Being Financially Prepared For You Childs Future
Quality of life for Britains youth has been a topic that has been firmly on the agenda during the recent financial troubles
. From the outbursts of the riots last summer that seemed to take everyone by surprise, and the protests over tuition fees, to the announcement of youth unemployment topping 1 million last week, there appears to be plenty of reason for concern that our young people are becoming increasingly disconnected from and disenfranchised with society as they struggle to be financially self sufficient.A sizeable proportion of young people could be feeling as if they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with the two traditional paths for school leavers, university or work, becoming further out of reach. The prospect of affording the recently increased university tuition fees therefore has become a key driver for may parents to start thinking about preparing financially for their childrens futures. However, it could be argued that, as the debt incurred over tuition fees is not one that needs to be repaid upfront, it may be more prudent to service that debt only as and when the minimum repayments kick in. Consequently, it may not be the most important reason to set aside a nest egg but there are still plenty of other reasons to do so.
Rather, it could be suggested that the main concern for parents regarding their children's financial futures should revolve around their employment prospects and their ability to be self sufficient outside of education with the recent trends only serving to reinforce that.
The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, for the quarter July to September 2011, provide grim reading; indicating that we now have 1.02 million unemployed workers in the UK between the ages of 16 and 24, accounting for 1 in 5 that group. Although the situation may have been worse in the mid 1980s (not comparable due to differences in the ways that figures have been calculated), this does give the highest rate of youth unemployment since these records began in 1992.
The overall unemployment figures are not of course impressive either at 8.3% (the lowest since the mid 1990s) but the fact that the rate for youth unemployment is so much higher points towards a real disconnect for the fortunes of young people in the job market as business looks towards experience to fill the limited opportunities that are available.
The hope is that these issues, which not only affect our society in the UK but also those of many developed and developing countries across the world, may focus many governments minds on shoring up the transition process from well developed educational systems to secure and stable work placements; so that prospects may not seem so fragile when the children of today enter the job market.
One relative success story that is not so far from home is that of Germany who seem to be weathering the storm better than most. Their youth unemployment rate stands at a significantly lower 9.1% and although the rate is again worse than their overall unemployment rate of 6.1%, it does not show the gulf that we experience in the UK. The key to Germanys success appears to be an initiative to involve the private sector in the education systems to improve the readiness of their future workers for employment and introduce links between business and young workers through schemes such as apprenticeships.
The obvious conclusion is that we just dont know what state our economy will be in, and therefore what prospects young people will have, when the children being born now reach adulthood. They may find themselves in a period of renewed prosperity and stability with opportunities-a-plenty for our young adults - if we manage to learn from the mistakes of the last few years and build a more secure long-term focused society. Equally there are no guarantees that the opportunities will be any more plentiful than they are now.
On an individual level, we do however have the perfect warning, with the state of the worlds finances and labour markets as they are now, that uncertainties may always lie just around the corner and, whilst we will always need to continue to live and spend for the wheels of the economy to keep spinning, we should also be looking at how we can plan and protect not only our own futures but those of our children too.
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