Rent and property prices are not the only thing stacked against young people. Low wages and insecurity in competitive job markets – be they creative or in the third sector – are extending further into graduates’ working lives. Rather than a youthful rite of passage, zero-hours contracts and low pay are now a regular feature of certain professions well into people’s 30s. Academia is the example par excellence. Once prestigious, secure and well paid; today, while the prestige remains, the pay and security of the next generation of academics has fallen off a cliff. Traditional understandings of what constitutes a middle-class job just don’t hold up in quite the same way.

There is no mystery as to the cause of these working conditions. The fact that real wages are falling is a direct consequence of decades of rising inequality. Put simply, the people at the top are paying themselves more, by paying the people at the bottom – including a disproportionate number of young people – less.

So how do we fix this? Unions are a predictable (though still essential) answer. Rejuvenating the co-operative movement is another.

AltGen is an organisation that helps young people set up workers’ co-operatives as an alternative to competitive, precarious and low-wage career paths. Recent graduates ourselves, we are well acquainted with this situation. Rather than competing with our peers for unpaid internships – a graduate race to the bottom – workers’ co-operatives are businesses built on collaboration and solidarity.

Co-operatives are making a comeback across the UK. Between 2009 and 2014, 1,331 were launched, increasing the number of co-ops by 26% to 6,323. Last March, Students for Cooperation was set up, a national organisation to help students start co-operatives to meet their basic needs – from student housing in Birmingham to food in Glasgow. In November, the Bristol Cable was launched – a co-operative newspaper and online platform.

Young creatives are realising not only that they are often already working along co-operative lines informally, but also that formal co-operative status has benefits. Strike! magazine, made the headlines last month by covering up adverts on the tube with political slogans. Less well known is that it has recently been incorporated as a co-operative. In its own words, it did not need to do this (it was already an informal co-op). Rather, it was about accessing the “global community of support” offered in the form of a grant from another co-op.

This is far from mere youthful idealism – workers’ co-operatives have proved more resilient during economic crises and startup co-ops have a better chance of survival than other businesses. While co-operatives are no silver bullet, this option could be more rewarding (both financially and personally) than working your way slowly up the increasingly slippery career ladder. This is why AltGen is working with Co-operatives UK to create the Young Co-operators Prize – five £2,000 startup funds for groups of young people with co-operative ideas.

Setting up a workers’ co-operative will not enable young people to rent their own rooms overnight. But we are facing unaffordable housing and low pay. Co-operatives are part of the solution to these problems.