Young Australians are despairing. I decided to find out why

March 22, 2026 — 5:00am

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Australia is doing policy all wrong. Measures designed to help young people are causing them harm.

In 2020, economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published their findings that non-college-educated, middle-aged, white Americans were dying “deaths of despair”. Just a few years later, young people are living lives of despair. Recent studies have found that young people in Australia and other developed countries are more miserable than any other age group. They’re starting their adult life with worse emotional and mental health than previous generations experienced at the peak of their unhappiness, in middle age.

Many young Australians have lost faith that they will be able to live the lives they hope for.

This week, the Centre for Independent Studies released my new research paper, Generation Trapped. I started the research with a question: What’s making 18- to 34-year-old Australians so unhappy? And what can we do about it? To find out, I asked them.

I conducted in-person interviews and, together with pollster Morgan James from Spectre Strategy, undertook extensive qualitative research into the aspirations, perceived barriers and values of Australians 18-34 years old. To dig deeper into young Australians from different backgrounds, we took a Pew Research-style approach of segmenting young Australians into six “tribes” according to their dominant characteristics and behaviours.

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Malcolm KnoxJournalist, author and columnist

Journalist, author and........

© The Sydney Morning Herald