Technology and wealth do not mean all is well with this generation.

The Age - 25th Jan 2010 - LUCY BATTERSBY. Lucy Battersby is an Age journalist.

Technology and wealth do not mean all is well with this generation.

ACCORDING to arbitrary definitions used by demographers and marketing gurus, everyone who celebrates their 30th birthday this year has the same habits, objectives and attitudes. But really, the only thing that we have in common is that we grew up at the same time. The "we" makes up generation Y. But what shaped gen Y? What did we miss out on, or get, that makes others call us lazy, attention seeking and demanding?

To start with, the economy we grew up in was very different from our older siblings' experience. Australia's last real, gritty, struggle-town recession ended while we were still at high school or younger. The national unemployment rate dropped from nearly 11 per cent in 1993 to 8.6 per cent in 1996, when the oldest of us reached working age. It has been below 7 per cent since the oldest gen Ys finished university, and by the time we were looking for jobs there was a national skills shortage. Most gen Ys probably can't remember the days when household budgets used to run out.

So what is so different now? It turns out, that in the 1980s interest rates were more than 10 per cent, peaking at 20 per cent in 1985. Since then, rates have remained below 8.5 per cent  debt is expensive but manageable. Credit cards have become plastic multi-coloured toys with snappy designs, and banks sell them as a means to achieving the perfect lifestyle.

The society we know is one where de facto relationships, same-sex relationships, mixed-culture relationships, divorce, and children from unmarried couples are common and widely accepted. Depression, mental illness and anxiety are no longer seen as personal burdens, but conditions that can be treated by health professionals.

The culture we live in is one where anyone can become a blogger, musician or filmmaker as long as they have the right kind of software  with success (or notoriety) quickly determined through raw popularity. Computers have been around our whole lives and the internet was introduced in schools about year eight. This means the tools we use and the ease with which we understand technology is different.

Another big change is the ease of travelling, domestically and internationally. In 1990 only one in four Australians had a passport. Today there are 10 million passports on issue for a population of 21.8 million. Australians no longer need visas for many countries, and cut-price air travel makes it cheaper to spend a week in Thailand than in Queensland.

However, not everything is rosy. There are some serious problems gen Y will endure that the previous generations escaped. For example, the superannuation guarantee, which requires 9 per cent of a salary to be deposited in a long-term retirement savings account, has been in place since 1992. Gen Y and the tail end of gen X will be the first to fully fund their own retirement. At the same time, we will probably have the privilege of being the last generation to pay our parents' tax-funded pensions.

Another hurdle will be buying a house. In 1994 the median cost of a house in Melbourne was $150,000, or five times the average annual salary. Today the median house price is $441,875, or nine times the average salary. Meanwhile, last year's financial crisis demonstrated some major problems of living in a globalised economy, and the inhuman nature of financial markets.

So what shaped us as young adults? Well, gen Ys started attending university around 1998, and along with gen Xers were the first tertiary students since 1974 to pay for their degrees. Most are probably still paying off their degrees. We watched as universities became businesses preoccupied with attracting fee-paying students, and education became part of the immigration process. Meanwhile, the desire to live out of home and travel means most students work casual jobs while studying full time. This cuts into study hours and reduces the time available for discussing what has been learned.

We also had a very different political upbringing because the Howard government was in power for most of our teenage and young adult years. This was a government that pulled money out of public education and privatised government services while moving the country closer to US foreign policy and leading through social conservatism.

So while older Australians were shaped by the thrill of sexual revolutions and political turmoil, gen Y's life has been a story of technology and increasing wealth. At the very least, the rest of our lives will be an adventure discovering the enormous benefits and perils offered by both.