The Know Daily - Monday 26 February 2024

_{Read in 5m 22s ∙ Listening to HNNY ∙}

Meet Mateo - an “extremely rare” giant otter who was recently born at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. While the endangered species is native to the Amazon rainforest, Mateo joins his two parents and four siblings in a specially-adapted enclosure - and he’s already “having fun” playing with other pups. Adorable.

📝 Mental health and work

Young people are more likely to be out of work due to ill health than those in their early 40s, according to a new report calling for action on poor mental health. 

Go on…
The Resolution Foundation report paints a “radically different” picture to that of the past, whereby the older you were the more likely you were to not work due to sickness: 

The report also found that between 2013 and 2023, the number of 18 to 24-year-olds who were out of work due to ill health more than doubled, rising from 93,000 to 190,000 - with 5% of young people economically inactive due to ill health last year. 

What’s the reason?
Poor mental wellbeing is a key factor. According to the report, young people now have the poorest mental health of any age group, in a reversal from two decades ago when they had the lowest incidence of “common mental disorders” (which include depression and anxiety). 

How does this impact unemployment, exactly?
According to the Resolution Foundation, poor mental health can “hamper [young people’s] education” and “lead to them being in lower-paid jobs or unemployed”, reported the BBC.

The research found that 79% of 18 to 24-year-olds who are “workless” due to ill health only have qualifications at GCSE level or below, compared with 34% of all people in that age group.

So what is the report calling for?
It concludes that efforts to tackle Britain’s “epidemic” of poor mental health should focus on lower-qualified young people, said The Guardian. The Resolution Foundation has called on the government to provide better mental health support in colleges, to ensure that less people leave education with low qualification levels.