Young people are facing a COVID Opportunity Gap

For too many people, where you start in life still shapes the opportunities you get and where you end up. This opportunity deficit overwhelmingly impacts people from more disadvantaged communities and backgrounds and the gaps start opening up from the very start. 

Coronavirus widens that opportunity gap for young people at every stage of their formative years. Day by day it becomes clearer that we risk a lost generation.

For those in the education system, its impact is obvious. Education closes the gaps between the life chances of different children and young people. But education systems around the world are shut down.

Children are out of school and missing study. Some will have parents less able to help them continue studying – we already know that over the school holidays some children drop back in learning because of this, but six weeks could become six months with coronavirus. Schools are less able to provide support remotely for special educational needs children that would normally be provided direct. For all those children, this time outside school will widen an education gap that already exists. 

The quality of a home environment is important too. Those students with challenging family circumstances or poor IT equipment and connectivity will find it hard to perform as well as those with more stable and well-resourced home lives.

For young people who were due to take A Level exams this year, using predicted grades may be the only approach that is viable, but we know it too will discriminate. Research by the Sutton Trust shows us that underpredicting of grades of BAME and disadvantaged young people is significantly more likely to happen than for their better off counterparts. It will therefore harm their chances of getting into the university they were aiming for and those higher education institutions will find themselves on the front line to prevent a further widening of the opportunity gap. 

For those relying on part-time work that is now no longer available, university may even become unaffordable. 

Other students may have previously found it a struggle but nevertheless managed to balance study with wider family and financial responsibilities. Yet the sectors overwhelmingly impacted by the coronavirus lockdown are those young people are most likely to work in – hospitality, retail, and sports and leisure. An estimated one in three young people under the age of 25 in work have roles in these sectors. For those already on a course, it may mean they simply cannot afford to see it through to the end and drop out. This would be a dramatic backward step on social mobility.

And when the lockdown finally ends, it doesn’t mean the opportunity deficit stops growing, particularly for those leaving the education system. Because even when our economy is back open for business, this generation of graduates with higher student debt than any generation before will be hit by a sharp reduction in the numbers of entry level jobs into careers. 

With fewer graduate roles and fewer apprenticeships, the danger is that connections trump talent in the battle for a more limited set of opportunities. Established professions such as law, medicine, politics and journalism had begun to make inroads into becoming more accessible but there is still a long way to go. We cannot afford to take a step backwards on opportunity. 

And this isn’t just about avoiding a temporary ‘blip’ to starting someone’s career – research is clear that a stunted start to a career can bring much longer-lasting damage that extends beyond that initial period. It’s never been more important for employers to ensure those opportunities are widely accessible to as many young people as possible.

Businesses can continue to play a crucial role, not only during the crisis but afterwards. Working collectively, business and employers can help to ensure that we minimise the opportunity deficit ramifications of coronavirus.

Just as advantage accumulates throughout life, so too does disadvantage. We cannot allow or afford for a lost generation of young people to face this opportunity gap. They are the ones we will rely on to rebuild our economy for the long term. 

Whilst International Development Secretary, leading Britain’s response to help Syrian refugees, I saw how disrupted education meant the young risked paying a price over their whole lifetime for that conflict. They lost their futures as well as their childhoods, and Syria lost a generation of doctors, engineers, architects, business entrepreneurs. 

It will take a national effort to get us through coronavirus but also a national effort to recover from it too. As the Office for Budget Responsibility pointed out, this year’s deficit will be the largest since the Second World War. It’s unconscionable that in those circumstances we see young people left on the shelf, unable to get on with their lives and contribute. The underlying challenge of inequality of opportunity that creates the opportunity gap was already there, but coronavirus makes it an even wider chasm, catching even more young people.

Let’s not wait until the autumn to confront this opportunity crisis that follows the coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus overtook the world with little warning, and we continue to struggle to deal with its impact. But in winning the war, we also need to plan for winning the peace. For the sake of millions of young people, above all those already the furthest away from a level playing field on opportunity, let’s think ahead to solutions, rather than wait for the oncoming opportunity deficit to hit us. 

There can be no lost generation on opportunity because of coronavirus.

Rt Hon Justine Greening

Founder, Social Mobility Pledge

Former Secretary of State for Education, Minister for Women and Equalities, Secretary of State for International Development, Secretary of State for Transport, Economic Secretary to the Treasury

This is also posted on the C-19 Business Pledge website.