Young people and wellbeing : does education damage your health?

Despite the economy being in ‘technical’ recession (though this is increasingly expected to be ‘mild’) the labour market continues to boom. With the jobless rate at under 4%, some Tories are pointing to ‘full-employment’ – a term used to describe the prosperous years of the post-war period. Indeed, labour shortages have pushed up wage levels in some professional and managerial jobs in the private sector; but also in hospitality and other low paid sectors, where an exodus of EU workers has led to thousands of vacancies.

Rather than recognising the longer-term implications of Brexit for labour recruitment, particularly on the availability of a ‘reserve army’ of labour, the tabloid press in particular is focussing on ‘sick-note Britain’ – the large increases in long term sickness levels amongst the ‘economically inactive’ (those people not working but not looking for a job). It’s estimated that there are now 2.8 million in this category, most of whom are eligible for benefits.  

Attention has tended to focus on older workers – many of whom did not return to their jobs post pandemic, but now economically inactive young people who are not in full-time education ( a growing proportion of 750,000 18-24 NEETs ) are getting their fair share of attention. In this respect, this week’s Resolution Foundation report, even if it’s the product of three years research, makes timely reading. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/weve-only-just-begun/

For example, the report finds those in their early 20s are far more more likely to be not working due to ill health than those in their early 40s.  A scenario “radically different” from the past, when the older you were the more likely you were to work due to sickness.

 According to Resolution, between 2013 and 2023, the number of young people aged 18-24 out of work due to ill health has more than doubled, rising from 93,000 to 190,000. (Based on latest ONS Labour market statistics, this represents around 1 in 4 of those categorised as NEET) Amongst non-students, one-in-twenty young people were not working due to ill health in 2023.

According to Resolution, these young people, workless due to ill health, are being left behind when it comes to educational attainment and as a consequence are far more likely to end up in lower paid employment. As Resolution acknowledges, though the pandemic had a disproportionately negative effect on mental health: the uptick in the share of 18-24-year-olds with mental health problems clearly pre-dated 2020.

Yet attention shouldn’t just focus on the need to reintegrate those who are NEET, sick or have mental health issues into the workforce. As the report recognises, in 2021-2022, more than one in-three (34 per cent) young people aged 18-24 reported symptoms that indicated they were experiencing a ‘common mental disorder’ (CMD) such as depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder. That is significantly higher than in 2000, when that figure stood at less than a quarter (24 per cent).

It’s also wrong for the report to argue that even if mental health issues amongst students have been sharply increasing ‘those on the university track benefit from a clear pathway into early adulthood’. Rather than being ‘high achievers’, thousands of university students struggle to complete their courses, are forced to take time out, or continue to be plagued by financial issues and poor housing, let along the pressure to secure a permanent secure job.  

According to the BBC mental health issues negatively affect almost 50% of UK university students, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-61968952. While students suffered badly as a result of campus lockdowns a House of Common library report https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8593/  also records a seven-fold increase in students mental health in the decade before the pandemic. Stories of student suicides make disturbing reading in the national media and despite an array of counselling, helplines, self-help resources and wellbeing groups. have led to accusations of universities failing to exercise a duty of care.

But thankfully the number of student suicides in the UK is a small fraction of those in the ‘mega high stakes’ education systems of East Asian economies ( cited as good practice in Michael Gove’s infamous 2010 Education White Paper!). China has witnessed a 20% increase in the last 5 years, with South Korea recording 3500 suicides by university students in 2022. One study also claimed a third of South Korean school students had considered taking their own lives with two-thirds of these pointing to academic pressure or anxiety about future employment.

Resolution’s report led to further demands to improve mental health services for the young. This is of urgent necessity. Yet if for most of the 20th century education offered at least some chance of social mobility and getting a degree, created a feeling of optimism and improved individual wellbeing, then sadly today, it can just as likely lead to the opposite?