CHAPTER 4 Intergenerational inequality - FIGURE 4.1 CHANGE IN EMPLOYMENT RATE FROM PEAK (Q1 2020=100)

The series plot the change in the employment rate for different age groups over 2020, excluding those absent from paid work because of COVID-19.19 These show employment rates fell by almost 60 per cent and 50 per cent respectively for those age 15-19 and 20-24 respectively in the second quarter of 2020, compared to 25 per cent for those aged 25-29 and 55+, and 20 per cent for other age groups. [...] Figure 4.2 also shows that – like in the UK (Blundell et al., 2020) – the importance of these sectors for young adults has been growing across generations, with almost 40 per cent of workers born between 1985 and 1994 working in retail, hospitality, arts or leisure in their mid-20s compared to around 20 per cent of those born in the 1970s. [...] This is despite those born in the 1980s seeing earnings that were on average substantially higher at the beginning of working life than they were for those born a decade earlier, and the earnings of the 1970s cohort also being affected by the Great Recession in their mid- to late-thirties. [...] This shows that more than a fifth of those born in the 1980s were paying more than 30 per cent of their disposable income on housing at age 30 compared to 13 per cent of those born in the 1970s. [...] While more than 60 per cent of those born in the 1960s lived in a home they or their partner owned by age 30, this had fallen to 39 per cent for those born in the 1970s and 32 per cent for those born in the early 1980s.