This is apparent from research by Motivaction, carried out on behalf of the bank SNS, for which 1,400 working Dutch young people (18-35 years old) were questioned. The aim of the research was to discover the challenges young people face in their personal growth.
The results are worrisome. One third of the young people indicated that they could barely make ends meet. It is difficult for them to get out of this situation: more than half do not ask for help with financial problems. Marieke Tiesinga, Strategic Advisor Social Impact at SNS, mentions ostrich behavior and sees help as a way to prevent worse financial problems. ‘By offering a professional helping hand, you can prevent young people from ending up in a downward spiral.’ Ensuring that young people gain more general knowledge about finance is also an important step in this regard.
Acute problems
Three quarters of the respondents do have a financial buffer in the form of savings, the rest will run into acute problems if their fixed income is lost. Some young people are therefore trying to get extra income in a new way: investing. One in five young people does this, and another 23 percent would like to start. According to Tiesinga, this step is easy to explain: ‘Money means freedom for many young people and for as many as 82 percent of the young people, being able to earn more from investing is the reason to start with this.’
She finds it worrying that 12 percent of young people without a savings buffer also do this. ‘Our advice is really: build up that savings buffer first and then start investing. This makes you less vulnerable to any financial setbacks and gives you the opportunity to build up money for later.’
Young people have a great interest in earning money where they can. Two-thirds of this group aims to become independent within the next five to ten years: every little bit extra helps, risk or not.
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