Report

COSMO – Future Plans and Aspirations

This report from UK think tank The Sutton Trust looks at how young people’s experiences of the pandemic have impacted on their future plans and aspirations.

The third briefing from the COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO) looks at how young people’s experiences of the pandemic have impacted on their future plans and aspirations. The crisis has had a strong bearing on young people’s future plans. Of all those who had made education plans, almost two-thirds (64%) reported that their educational plans had changed (at least to some extent) because of the pandemic. Career plans were only slightly less likely to have been affected: three in five (60%) of those who had made plans had changed them as a result. Young people who reported having had ‘long COVID’ or ill health, who were asked to shield or who experienced economic hardships were more likely to have changed their future plans. Those who described themselves as having suffered from ‘long COVID’ were the most likely to have had their career plans affected, with 70% of this group having changed their career plans at least to some extent, compared with 56% of those who had not had the virus at all.