PRESS RELEASE: Finnish Youth in a Global Context
SELF-WILLED AND INDEPENDENT, BUT PREPARED TO WORK HARD
Today’s youth live in an increasingly globalized world, communication channels become wider and distances become shorter, but more and more young people trust only themselves and their loved ones. This is the conclusion of the new survey ”Global Youth”, made by Kairos Future, an international futures research and strategy firm with headquarters in Stockholm. The aim of the survey is to provide companies, authorities and organizations with strategic information concerning future consumers, employees and citizens.
Quality of life and status – that’s what the young ones want
– Most young people in the world want quality of life and they choose a nice living environment to good work opportunities. However, the long-term trend is moving in the direction towards work with high status and good career opportunities, says Anna Kiefer, Director Kairos Future International and project manager of Global Youth.
Today’s youth prefer a job that they can leave when the working day is over. But the young Finns are an exception. Out of all seventeen nationalities in the survey, young Finns are the least interested in having a job with clear boundaries. The young Finns want a stimulating job and a position with a lot of responsibility but at the same time they consider their spare time to be very important for leading a meaningful life
The world’s youth believe it is important to get higher education. Seven out of ten 16-29 year olds want to study at university and one out of eight is going for a doctor’s degree, but they have different motivation factors. Young Scandinavians study to get a good job, while young Americans and Italians wish to make their families proud.
Finnish youth are self willed and independent…
Young Finns are independent, both individually and collectively as a nation.
- Young Finns feel closer to their compatriots than the average young European, perhaps a result of living in a buffer zone between East and West, says Anna Kiefer, Director Kairos Future International.
Compared to other Europeans, young Finns do not care much about what other people think of them and they do not find it important to look good. Only eight percent think it is important to live up to the expectations of others, compared to 42 percent on average in the EU countries! Furthermore, young Finns do not consider it their problem if they provoke others.
… but prepared to work hard!
But the young Finns are eager to work hard! They pay more attention to industrial society values such as endurance, thrift and obedience compared to their Scandinavian neighbors, where values such as curiosity and imagination are more emphasized.
- Young Finns seem prepared to work hard and they think it is important that society rewards individuals that have performed well, says Mats Lindgren, CEO Kairos Future Group.
On our way to a global youth culture
Could you talk about a global youth culture, just because young people buy the same clothes, watch the same TV-programs, share songs with each other, upload pictures at Flickr and share movies on Youtube? Hardly, young people differ, just like older generations, between countries and continents.
– But there are several signs of an emerging global youth culture, because young people in different countries are more similar than adults, says Mats Lindgren. In addition, youth differ the same way throughout the world. Hence, when middle-aged Indians, Americans and Swedes speak of young people as different, they have identical experiences of that “difference”.
About the survey
Kairos Future has during the period 1990-2006 surveyed and analyzed over 17 000 replies from Swedish and Scandinavian high school students aged 18-20. The 2007 Global Youth survey alone included over 22 000 replies from 16-29 year olds and 30-50 year olds in 17 countries. They have answered questions about dreams and ambitions, what is important in life and work life, what is their ideal society and what determines their consumption patterns. The older age group is a reference sample that makes it possible to distinguish young people’s values from general contemporary values.
The survey has been conducted in collaboration with the Swedish Institute, Fondation pour l’Innovation Politique (Fondapol) in France, The Swedish Region of Södermanland, Fortum, The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan and The Institute for Information Industry (III) in Taiwan. The data collection has been made in collaboration with Zapera.
For more information, please contact:
Sofia Johnsson, project coordinator
Tel: +46 70-531 94 74
