About Alison Pennington

Alison Pennington is an economist and writer. She is the author of Gen F’d? How Young Australians can Reclaim their Uncertain Futures. Pennington investigates economic issues facing working people including inequality, jobs and the future of the fair go. She is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in Politics, Philosophy and Economics with La Trobe University, with previous roles held with the Australia Institute and public-school music teaching.

How Australia created Gen F’d & why it affects us all

Australia sits in an uncomfortable place, emerging from the GFC, pandemic, major environmental disasters, and a cost-of-living crisis. Australia’s celebrated ‘Fair Go’ has disintegrated, with millions of people stuck on the rat wheel of insecure work and housing. We can’t stay where we are, but we don’t know what’s ahead.

Alison Pennington will draw on economics and history to explain the uncertain future of Australia’s young people, and how the compounding economic, political and environmental crises young people face are emblematic of the big challenges of our time.

How do we draw on the knowledge and experience of our inspiring past of people-powered egalitarianism and build the infrastructure of opportunity and hope that heralds a new era for Australia? One that lifts everyone up and leaves no one behind?