Growing Pains

Quarter Life Crisis

4.1 million young adults (aged 18-30) are experiencing some form of quarter life crisis and around 1.7 million of them could be described as being in severe crisis.

Women are more likely to suffer a quarter life crisis than men, with 40% of women showing symptoms compared to 28% of men.

Three ‘types’ of individuals affected by the quarter life crisis emerged from the research findings:

– Impatient Achievers (13.4%): Highly skilled and ambitious, they have great expectations and are under immense pressure to succeed.

– Low-ambition Spenders (34.4%): Less skilled and ambitious, they are struggling to make ends meet and feel lost in an increasingly competitive labour market.

– Natural-born Worriers (52.5%): Somewhat skilled and mildly ambitious, their situation is not particularly bleak. They are generally young with the capacity to save but are still negative about the state of affairs.

General findings

The bank of mum and dad is the number one choice for providing 18-30 year olds with financial help, with mums (30%) more likely to be asked for cash than dads (28%).

The stereotype of daughters finding dads a softer touch than mums is a myth: over a third (34%) of daughters would approach their mum first, with just over a quarter (26%) approaching their dad.

Almost one in seven (15%) 18-30 year olds are currently out of work (excludes students).

Six in 10 with a university degree found work within six months of leaving university. A third (32%) found a job immediately but one in ten (10%) took over a year to gain employment. You can find out more about the benefits of a university education in our article Making a Million - a questions of degrees.

Two thirds (65%) have debts of less than £5,000.

In terms of life goals to achieve before age 31, owning a property is top of the wish list (56%) for this group, with getting married a priority for half of them (51%).

Just under half (45%) would like to have paid off all debts by age 31 and almost the same number (44%) would like to have started a family.

Only one in 13 have a personal pension, while one in seven are saving for retirement through a company scheme.

Skandia commissioned CoreData Research UK to produce the report, which studies the main financial issues that concern young people in the UK. The sample included 1,076 UK-based 18-30 year olds and was carried out between April and May 2012.