The Oracle Beyond the reports - What my generation's "Luck" really looked like.

I was stuck in traffic recently listening to the radio about a Monash University study examining the challenges facing Generation Z.

The results were difficult to ignore.

Young Australians spoke of soaring housing costs, rising rents, insecure employment, cost-of-living pressures and growing uncertainty about the future. For many, buying a home feels increasingly out of reach. Financial security appears harder to achieve than it did for previous generations.

Listening to the reporter, I found myself nodding.

If I were 25-years-old today and trying to establish myself, I suspect I would share many of those concerns.

But then came the familiar observation - that baby boomers were the fortunate generation, growing up at a time when opportunities were plentiful and home ownership was within easy reach.

I tapped the steering wheel and smiled.

Not because I disagreed with the challenges facing younger Australians.

I smiled because the word lucky triggered memories very different from the picture often painted of my generation.

It reminded me of second jobs, packed lunches and years when family holidays simply weren't possible. It reminded me of old cars that survived far longer than they should have, of second-hand furniture in our first home and of evenings at the kitchen table with a calculator, a cheque book and a pile of bills, deciding what could be paid this week and what would have to wait until the next payday.

If that was luck, it certainly wore a convincing disguise.

The Monash study asks an important question about whether younger Australians face challenges that previous generations did not.

The answer, in many respects, is undoubtedly yes.

Housing affordability has become one of the defining issues of modern Australia. Young people entering the workforce today face rising property prices, rental costs and economic pressures that would have been difficult for many of us to imagine when we were starting out.

Yet the debate often misses something important.

When I think about my youth, I don't remember prosperity.

I remember work.

I remember finishing one job before heading to another because there were bills to pay and goals that seemed a long way off. I remember weekends that weren't really weekends because overtime or a second job offered the chance to get a little further ahead.

Like many people of my generation, I wasn't chasing wealth.

I was simply trying to build a life.

The phrase work-life balance wasn't part of our vocabulary. It wasn’t even coined then!

Life wasn't organised around finding fulfilment but around responsibility - rent to pay, later a mortgage and eventually children to raise. Financial security wasn't expected. It was something you worked towards, often slowly and sometimes painfully.

I suspect many readers of my generation will remember exactly the same things.

The thermos of tea prepared before work, lunchbox packed the night before.

An old Holden or Falcon that somehow survived, as replacing it simply wasn't an option. The holiday that became a few days in a tent - that’s all the budget allowed. A lounge room filled with hand-me-down furniture collected from family, friends and garage sales. The washing machine repaired for the third time because buying a new one wasn't possible. School uniforms handed down between brothers and sisters. The determination to save first and buy later, not because we were virtuous - we had no other choice.

Looking back now, it is interesting how many of the things promoted today as sustainable living were, for many working families, financial necessities. We repaired, reused, recycled and went without because that was often the only way to make ends meet.

None of this diminishes the challenges faced by Gen Z.

In fact, recognising our own struggles should make us more sympathetic to theirs.

The world they are entering is different from the one we knew.

For many young Australians, housing affordability is a genuine crisis. Rents consume a large share of income. Job security can feel elusive. The dream of home ownership often appears further away than it did for previous generations.

Those concerns are real and deserve attention.

What concerns me is not the recognition of Gen Z’s difficulties. It is the tendency to turn hardship into a competition. The idea that one generation had everything and another had nothing.

The truth is far more complicated.

Some boomers prospered – while others struggled for decades. Some never owned a home. Some lost businesses, endured divorce, experienced illness or spent their lives living week to week.

Likewise, not every member of Gen Z is struggling. Some enjoy opportunities, support and advantages that many Australians from previous generations could only dream about - dining out most nights or take away. Fashion labels may describe trends - but they rarely describe people.

The young renter struggling to save a deposit and the older pensioner worrying about rising electricity bills probably have more in common than either realise. Both want security, both want dignity and both want confidence that the future will be manageable.

And perhaps that is where the Monash study is most valuable.

Not because it proves one generation has suffered more than another, but because it reminds us that economic security is becoming increasingly difficult for many Australians.

When I look back on my own life, I can honestly say I was lucky - not because life was easy.

I was lucky to grow up in a community where neighbours knew one another. Lucky to learn resilience. Lucky to discover that worthwhile achievements rarely arrive without patience, sacrifice and hard work.

Yet that luck came wrapped in second jobs, missed holidays, packed lunches, old cars, second-hand furniture and years of saving for things that never arrived quickly.

That isn’t a complaint – it’s simply part of the story.

And perhaps that is the lesson hidden within both the Monash study and the debate it has sparked.

Every generation carries burdens that are easy for others to overlook.

Statistics can tell us a great deal about society, but they tell us very little about the individual sitting across the table from us.

Some boomers have prospered - some have struggled.

Some members of Gen Z are thriving – others face daunting obstacles.

The common thread is that most Australians, regardless of age, are striving for the same things: a secure home, meaningful work, financial stability and the hope that their efforts today will create a better tomorrow.

Perhaps one day today’s Gen Z will be listening to a story about the generation that follows them. Perhaps they too will hear how lucky they were. And perhaps they will smile, just as I did hearing the Monash report.

Not because life was easy, but because memory has a way of polishing the rough edges and forgetting the sacrifices that came before the achievements.

They may remember the rent they struggled to pay, the house deposit they fought to save, the uncertainty they lived through and the opportunities they worried they might never have.

And in that moment they may understand what many baby boomers understand today:

Every generation fights battles that are largely invisible to those who didn't live through them.

The real measure of a generation is not whether life was easier or harder than it was for those who came before.

It is how people responded to the challenges of their own time.

Everyone’s challenges are different - but our hopes remain remarkably similar.

We all want a place to call home. We all want meaningful work. We all want the security to care for those we love and the confidence to believe tomorrow can be a little better than today.

So perhaps we're asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking whether boomers had it easier or Gen Z has it tougher, perhaps we should ask whether we are creating a society where ordinary Australians, regardless of when they were born, have a fair opportunity to build a secure and rewarding life - because history is not a competition between generations.

It is a relay race.

Each generation runs its race carrying the burdens, opportunities and challenges of its time before passing the baton to the next.

The question isn’t who had it hardest.

The question is whether we’re leaving the next runner with a fair chance to finish the race.