Each generation should be better off than their parents? Think again

From baby boomers through to generation X, the idea was that children would become better off than their parents. That dream is now dead - just ask generation rent

Perpetual progress has been at the heart of western society for the past 150 years or more. The idea has been simple: each generation should be better off than their parents.

So it was that the generation that came of age in the early 1950s looked back at the mass unemployment and poverty of the 1930s and thought they were blessed to live in an age of full employment and a cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Related: Under-35s in the UK face becoming permanent renters, warns thinktank