Covid’s lost generation: meet the under-25s whose lives have been stunted by the pandemic

When Helena Wiltshire pictured her life at 23, she thought she’d be worrying about which university friends to live with and how to impress her new boss.

But the realities of the past year mean flatshares and office relationships couldn’t feel further from the Regent’s University graduate’s list of concerns. Among the more pressing: how many more CVs she’ll have to send before she hears back; how long before she can move out of her parents’ house; whether she’ll ever experience office life as it was.

“Yeah, it’s not been a great year for many of us,” Wiltshire sighs from her childhood bedroom in Ealing, listing stories of friends made redundant, abandoning career ambitions for jobs in call centres and supermarkets and forced to join the estimated one million young people left unemployed by the pandemic. Only four out of her class of 20 have found jobs in their chosen field. Her own grad job at a tech startup was cancelled when the company went under last year.

At home, Wiltshire has started selling face masks, but sewing in her bedroom is far from what she had planned. “I just hope I can pick up where I left off,” she says, hopeful that the Covid vaccines bring more promise for 2021. “One day, we’re just going to have to pretend the last year never happened.”

But for many of Wiltshire’s peer group, untangling themselves from the effects of the pandemic isn’t as simple as writing off a year. With the country in a third national lockdown, mental health problems among under-25s are at a record high and the economic and psychological effects of 2020 are expected to be long-lasting.

University students have missed vital learning, with little contact from tutors, longer hours and widespread cheating in exams. Many say their mental health has taken a hit after a term on “prison-like” campuses with no face-to-face teaching.

Then there’s the uncertainty of what happens next. If they’re lucky to have a place on a (probably Zoom-based) grad scheme, graduates find themselves in a spiralling jobs market amid the worst recession since records began. According to the OECD, under-25s are 2.5 times more likely to be without a job than the 26 to 64 age group, and The Resolution Foundation warned that youth unemployment could rise to about 17 per cent, its peak in the early Eighties.

“There is the worry that the pandemic may lead to a ‘lost generation’,” says psychotherapist Simon Shattock from Clinical Partners. “While it is too early to know what will happen, the history of previous pandemics would suggest the longer-term effects on mental health will in fact be lifelong for a small percentage of young people.”

For some under-25s, the effects on their wellbeing are already clear to see. According to research by LSE, those aged 18 to 29 are more likely to have experienced higher levels of mental distress than any other age group.

“The most depressing part is my parents said these would be the best years of my life,” says Exeter graduate Olivia Charlotte, 22, who has spent her gap year feeding and washing dementia patients in a care home. Thanks to Brexit, her teaching assistant job due to start in Switzerland was cancelled. 

Charlotte represents a growing cohort of graduates turning to low-paid jobs. Her friend Phoebe Matthews, 24, had to fly home from a cancelled British Council programme in Argentina and is on furlough as a hotel assistant at a hotel in the Lake District; another friend is a call handler for Track and Trace; and a third, Emily Woolcott, 22, has spent the past nine months packing orders in Sainsbury’s. 

“It’s basically the new normal amongst our friends,” says Woolcott. She’s enjoyed having a purpose in the pandemic, but is frustrated by the view that young people are the ones spreading the virus. “It’s mainly older people I see not wearing masks.”

Many are resentful that parents and siblings were able to experience their “golden years” uninterrupted, while they’ve seen coming-of-age milestones fall away one by one. “It’s felt like gut-punch after gut-punch,” says Dom Butler, a 20-year-old first-year zoology student at Reading.

Maths graduate Sophie, 21, says she feels she has “missed out” on the big celebrations her siblings had when they turned 21, while Newcastle graduate Francesca Coates, 22, says she feels robbed of a graduation ceremony. “It’s upsetting that I’ll never have that picture for the mantelpiece.” 

It’s also a tough age to put relationships on pause. “I feel Covid has stopped many friendships being made,” says PPE student Joe Watchorn, 19. He made some of his best friends in lectures at Warwick last year — he’d have never met them had learning been online — and Covid has wrecked any chance of a love life. “My parents met in a club — I’ve still never set foot in one,” says Lancaster fresher Maisy*, joking that she’s unlikely to meet the love of her life over a Zoom quiz. 

Even for university leavers with jobs, starting a career remotely has challenges, says Oxford graduate Molly*, who began a virtual grad scheme at a bank in September. “In an office, you pick up so much through osmosis from being around people,” she says. “Will companies ever be able to justify the costs of renting or buying a full-time, full-service office again?” asks Cambridge graduate Laurie Purnell Prynn, 23. He hopes Generation Z won’t become Generation Zoom.

Plus, not all graduates can move home to live with mum and dad, points out Leo Hadjinicolaou, 23. The geography and economics graduate has had that luxury, but his parents’ jobs were hit hard by Covid, so he’s had to sign up for benefits. “It’s almost criminal how few opportunities there are for young people at the moment,” he sighs, saying his mental health has “spiralled” since becoming unemployed. “At points it’s felt like there’s no hope.”

PR assistant Martina Gordeen, 22, says she has re-started therapy. She feels anxious about job security and socially withdrawn, but says the upside of the pandemic is therapy being normalised. Butler agrees. He’s seen a rise in mental health being discussed among his friendship group.

There have been other silver linings. For many Gen Zers, the pandemic has made them re-evaluate life choices. Charlotte’s stint in the care home inspired her to apply for a nursing degree. Others say being made redundant has led them to start a business. “It’s taught me to push myself,” says Gordeen, who now runs her own social media company alongside her PR job.

There’s also camaraderie among friends going through the same thing, says Butler. “It might have to be over FaceTime for now. But I feel I have a really close group of friends I can talk to. After a rubbish year, that’s a pretty great thing to come out of it.”

*Names have been changed to protect interviewees’ identities.

Additional reporting by Rhiannon Jenkins.