Authors

• Advisory Council for Youth Affairs (Nuora)
• Finnish Youth Research Society. Finnish Youth Research Network

Keywords

apprentices, business formation, expectation, income, mass communication, occupational life, social influence, television, youth, youth employment, youth unemployment

Abstract

The main themes of the 1996 youth survey were employment and unemployment in Finland. Other topics included education, working life, entrpreneurship, income sources, social security benefits, and mass media.

The respondents were asked whether they were studying at that moment and whether they were satisfied with their education in terms of gaining employment. Those in employment were asked about their job contract and whether the job was commensurate with their qualifications. The unemployed or the laid-off were asked about the spells and duration of unemployment, willingness to enter apprenticeship training or participate in a youth workshop. Opinions on the most important obstacles to employment in their case and for young people in general were charted.

The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with a number of statements relating to employment opportunities, unemployment benefits, employment situation, means of increasing employment opportunities and racism. The statements included, for instance, whether education improved one's chances of getting a job, whether the respondents would rather take temporary work than remain unemployed if income were the same, whether they expected to gain better social status than their parents had, whether they would accept a person from a different ethnic background as their work colleague. Future plans were charted by asking whether the respondents planned to work or study abroad, set up a business or acquire vocational education within the next five years. Views were probed on obstacles preventing young people from becoming entrepreneurs/self-employed.

Regarding income and social security benefits, the respondents were asked what was their most important source of income and whether they received certain income transfers during the past 12 months (social assistance, study grant, study loan, unemployment allowance or other unemployment benefits, maternal or paternal allowance, housing allowance or sickness allowance).

Further themes covered interpersonal influence and mass media. The respondents were asked how much certain persons or bodies had affected the way they think (parents, relatives, teachers, the press, friends, television/radio, politicians, authorities, church or religion). Main information sources for current affairs (television, radio, the press, the Internet etc) were surveyed. Views were also probed on the reliability of information sources. Some questions covered what the respondents thought were the most interesting sources of communication, what kind of television programmes they watched and how they listened to the music (radio, Internet, music TV, albums/tracks).

Background variables included the respondent's age, gender, basic education, vocational education, economic activity, municipality of residence, and parents' vocational education.