Young Dutch consumers growing in optimism after economic crisis

Young consumers in the Netherlands are growing more and more positive about the state of the Dutch economy after the financial crisis in 2008, according to Statistics Netherlands. Elderly consumers, on the other hand, are growing more pessimistic. Younger people had more consumer confidence than older people even before the financial crisis. But that gap only increased further after the crisis. Among people aged 60 and older, confidence in the Dutch economy decreased after the crisis. Among people up to the age of 49, confidence is increasing. Consumer confidence remained unchanged among people between the ages of 50 and 59 years. Both before and after the financial crisis, people with higher incomes had higher consumer confidence than people with lower incomes. After the outbreak of the crisis, confidence fell in all income levels, except among the 20 percent highest incomes where it remained relatively stable. Consumers working in the financial and business sector lost the most consumer confidence since the outbreak of the crisis. Yet people working in this sector are still the least pessimistic of all consumers.