The article, which was actually an edited version of a speech given by Andrew Leigh at the National Youth Conference (held in Canberra during April), used Australian Bureau of Statistics figures to draw comparisons between young people in 2023 and those from earlier years. The author, who is a politician and economist, found that young people today are smoking less, drinking less, better educated, using fewer drugs, having fewer babies as teenagers, and committing fewer crimes than in the past. He points to interesting work by Abigail Wills from Oxford University, who says that ‘the anxiety about young people today also stems from changes in how we think about their role in the community’. It seems that because young people are starting work later, people are finding it hard to recognise their economic value to society and the ways in which they contribute. Wills says that people need to ‘start thinking about ways of improving adult perceptions of the young, rather than thinking up panic solutions to an imaginary cataclysm of declining morals’.

The article goes on to suggest ways in which young people themselves can contribute to improving the ways adults perceive youth. You can read the full article, entitled ‘Reckless beyond words?’ here.