A recent sociological survey conducted by the
\nFriedrich Ebert Foundation in Romania puts the spotlight on an age category of
\nwhich people talk a lot but know little, namely young people. The survey
\nconducted in 2018 reveals the attitude, outlook and self-perception of the
\nRomanians aged between 14 and 29 on such issues as family, education,
\nlifestyle, religion and democracy. They have been compared with young people
\nfrom other European countries, EU and non-EU members. <\/p>\n
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All economic and social indicators referring to young
\npeople in Romania are looking very bad, says Gabriel Badescu, one of the authors
\nof the survey together with Daniel Sandu, Daniela Angi and Carmen Greab. Some
\nof these indicators must be applied in a broader European context, though. For example,
\nmore than half of Romanian respondents agree that democracy is a good form of
\ngovernment but 23% believe that under some circumstances, dictatorship could be
\na better form of government than democracy. In comparison with the other nine
\ncountries in south-eastern Europe included in the survey, democracy enjoys the
\nlowest level of support in Romania, notwithstanding the authoritarian
\ntendencies visible in all European countries. <\/p>\n
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Worth noting is that generational change does by
\nitself bring along better, more democracy-loving pro- citizens, says Gabriel
\nBadescu:<\/p>\n
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This decline in people’s attachment to democracy is
\nnot uniformly spread throughout all age categories. In fact, it very much
\ndepends on the respondent’s age. When we refer to the quality of democracy, we
\nshould know that young people are a vulnerable and problematic category. Problematic
\nbecause according to studies, once certain attitudes are imprinted at an early
\nage, it is extremely difficult to change them later; they remain engrained and
\nperpetuate themselves.<\/p>\n
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Besides mentalities, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s
\nstudy also looked at the level of support for minorities in Romania and the
\nother nine countries. Gabriel Badescu tells us what the findings are:<\/p>\n
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Support for minority rights is low among young
\npeople. Romania has the lowest levels of support in the case of several categories
\nof minorities out of all the 10 countries. It also has the second lowest level of
\nsupport for the ethnic minorities and the third lowest when it comes to the
\nrights of the poor. <\/p>\n
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The study has also revealed a disparity between Romania’s
\nregions and between its rural and urban areas. The disparity between young
\npeople in the urban areas and those in rural areas reflects a disadvantage for
\nthe latter. According to other surveys, in 2017, the poverty risk rate in the
\nrural area stood at 37.3%, which is six times higher than in urban areas. The
\nsurvey on young people carried out in 2018 reveals that 23% of young people in
\nrural regions fall in a category known as NEET, which stands not in employment, education or training, which means
\nthey don’t pursue any kind of formal education and they are not employed
\neither. This figure is twice as high in the rural areas than in urban areas, a
\ndisparity which is not found in other EU countries. <\/p>\n
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The economic situation is also used
\nby the authors of the survey to explain the rather high percentage of young
\npeople who want to emigrate. Unlike 2014, when a similar survey was conducted
\nand when 60% of young people aged between 14 and 29 intended to emigrate, in
\n2018, this figure dropped to almost 30%. The sociologist Daniel Sandu points
\nout that this figure reflects wishes and not necessarily specific plans to
\nleave the country: <\/p>\n
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It’s not essential how intense this
\nwish is when trying to establish whether they will, indeed, leave the country.
\nThe desire to leave can rather be interpreted as an answer to the question: ‘how
\ndo you assess your opportunities for self-development in your own country?’. If
\nthe economic situation in your own country is difficult, as it was in 2014, and
\nif there are fewer opportunities, then the tendency occurs to project your departure
\nor to wish to leave the country.<\/p>\n
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As to who wants to leave country most
\nstrongly, the survey reveals some surprising answers, says sociologist Daniel
\nSandu:<\/p>\n
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If we look more closely we notice a
\nbimodal distribution of migration intentions. There are two very different groups,
\nat opposite ends. One group is made up of young people coming from advantaged families
\nwho plan to study abroad. The group is made up of young people from families
\nwho have access to goods, but not as a result of their families’ affluence but because
\ndifferent members of their families are already abroad. They send money back to
\nthe country and give these young people access to goods, but they don’t provide
\nthem with stability and real prospects for the future in this country.<\/p>\n
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The perception of the future is in
\nfact founded on how the present is perceived. In this respect, the survey confirms
\nother statistics. The representative of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Romania,
\nVictoria Stoiciu, explains: <\/p>\n
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As it transpires from our survey and
\nother studies, young people are clearly an underprivileged category, first and
\nforemost economically. If we look at the poverty rate among young people, I’m
\nreferring to those aged between 14 and 25, we will see it is very high, higher
\nthan among other age categories. We usually refer to the elderly or the retired
\nwhen we draw such comparisons. It doesn’t mean that the elderly don’t have problems,
\nbut that the economic situation of young people is much worse. What’s more,
\nyoung people are under-represented politically.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A recent survey conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Romania puts the spotlight on young people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":143122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[29682,43748],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-survey","tag-youths"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n