The main changes in young people after the crisis
Youth is the stage in which people prepare themselves to assume the responsibilities of adult life, when defining vital projects and establishing priorities and future objectives. The study of Obra Social La Caixa The transition of young people to adult life It tells us to what extent the crisis has changed certain tendencies in the way of accepting adult responsibilities.
And it is precisely to accept adult responsibilities willingly it is necessary that young people have stimulating opportunities, incentives capable of promoting their personal development and committing them to sustaining and improving society. It is true that the training, consumption and personal freedom possibilities of young people today are incomparably greater than those of their parents or grandparents. But it is also the fact that the uncertainty regarding the future is greater in the present moment, which leads to problems such as the low capacity for emancipation and the scarce job prospects.
What has changed in young people after the crisis?
1. Delayed emancipation. The study shows that the fundamental element that differentiates young Spaniards from their European counterparts is the late abandonment of the family home. It is a trend that continues over time and that has not changed substantially with the crisis, which points to a cultural style of accepted family dependence.
This practice begins to be increasingly shared by other young residents in the European environment, since currently there is a generalized tendency to delay the departure of the family home, with substantive differences depending on the country of residence: only 24 % of young Finns aged between 15 and 29 live with their parents, compared to 55% of young Spaniards of the same age.
However, the specific analysis of the Spanish case has shown that young people delay their departure from the family home in the absence of opportunities; whereas before it was delayed until the time to get married to form a family, in most cases. Currently, they have no options to choose from, so we could say that they have replaced the "family dependence chosen" by the "family dependency imposed" due to the adverse economic circumstances. In addition, 70% of young Spaniards would be willing to leave the country for a specific time.
2. Education and high level of education. Never in the history of our country have young people reached such a high level of formal education. When relating training and employment, it can be seen that it is the young people who are at the two formative extremes (that is, those who have a higher degree and those who fail to complete compulsory schooling) who suffer the most from the negative consequences of the labor instability. The higher the educational level, the higher the level of occupation. Thus, unemployment has fundamentally affected young people without qualifications.
The challenge of activating policies for young people
The evidences presented in this study on the transitions of young Spaniards in the European comparative framework pose several challenges:
1. Promote young housing for rent at low cost. It serves to promote a process of emancipation.
2. Increased worker protection. The adaptation of the "flexicurity" model in Denmark and the Netherlands, where unemployment is very low, is indicated to alleviate the effects of youth unemployment. It is a labor regulation mechanism that combines the possibility of changing jobs with high worker protection so that it can make the transition from one job to another with minimum guarantees of stability and continuity.
3. Motivation for students.Against early school leaving it is advisable to adapt the objectives of secondary education to the motivations of young people, immersed in a global society in which the use of new technologies prevails.
4. Adaptation of the offer of degrees of vocational, secondary and university education to the job offer.
5. Make training itineraries more flexible and favor the acquisition of transversal competences in the university degrees.
6. Invest in human capital at all educational levels, including early childhood education.
7. Encourage entrepreneurship in times of economic instability as an alternative to take advantage of young people's ideas and activate the labor market.
8. Activate social and youth policies aimed at the prevention of poverty.
9. Strengthen youth policies to favor the participation and the associationism of young people in the different institutional areas.
10. Encourage labor and family compatibility policies and, therefore, the formation of the family among young people.
