Advisory Council for Youth Affairs (Nuora), nowadays called the State Youth Council, started to produce Youth Surveys in 1994. This survey series charts attitudes and expectations of Finnish young people aged 15 - 29. Each survey contains both current questions and recurring questions which are repeated over time, enabling the study of long-term attitude changes. The main themes include attitudes to education, working life, social security, spending, drug use, and young people's willingness to participate in order to influence decision-making.
The main themes of the 2025 Youth Barometer are the pressures young people experience and the expectations placed on them. The survey examines young people's perceptions of educational expectations, as well as their goals, life course, and views on the future. It also explores issues related to well-being, identity, and values.
The survey began with questions on schooling, educational choices, and educational goals. Respondents were asked about their experiences of academic performance and the expectations placed on their educational choices by parents, teachers, and other important people in their lives. The survey also examined sources of pressure in young people's lives and the support they receive in dealing with them.
The next section focused on young people's life course and future plans. Respondents were asked whether they had reached certain life stages, such as starting a romantic relationship, moving out of their parents' home, and supporting themselves through work, and how important they considered these milestones. The survey also explored whether respondents identified with minority groups, the significance of minority identities, and experiences of discrimination. In addition, questions covered social values, environmental attitudes, and views, behaviours, and concerns related to climate change. The final section examined respondents' well-being, sense of belonging in society, life management, future expectations, and feelings of uncertainty and insecurity across different areas of life.
Background variables include the respondent's gender, age group, region of residence, native language, main activity, own and parents' level of education, and perceived household financial situation.
The sample of respondents was drawn from the Population Information System using stratified random sampling. The population was divided into 18 strata based on age (15-19, 20-24, 25-29), legal gender, and native language (Finnish, Swedish, other). The sample size was designed using experiences from the 2024 Youth Barometer online survey. The goal was to obtain at least 2,000 responses, and target response counts for each stratum were set in proportion to their share of the population. Invitation letters were mailed in early February. The invitation included a personal QR code and an access code that enabled respondents to complete the survey online. Reminder letters were sent to respondents in those strata for which the target number of responses had not been reached by 1 April.
The 2025 Youth Barometer is the first Youth Barometer survey conducted exclusively online. It is also the first Youth Barometer in which the questionnaire was available in English in addition to Finnish and Swedish. A total of 2,312 people responded to the survey, of whom 2,144 consented to the archiving of their responses in the Finnish Social Science Data Archive.