‘Death of hope’ for young people who grow up with jobless parents
Young people whose parents are both unemployed are less satisfied in school, less likely to be working part time or planning to go to university, and are highly worried about family conflict, a Mission Australia report has found.
The national Jobless Families Report, to be released today, shows there is a “death of hope” in jobless families, with about 50 per cent of young people in this group reporting a lack of confidence in their ability to get a job in their community.
The report found that, when compared with other youths, young people in jobless families were twice as likely to report feeling either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their studies, half as likely to be undertaking part-time or casual work and 15 per cent less likely to plan to go to university.
They were at least 10 per cent likelier to report family conflict as a major concern.
Young people from jobless families were also found to be twice as likely to rate their family relationships as poor, and nearly one in 10 intended to drop out of school before completing Year 12.
Those with at least one full-time employed parent reported the highest participation rates in part-time employment, 37.2 per cent, while those in jobless families reported less than half this result, at 18.3 per cent.
Janaya Harvey, 25, grew up in a jobless family. Initially, she left school in Year 9, but went back a few years later and completed Year 10.
Ms Harvey did not work for several years — but reached a point where she thought she wanted to “make something of herself” and work towards getting a job. A few years ago, she funded herself through a beauty course — but she still couldn’t get any work. Mission Australia helped her to study a Certificate III in aged care. Ms Harvey recently attained a casual position with a nearby aged care facility.
She said that because her parents didn’t work, finding a job and leading a normal life seemed abnormal to her.
“I used to look at my friends’ parents who worked and think ‘Why don’t my parents do that?’
“It used to make me uncomfortable to even apply for a job, I was just taught to live on Centrelink, I was stuck in a rut.”
Mission Australia chief executive Catherine Yeomans said the findings provided a disturbing insight into the widespread impact of unemployment on families.
She said youth unemployment was now double the national average.
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