Mary McCaughey
A fundamental issue that we're tackling now is the difficulty in these transitions for young people from education into employment, from training into jobs, leaving home, moving into family life themselves. How do you think this is going to impact on intergenerational relationships, on the solidarity that would have been between different age groups? 
                
00:09:04    Massimiliano Mascherini
During the lockdown, during the tough periods that we saw in the last months, we sometimes read that young people were not respecting lockdown rules, they were going out and putting us in danger. This was what we could read in the newspapers. Actually, this was not the case. People respected the lockdown rules and they generally followed the measures put in place in order to overcome the pandemic. So they played their part in order to protect the older cohorts of our population. Now it's time to pay back, in the sense that it is important for older cohorts to ensure that young people can re-enter the labour market and become full citizens of our society by having access to housing and stable positions in the labour market. 
                
00:10:05    Mary McCaughey
I read recently that you had talked about young people's trust, that we need to refer to it as finite social capital that should not be wasted. That's essentially what you're referring to there.

00:10:20    Massimiliano Mascherini

Yes, young people’s expectations of support in completing their education trajectory, in entering and remaining in the labour market and in having access to housing must not be betrayed but supported fully in order to make them full citizens and to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. In this way we can ensure that their trust in institutions is not wasted and that their social capital is not thrown away. It would be an incredible mistake if we do that. 
                
00:10:53    Mary McCaughey
We've looked at the situation of young people in Europe in quite a lot of detail today. As you know, 2022 is scheduled to be the European Year of Youth. That's a critical milestone, particularly for those of us who are in close connection with young people, your own son, for example, our children into the future. If you were to have three points that you would make to policymakers who should take them on board to try and progress the issues and the challenges facing young people today, what would they be? 
                
00:11:33    Massimiliano Mascherini
First of all, they should support young people in entering the labour market in order to have good-quality and stable jobs that allow them to move further through adulthood. Then, they should support them in housing. Having access to good-quality housing is very difficult for young people today, especially in some Member States. This should not happen because access to housing is the last step in the full transition to adulthood; we need to support them in this. Then there is human capital and human capital accumulation. We need to make sure that the disruption that COVID has brought is fixed  and that the educational curriculum of young people includes digital skills as well as skills that are related to the green economy and the green transition. This will be the next challenge that Europe and young people will face, because it will concern especially their own future. 
                
00:12:38    Mary McCaughey
So access to the labour market, access to housing and indeed better access and improved access to education and skills. Thank you, Massi, and thanks to our listeners also. As always, feel free to comment or question anything you've heard online today at #EurofoundTalks. You can also listen back to our podcasts on sustainable work with Barbara Gerstenberger and on the future of Europe with our Director Ivailo Kalfin. You can also find all our current upcoming research and findings on youth, on young people, NEETs and the various aspects we've discussed today and of course all the rest of our work on our website. Follow us on our social media channels and until next time, when Eurofound talks to you.    

00:13:24    Outro