Brussels, 18/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The austerity measures adopted by European governments following the financial crisis of 2008 have had a painful impact on young people, underlines the European Youth Forum in a report published at a high-level event on youth unemployment held in Rome on Friday 14 November.
The publication, “Youth in the crisis: what went wrong”, claims that the measures adopted to tackle the crisis, provoked negative effects on citizens as a whole but especially on young people. Job security has sharply declined for young people and they have also seen their minimum wages and incomes suffer the same decline. The Youth Forum criticised the fact that, “the general response was disorganised and inefficient, with measures that affected young people disproportionately and negatively”. The austerity measures have held back the entry of young people into adulthood and created a “Peter Pan” generation that remains dependent on parents for a long time and which is without work and unable to create a family of their own until much later. The Youth Forum asserts that far-reaching structural and institutional changes that have to take place must be anchored in a coherent macro- economic environment that is able to ensure inclusive and sustainable growth in which young people have their place. (IL)