Retirement is the last thing on your mind when you’re young, especially if you’re young and unemployed.

However, the literal definition of retirement requires a preceding period – prolonged usually – of gainful employment.

Re·tire·ment

1.  The action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work.

2.  The period of one’s life after leaving one’s job and ceasing to work.

Yet for the near-million young Britons struggling to wedge their feet in the door of any workplace, the notion of retirement is indeed very removed from their present reality.

The quandary of youth unemployment across the United Kingdom has been top of the political agenda for the past 12 months.

2011 has seen youth unemployment hit its highest level in 17 years. The jobless rate stands at 8.1%, with experts predicting that youth unemployment will continue to rise.

In December 2011, CoreData Research UK will set out a study into the youth debt burden. The UK arm of the group will examine the drivers preventing a growing number of youngsters from advancing and being able to save for their futures.

As part of the study, the analysis will scrutinise high levels of unemployment regionally, the growing competition for graduate jobs and the rising costs of university fees as potential factors to this.

CoreData will also incorporate the following, by assessing:

* Regional Youth Unemployment Figures
* Regional Growth Figures
* University Employability Data by Region
* Apprenticeship and Training Opportunities by Region
* House Price and Mortgage Repayment Data by Region
* Price Dispersion Across the United Kingdom
* Average Salary by UK City
* 2010 and 2011 Price Dispersion Data across the United Kingdom
* 2010 and 2011 CPI (inflation and cost of living) Data By UK Region

Beyond this, the National Employer Savings Trust and auto-enrolment are being introduced in a bid to aid lower paid (therein read younger) workers to begin the process of saving and moving towards self-sufficiency in later years.

However with many young people likely to face a longer period of indebtedness during their formative working years not to mention higher costs of living, their ability to save – for things such as a mortgage deposit – are likely to be stifled.

Taking on debt later in life (in the form of a mortgage, for example) will push the period out when large numbers of individuals would have historically begun moving at full speed towards their saving goals.

This suggests many may have to work longer, while the moves by many governments to increase the retirement age are likely become non-arguments anyway, as large swathes of people accept working longer voluntarily.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate that governments’ abilities (and for some their disinclination) to subsidise the cost of living for their respective citizens in later life will be significantly reduced by a variety of factors.

Mainly, too few people of working age (regardless of whether that’s 65, 66 or 67!) and too many people who have stopped paying taxes.

The current sad point however in the UK, is not that there are too few people of working age, but that anaemic growth means too few people of working age are in fact doing just that.

Saving is only possible if there is something to save.