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Gen Z is choosing not to drive
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Just like they're "choosing" not to own houses either I guess
If you work hard and save up, you could live in a nice van down by the river!
Car and a home all in one? What a bargain!
The unit of measure in this article is whether or not they have a driver's licence, not a car...I'm pretty sure even gen Zers can afford a driver's license, if they actually wanted it. Not having a driver's licence is very much a choice, to a much higher degree than owner a car (or house)
Sure, but why get a licence if you know you won't have a car any time soon?
Because you don't want to drive privately but for work. Where you need a drivers license.
Because it's convenient to be able to drive a car? There are lots of cases when you may borrow a car to do things. Teenagers might borrow their parents car to do errands and stuff.
As someone who has absolutely no desire to ever own or drive a car, I'm getting my licence based purely on the off chance that I might need to anyway (but I'd probably just hire for a day).
I got a licence when I was 18 (legal driving age where I live) despite not owning a car or planning to anytime soon. I could still borrow my parent's car sometimes, which was nice. This article specifically talks about teens in the 16-17 year old range, very much able to borrow a car from parents (if they have one)
In places like Finland it costs over a thousand euros to get your driver's license. That's less than a car obviously but not nothing either
Yeah it costs around 2k Euros where I live, which is enough to also buy a small beater...but this article is US-focused only, and it's significantly cheaper to get a licence in the US, hence my comment.
That still sounds on the cheap side for Europe, in some countries you'll easily have spent north of 2k€ on all the mandatory lessons and exams, or even more if you're a slow learner or fail the tests a few times.
It costs about 400K to 500K where I live to buy a house that used to be around 150K 30 years ago. Times are fucked
While wages stagnated
That's not that bad unless that's already adjusted for inflation. If you haven't adjusted it already then 150k would be 310k today. Where I'm at house costs have increased 5x after adjusting for inflation.
This is after inflation has been calculated. I live in the Netherlands atm, you can look up how fucked that market is.
My dad bought a house as the only worker and supported my mom and 2 kids 30 years ago. Now, I cannot buy that house even though I earn more than double than what his job currently pays while I don't have to support other people. It's crazy. The Netherlands as well btw.
When my parents bought my childhood home in the 90's they paid 150k euros for it and when they sold it in 2010 or so they got around 300k I believe. While it's more money it's not worth the double. It pretty much cost that much to buy their 2-room apartment then
Hell, I'm a Millennial and it's a no-brainer... Food or gas, emission taxes, road taxes, maintenance costs, and everything else which comes with owning a car. Including the car itself. And that's just from an economic standpoint, I'm not even gonna go into the impact it has on the climate and how EVs are mostly just expensive and not-really-efficient pieces of jewellery still.