Young people, well-being, work and the future

Tânia Gaspar

The study by the Portuguese Laboratory for Healthy Learning and Working Environments reveals that university students are at high risk in terms of psychosocial risks, namely high levels of burnout and symptoms such as exhaustion, sadness and anxiety. They also reveal that higher education institutions have few resources to integrate students into the labour market and to promote student health, namely services and partnerships that promote healthy lifestyles, study habits, time management and, of course, a lack of mental health support services that are accessible and available to respond to the growing number of requests.

Circumstances in Portugal for young people, such as difficulties in accessing housing, low salaries or precariousness, may be the reason for these results. On the one hand, because many students have to start working in order to meet the increased costs of university education, particularly associated with accommodation for displaced students. As student-workers, in addition to their academic tasks, they have to develop professional skills and manage/concile the demands of both contexts.  On the other hand, because of future expectations, let's look at the future we present to our young people, let's analyse the negative and hopeless discourse of adults, let's look at the national and international panorama. Twenty years ago a young person, or even in the ‘thousand euro generation’ a young person who studied and worked, was able to rent a house, pay for the house and day-to-day expenses, today young people can't meet the expenses inherent in their autonomy with one salary, in many circumstances not even with two.

This situation can jeopardize their future, and often in order to adapt and survive psychologically they express disinterest, detachment and lack of investment.

According to the World Bank, skills development is at the heart of the changes taking place in education and labour markets amid global megatrends that are changing the nature of work and skills requirements. For young people to succeed in the 21st century labour market, they need a comprehensive set of competences such as: basic and higher-order competences, which are cognitive competences that encompass the ability to understand complex ideas, adapt effectively to the environment, learn from experience and problem-solve, socio-emotional competences, which describe the ability to manage relationships, emotions and attitudes. These competences include the ability to deal effectively with interpersonal and social situations, as well as leadership, teamwork and self-regulation, and of course digital competences, which describe the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create digital information safely and appropriately.

Young people are revolutionising the dynamics of work. Young professionals are more demanding, they prioritise their well-being and since stability and future expectations are very uncertain, they focus on seeking well-being, reconciliation and balance between their personal lives and work. They end up not overloading their lives with work.

Tânia Gaspar - Psychologist and Associate Professor with Aggregation at Universidade Lusófona

Source: SOL