Treading Water: Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth Transitions. Research Report

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed severe challenges to health systems and economies around the world. While Australia has fared better than many countries in limiting collective and individual hardship, the impact of personal losses and lockdowns, along with a drastically changed global environment, has had a toll on young Australians especially. As with all economic downturns, young people have been particularly exposed to unemployment, lost earnings and reduced opportunities for education and social wellbeing. Using data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), this report examines the lived experiences of Australians aged about 20 years in 2020, during the peak and aftermath of the second wave of infections. Notwithstanding the variations between states and territories, which are likely to be obscured by reporting on Australia-wide trends, the LSAY data for 2020 are well positioned to capture the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Australian youth (also noting that, at the time of writing, the pandemic is ongoing and additional waves of infections occurred in Australia during 2021 and 2022). This report summarises the key events, relevant policy announcements and the extant literature on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people in Australia. The various sub-sections have been organised according to the topic areas covered by the LSAY questionnaire, the data for which are explored in the sections that follow.