Young people in their 20s are facing a tougher start to adulthood than any generation in almost half a century, according to analysis of UK data on housing, employment and wealth, carried out for the BBC.

More than 40% of 25-year-olds are now living with their parents, their wages have stagnated and employment has fallen, show the figures which compare key metrics for different generations at age 25 stretching back to the early 1980s.

The findings are underscored by the experiences of young people themselves who, along with parents, have contacted BBC Your Voice about their circumstances, with many saying they were frustrated about being accused by older generations of not trying hard enough.

We asked the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to gather and analyse government data, external, for the first time, to see if this generation really does have it worse.

The biggest change it found was where those in their 20s are living.

The number of 25-year-olds owning their own home has plummeted from 43% in the mid 1980s to just 15%. There is a simple reason for that: it is too expensive.

The data shows that housing costs for renters or people with a mortgage in their 20s are the highest they have ever been for them at this age, and they now take up a higher share of income than for their parents or grandparents.

And that's not even factoring in the rising cost of affording to run a home, where bills have spiraled rapidly, hitting Gen Z hardest as its wages are lower on average than other age groups facing the same rising prices. The result is the number of 25-year-olds living with their parents has risen from 25% in the 1990s to 42% today.

It is a hurdle that Gen Z is experiencing on a unique scale, but the impact is being felt by their parents too as their lifestyles and futures are being clipped by having young adults still living at home.

Adam Daytona, 26, moved back home this year to live with his parents. He says: "I think there's no world where it's normal to be 26-years-old still living at home. It's unfair on me, it's unfair on my parents.

"To state the obvious, I'm not going to bring a girl back to my parents' house. So it would have 100% affected that part of my life, which does get me low, obviously.

"People say your 20s are the best years of your life and these are the worst years of my life, by far."

Adam's parents Jane, 57, and Neville, 64, say: "I think it's very difficult for them. They're not able to buy houses like we were able to.

"We were more than happy for him to to come home but obviously, you know, we're getting older and it would be nice to have a place to ourselves."

There's been a dip in employment rates for Gen Z compared with the generations that came before.

The jobs squeeze has been felt especially among young women who had seen decades of growing opportunity as more entered the workplace.

But this current generation of 25-year-olds is the first to see a drop in employment rates, down from 77% 10 years ago to 71%.

For men, the fall is almost as stark. Men aged 25 are seeing a lower rate of employment than their age-equivalents in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, with employment rates dropping from 84% to 76%.

The number of applications before a success, the frequency of job losses, and the unknown challenge of AI in the workplace mean that the entry into working life is getting off to a much rockier start for this generation.

Daisy Edwards, 25, is back home with her parents in Guildford after losing her job in London. She says: "When I lost that job, I immediately started job searching and that was when it became clear quite how fleeting that London lifestyle was. I think it was pretty instant that I ran out of money.

"I'd had a few job interviews but I really committed to job searching. I was applying for maybe five or six jobs a day sometimes.

"I think it can really get you down and the longer you are unemployed the more you worry about things, like you don't want to pay to go out."

Dave, Daisy's dad, says: "That's a big difference to me having worked in the same company for 32 years. I've only ever had one job interview and I'm still there.

"The amount of job applications [Daisy] did was crazy. You had that spreadsheet. And often people don't get back to you. I would not like that."

It's clear from the data that 25-year-olds who are in work are likely to be earning more than their parents were at that age, and a lot more than their grandparents received. But after big wage growth for 25-year-olds from the 1980s through to the early 2000s, hitting an average of £28,526, all of that stopped.

"The big picture is stagnation," says Jonathan Cribb, deputy director of the IFS. "It's not that these people are worse off than those that came before them, but it's that they're no better off and that progress has stalled."

Those born between 1987 and 1991 were entering the workforce just after the financial crash and saw a big fall in earnings. They are, in fact, the group who received the lowest average wages of any 25-year-olds over the last three decades. Since then, wages for 25-year-olds have crawled back up, almost to the point they were 20 years ago. Those waves of economic shocks, the pandemic and cost of living crisis mean that wages for 25-year-olds are only just above £28,000 now, after adjusting for inflation – and that stagnation hits people at the start of their careers hardest.

Society also has an expectation in that each generation will do better than the next, and when reality and expectations don't match there's inevitable disappointment.

Rachel Diamond, 23, moved from her family home in Oldham to Portsmouth to follow her dream job as a graduate engineer. She earns in the early £30,000s and says: "I was quite lucky when I got my job straight after uni. So I've kind of done everything right, but still I'm not saving any money from my paycheck, like months and months, just because it's so expensive with renting and bills. I don't think people realise how expensive it is to rent.

"That's the thing, like council tax, you only get 25% discount, so that's expensive on my own. Again, that's a choice, living on my own, but still."

Rachel's dad Paddy says: "When I started out in work I was in a similar situation to Rachel. I moved away from home and I lived on my own because I didn't know anybody where I was moving to, and certainly it was hard for me, and it seems to be, equally as hard, if not, well, probably harder for Rachel.

"I bought my first flat when I was in my early 20s. I was earning £20,000 a year and my first flat was £36,000."

The hope is that Gen Z will still achieve these milestones, potentially just a little later on, and that salaries and employment rates will recover as this group progress into their 30s.

For this generation, recognising the new terrain they are facing means comparison is impossible. Plenty have adopted a new mind-set, holding society's goals more loosely, and learning to thrive on shifting sands.

That's something Shahida, 22, has adopted through her job hunt process. Before landing her dream gig in the Ministry of Justice, she says the search to find work "took a lot of resilience".

"It did result in a lot of tears and a lot of self-doubt at the beginning and I think that's completely normal and it's part of the process."

While Shahida says she hopes she doesn't take her job for granted, she says she's "happy to say that I work in a place that I really enjoy".

Additional reporting by Phil Leake.