[mercer]

It's not just about the direct impact of Covid, though. In my millennial-and-younger circles there are plenty who have been directly affected, but also many who still have work, but are deeply worried about their future prospects, not just when it comes to work, but also in regards to political turmoil and climate change.

They get a cat instead of a kid, they expect to never be able to buy a home, they expect not to have a pension and to enter the later stages of their life in a climate of turmoil and an ever-decreasing safety net.

Whether that's true, of course, is debatable. But it's been somewhat surprising and very painful to see how many of the 30-and-below people around me are utterly pessimistic about their future prospects on various axes. The pandemic mostly registered to them as a punch to the gut, and as something that probably accelerates a number of their other concerns. If anything, it /hasn't/ been too traumatic because they were already pessimistic.