Institute for Youth Policy (IYP) Information

With rising levels of personal debt, high living costs and insurmountable barriers to home ownership, young people are under significant financial strain. With ownership of assets a crucial facet of wealth creation, young people are increasingly turning toward radical alternatives. With a majority of young voters now favouring socialism over capitalism, the very future of British economic liberalism is at stake. This ‘slide to the far left’ is not the result of youthful naivety, but of understandable disillusion with an economic system that they see as having failed them. Fostering entrepreneurship and asset ownership amongst young people is a ‘win-win’ for every segment of society. As well as enfranchising young people up and down the country and lifting thousands out of poverty, greater access to wealth amongst young people creates a virtuous circle where spending drives economic growth, and vice versa. The Institute for Youth Policy (IYP) takes the brightest ideas from the finest minds from across the country to develop policies promoting entrepreneurship and asset ownership amongst 18 to 35-year-olds, based on our founding principle – empowerment through ownership. The IYP promotes these policies directly to politicians, the media and members of the public, and is an independent, non-partisan organisation, supported exclusively by funding from its supporters. All our work is editorially independent, although if funding is received to support a particular report then it is always declared.