Young people are currently the hardest hit by economic and financial difficulties: according to INSEE, 18–24-year-olds are the age group with the highest poverty rate, and 15–24-year-olds are also the most affected by unemployment. These findings regularly bring the issue of young people’s standard of living and the efforts that the state should make on their behalf into the public debate: the recent introduction of the Youth Engagement Contract (CEJ), discussions on the Youth RSA or the creation of an independence allowance, and so on.
These issues are all the more difficult to address with factual evidence because young people’s resources are hard to measure. On the one hand, certain social benefits aimed at young people are poorly understood (e.g. higher education grants). On the other hand, young people may more frequently receive informal financial support from their relatives, which is not captured in standard data, even though it forms part of their actual standard of living. This incomplete understanding of such support means that a proportion of 18–24-year-olds (student households) are excluded from standard poverty measures.
