Occasionally, one of the most anticipated moments of adolescence is coming of age. To fulfill the 18 years and to eliminate of overnight to all those legal barriers that stood between you and your desire to become greater. Buy alcohol, go to discos until the wee hours of the morning, vote, drive and a long etcetera that changes many of your rights, but also many of your duties.
But among all this list of new opportunities they generated there is one that, over the years, has lost priority among young people and that is to get behind the wheel of a car. The new lifestyle and especially the economic crisis have been modified and much preferences already well known millennials.
And the data speak for themselves. In a time when the fleet of cars has not stopped growing (+ 28% since 2000, according to data from the DGT), the automotive sector has lost weight in one of its strongest points: the young people between 18 and 34 years.
The census of total drivers has hardly changed during the last decades, and that with the economic recession in between. And if in 2000 there were a total of 18,930,263 people who had the B driver’s license (the license required to manage a tourism), last year that figure was 18,448,076. A drop of just 2 percentage points.
And which group has been one of the most important within that census? Exactly, the millennials. During the first years of this century, young people between 18 and 34 years old accounted for up to 40% of the total of all car drivers. Almost half. A figure that has dropped in 2015 to 27.5%.
The data make it clear: the age group most drivers lost in this period was that of the young people between 20 and 24 years. 1.6 million in 2000 to 900,000 in 2015. A drop of about 40 percentage points.
But this not only happened with the economic downturn as a backdrop. Paradoxically, the automotive sector has lost weight among the millennials at a time when, precisely, the young population has not stopped growing. According to figures from the National Statistics Institute, the number of people aged between 18 and 34 years has increased 18.7% since 2002.
The age group that has experienced the greatest growth of the population in this period has been that of young people between 20 and 24 years, with a rebound of 40.3%. Yes, the same group that has dropped by up to 13 percentage points among drivers.
Fewer and fewer young people decide to take their driving license
But how has it reduced the number of young drivers? According to the data, the answer is simple: less and less people want to get a driver’s license.
The total number of permits issued class B has fallen 22% in the last 15 years. A downturn, which has been, above all, accused during the economic crisis. And in 2000, more than 600,000 people took out the driver’s license class B. A figure that last year was 466,000.
This decrease of over 20% has come from the hand of a significant drop in the millennials who have stopped driving license removed. And, this group of the population represents almost the total of new licenses issued.
In 2000, of all class B driving licenses that were issued, 91% went to youths between 18 and 34 years of age. A percentage that in 2012 (according to the latest data from the DGT), was 84.10%.
Again, the age group that most falls are among the population aged 21 to 24 years. And it is here, when the data speak for themselves: in 2000, the number of permits issued to this group was more than 152,000. In 2012, they did not reach 70,000. A decrease of 54%.
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The economic capacity of young people, the first impediment to driving
According to the data exposed, the majority of age has stopped being linked to an eagerness to start driving. But to see the reasons or if in addition to a lack of interest there is a lack of means, it is necessary to speak not only of what but of when and how. Put another way, let’s put some context.
The truth is that there are several companies and sectors that have already tried to answer this question. For example, the consulting firm Deloitte, in 2014 conducted a study on options for mobility and transport consumers .
It involved 19 countries that shed some light on the current relationship of millennials and cars. According to the document, 80% of young people say that one of the reasons I dismiss the idea of buying a car has to do with its economic position.
And it is that one of many things that has caused the tsunami of the crisis has been a position of general precariousness in the young population. Without going any further, the group with less employment is young.
According to the Labour Force Survey (EPA) published by the INE quarterly, from 2006 to 2015 the number of employed has fallen among the population aged 16 to 34 years, while in other ages has risen.
However, it does not mean that young people’s interest in driving has fallen for no apparent reason. The simple fact of having less economic capacity than previous generations has led to a shift in priorities.
In fact, according to data from the UK Government on the survey ‘reasons for not learning to drive’, young people are most interested are for driving, but also are the most just dismissing the idea for the cost Which involves the purchase and maintenance of the vehicle.
Also the investment group Goldman Sachs conducted a study on Millennials in analyzing some of these issues. Thus, only 15% of millennials see the car as something “extremely important”, and another 30% have no intention of acquiring tourism in the near future.
Technology, emancipation … millennials are the protagonists of a new way of life
The way to face all those rights and duties that we spoke at the beginning of the post when one turns 18 has changed and the millennials are the first to live those new habits. And it is here, where again the interest for the cars enters.
The best technologies and the arrival of social networks have motivated new ways of relating. Something that for many young and not so young has meant a plus of comfort. And this is precisely one of the reasons why Millennials are away from cars, according to an article published by the Washington Post trying to see the relationship between cars and millennials.
Thus, the US newspaper argued that thanks to social networks, young people no longer have to travel to get in touch with their relatives, so the interest in learning to drive and have a car, has gone into the background. Reason, which incidentally also argued CityLab in one of his articles on the millennials and driving habits.
But not only has technology changed. Emancipating, marrying, having children or forming a family are aspects of life that are increasingly being carried out at a later age. For example, the study of Goldman Sachs, the percentage of young married and living at home has fallen more than 50% since the 60’s.
In fact, one of the biggest problems for young is to leave their parents home. According to the Observatory Emancipation, only 20% of the population aged 16-29 years living in a different home home in 2015. A 6% less than the previous year.
That young people are less interested in driving than the rest of the generations is a fact, and there are the data. But it is also true that millennials have less purchasing power than before, greater support in technology and a delay in the life cycle that has generated new habits and behaviors. And so the car has lost its protagonism. More reviews on this blog for more on various category.
