If you’ve tuned into the news lately, you’ve probably heard something about Greece and their looming deficit (estimated at about 13% of their GDP – four times the amount permitted by Euro Zone members). Just last week, 20,000 Greek workers went on strike to protest some of the government’s proposed initiatives to curb the growing debt, and France and Germany are considering a financial bail-out to keep Greece from defaulting on debt payments due in the coming months.
Greece has been no stranger to unrest over the past few years; the police shooting of a 15-year old sparked youth riots across the nation in December 2008. One of the rioters, Michalis Sarantis, explains, “The murder…was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because we all face huge problems trying to survive on a daily basis. We can’t manage, and rage, anger and anxiety build up inside. And this totally illogical incident, the killing of a 15-year old by a policeman who should be protecting the public, it’s broken something inside us, it’s broken down our resistance.”
At 27, Sarantis is one of the members of Generation 700: Greece’s disenchanted 25-35 year olds, who, after graduating from college, can expect to make a monthly salary of 700 euros (around $930 USD). 67% of Greeks in this income bracket are between the ages of 18 and 34; two-thirds are women. What’s more, Greece has the highest cost of living of any country in Europe - 66% higher than in Germany and Holland.
Only since the beginning of the U.S. recession have we been hearing titles like “the boomerang generation,” but the phenomenon is nothing new in Greece: around half of men and women under 30 still live with their parents. Half of the country’s college graduates report finding work upon graduation, and nearly a quarter of those 29 and under are unemployed and rely on their parents’ financial assistance to make ends meet. Rather than an education leading to greater job opportunities and a higher position on the economic ladder, degree-holders actually face fewer employment prospects than their less educated peers.
For those lucky enough to make €700 a month, their salary rarely comes from a full-time employer. More and more young Greeks are free-lancing or taking short-term contract positions, which, if they’re lucky, provide some benefits. Their meager wages have postponed adulthood against their will – as one engineer who is working 12 hours a week as a teacher put it, “How am I supposed to survive or establish a family on that?”
Greece has the highest graduate unemployment rate of any European nation, and while its industries clamor for business or technology graduates, the university system continues to focus on providing a liberal arts education. Sociologist Stratos Georgoulas from the Aegean University on Lesbos explains that Greece’s political and economic systems are “tailored to the needs of established and older individuals…and young people are suffering from this.” Young activists place little hope of change in the hands of the current goverment – Transparency International reported that 13% of Greeks gave bribes to “grease the wheels of the system” in 2008. On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being very corrupt, the country’s political parties had an average score of 4.4.
Shortly after the riots, Guardian columnist Helena Smith wrote, “For many these are a lost generation, raised in an education system that is undeniably shambolic and hit by whopping levels of unemployment (70 percent among the 18-25s) in a country where joblessness this month jumped to 7.4 percent….Often polyglot PhD holders will be serving tourists at tables in resorts.”
My idyllic, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-inspired perception of Greece went flying out the window after digging a bit deeper into the issues faced by our generation in Greece. The country’s pension system stands to collapse in 15 years (a likely precursor to what will happen with our own social security program), and the smaller G700 will be faced with the burden of providing for an aging population that far outnumbers them. The G700 isn’t alone in their situation: Spain’s “mileuristas,” Germany’s Generation Praktikum and France’s Generation Stagiaire face similarly daunting wage & employment prospects.
If you’ve traveled or lived abroad in Europe, what’s your perspective on the employment prospects for young workers? Is there marked tension between the youth and the established work force? Could you see a similar situation becoming true for the U.S. in years to come?
