Mission Australia’s Youth Survey 2025 Report has launched. This year, more than 17,000 young people aged 14-19 participated. This report details the findings of the survey and provides compelling insight into the strengths, hopes, concerns and experiences of young people.
Mission Australia’s Youth Survey 2025 Report has launched. This year, more than 17,000 young people aged 14-19 participated.
This report details the findings of the survey and provides compelling insight into the strengths, hopes, concerns and experiences of young people.
Young people have identified cost of living, mental health, climate change and the environment and housing and homelessness as the top national issues facing Australia in 2025. Cost of living as a national concern is at a record high, and housing and homelessness have doubled as a national concern since 2022.
New for this year, we asked young people an open response question about their hopes for the future and almost all young people shared multiple aspirations in their own words. Their responses show that young people have strong ambitions for many aspects of their lives. Employment and career goals were the most common, followed by hopes for family, relationships and connections and financial stability and home ownership.
The Youth Survey Report 2025 has also revealed that:
- Concern around the cost of living is continuing to increase.
- The number of young people who identified housing and homelessness as a national issue has doubled since 2022.
- Financial hardship was experienced by 15% of young people or their families, with 4% experiencing stress about having somewhere to live in the last year.
- Mental health remains a significant concern, with one in five young people classified as having high psychological distress in the past four weeks.
- Three-quarters of respondents have someone to turn to when unsure about important decisions, but loneliness remains an issue for some young people.
- Discrimination and inequality affect many young people, continuing to be higher among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young peoples and gender diverse young people.
The insights from our annual Youth Survey remain crucial for young people, their parents, educators, policymakers, community services and everyone who support them. By listening to their voices and addressing the issues they raise, we can work together to build a more inclusive and supportive Australia to grow up and thrive in.
For more information, please go to our Youth Survey page, which includes the report and state/territory reports: ACT, NSW, Qld, SA, Tas, Vic, WA (note we only had a small number of respondents for NT, so no NT report this year).