I grew up in the 1980s too, but I don’t think life was that bad for my parents: they were born towards the end of WW2 but college and early adulthood in the 1960s was pretty good and as homeowners they benefitted hugely from the surge in house prices that resulted from inflation in the 1970s. And of course they had excellent final salary pensions.
Nevertheless I’ve done (much) better than them in terms of quality of life. For my kids I expect at least one of the three will be more successful than me. Not totally sure which of them it will be yet 