In 1991 Britain was a better than average place to be young. It crossed the line in 2003 and has not been back

In 1991 Britain's ratio was 1.62. The middle of the rich world was 2.07. Being young in Britain carried less of a penalty than in most comparable countries.

It rose almost every year after that. 1.90 by 1997. 2.14 by 2000. In 2003 it reached 2.34 and passed the rich world's middle for the first time. It has been above it every year since, twenty-three years running. It peaked at 3.28 in 2024 and stands at 3.09.

Now the part that matters, and it is not the part the ratio shows on its face.

Over those thirty-four years Britain's adult unemployment rate fell from 8.6 per cent to 4.7 per cent. That is a real achievement and it is not in dispute. Over the same thirty-four years the youth rate went from 13.8 per cent to 14.6 per cent. It did not improve. It got slightly worse.

So the ratio did not rise because young people started doing badly in some new way. It rose because everyone else did better and the young did not come along. A generation of labour market improvement arrived and stopped short of the people trying to enter it.

That framing matters, because a rising ratio is not automatically bad news. If adult unemployment halves and youth unemployment falls by a third, the ratio rises and the country has had a good three decades. Britain's youth rate did not fall by a third. It did not fall at all.

Does it hold from other starting points? 1991 was the trough of a British recession, which flatters any comparison starting there, so we ran it from four other years. From 2000: youth 11.9 to 14.6, adult 5.6 to 4.7. From 2007: youth 14.6 to 14.6, adult 5.4 to 4.7. From 2015: youth 15.2 to 14.6, adult 5.6 to 4.7. From 2019: youth 10.7 to 14.6, adult 3.7 to 4.7.

The direction survives every one of them. Since 2019 both rates have worsened, and the youth rate has worsened far more.

Where it does not survive. Measured from 1991, Britain's increase is the tenth largest of 182 countries. That is a striking number and it is the softest one in this report. From 2000 Britain ranks 26th, from 2007 60th, from 2015 39th, from 2019 46th. The rise is robust. The league position is not, and no headline should rest on it.

143 of the 182 countries rose over the same period, with a median increase of 0.39 against Britain's 1.47. Britain is moving with a global current, faster than most of the countries in it.