Risk through the years – a statistical portrait of young people's risk perceptions and experiences relative to those of older generations

Youth and adolescence are associated with significant changes in a person's life. According to risk theory, the changes experienced by young people today are fundamentally different from those experienced by previous generations and entail a greater degree of uncertainty. In this paper, survey and interview data are used to describe how contemporary risk experiences of young people in Britain differ from those of older generations, highlighting, in particular, their greater frequency and difference in type. Young people are also more likely to be worried about risk, and this remains the case well beyond the years of adolescence. In dealing with these real or anticipated risks, young and adolescent people turn to the traditional sources of family and friends to obtain advice. Using career decisions as a case study, we show that, whereas young people and their parents often share their risk assessments as they take into account each other's decision-making context, understanding is reduced if career paths diverge.