How policymakers can engage and connect with youth
By Marie Vialle, Research Director, and Gabriele Mariani, Research Executive, Kantar Public
As the pandemic ravaged European economies and youth unemployment rates skyrocketed, the future prospects for the younger generations have come to represent one of the key priorities in European policymaking.
Significantly, the €800+ billion recovery package devised by the EU has been branded “Next Generation EU”, and aims to counter both the immediate adverse economic effects of the pandemic, and prepare the EU’s future for today’s youth.
Yet, the recent Eurobarometer data shows that while the younger generations have greater trust in the EU than their older counterparts, 4 in 10 young people ‘do not feel attached to it’.1
It is thus crucial for policymakers to better understand young people’s specific priorities and expectations, in order to increase their engagement.
Drawing on the Youth in Europe 2021 research conducted by the Centre Kantar sur le Futur de l’Europe for the European Parliament, Marie Vialle and Gabriele Mariani explore the main priorities and values of Europe’s digital natives (young Europeans aged 16 – 30); and how these vary across Member States and sociodemographic groups.2
This comparative analysis provides useful recommendations for policymakers to connect with and engage today’s youth on critical decisions affecting their future.
New generation, new values
When considering the European Union’s future, young Europeans’ priorities differ from those of their older counterparts on some key topics and values.
Firstly, the environment and climate change is the main concern for young Europeans today. They rank this as the most important issue currently facing the EU, above the economic situation, immigration, and health (see figure 1).
This is not the case for older Europeans, who consider immigration, followed by the economic situation, as the most important issue, with the environment and climate change in third place.
Figure 1: The most important issues facing the EU
Source: Standard Eurobarometer 95 (June – July 2021)
Climate change is the main concern for young Europeans, ahead of the economic situation, immigration and health.
Young Europeans are also more inclined to think that the European Parliament should prioritise action against climate change over other issues (38% vs. 32% of Europeans aged 31+), although during the pandemic, they did consider public health as a more pressing issue than the environmental crisis (44% vs. 50% of the 31+, see figure 2).
Figure 2: The two main topics to be address in priority by the European Parliament
Source: Special Eurobarometer for the European Parliament, Spring 2021
Among the priorities for the future of Europe, education is identified by European youth as a key area: in fact, during the pandemic, young people ranked the need for comparable education standards (between EU countries) above the need for a common health policy (28% vs. 23%), while only 20% of Europeans from the older age groups prioritised this element.
When it comes to core values that the European Parliament should defend, young Europeans tend to be comparatively more concerned about the protection and promotion of human rights (55 vs. 50% of Europeans aged 31+) - as well as equality between men and women (48% vs. 42%) and freedom of speech (43% vs. 38%).
The younger generations’ greater concern for human rights and equality is reflected in their political priorities at the European level: they are more likely to mention gender equality, inclusion and diversity (21% vs. 13% of those aged 31+) as topics that they would like to see prioritised by the European Parliament (see Figure 2).
Among the priorities for the future of Europe, education is identified by European youth as a key area.
No one-size-fits-all for European youth
Despite the distinctive generational traits outlined above, European youth cannot be described as one homogeneous cohort: it is indeed truly diverse and varied.
In fact, the perceptions and priorities of young people can differ dramatically according to their age, their level of education, and where they live.
For instance, when it comes to gender equality, the importance attributed by young respondents varies greatly between Western and Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent between Northern and Southern Europe: while this value is considered a priority by a majority of young people in France, Luxembourg, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia and Portugal, this is the case for less than a quarter of young people in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
Remarkably, in these countries, the younger generation tends to place equal or less importance on equality between men and women, compared to the older generation, particularly in Romania (18% vs. 25% of citizens aged 31+).
In Eastern Europe – and to a lesser extent in some Southern European countries – young people attribute greater value to solidarity between Member States.
At least half of young respondents in Bulgaria and Slovenia voice this expectation, while they are less than a third in Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Finland, France, and the Netherlands.
This might reflect the locally diffused perception of living in a situation of economic disadvantage compared to other EU Member States.
When considering the main issues faced by their country, in the Southern Member States, unemployment also emerges as one of young people’s top three issues, and most notably in Cyprus (55%), Spain (49%), Italy (45%), and Greece (44%).
Geopolitics also affect young people’s specific priorities in some countries. Even before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the tense relationship between Finland and Russia may have increased young people’s concern for cyber-attacks.
In Finland, a third of young people consider it to be one of the top three global challenges. This is the case also in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (among its older generation), three former Soviet republics with Russian-speaking minorities.
Perceptions of the most important political priorities, also appear to be closely linked to individual socioeconomic determinants, such as level of education.
Young respondents who pursued higher-level education studies, are much more likely to consider the environment and climate change as one of the two main issues facing the EU (34%), compared to those who left school early (10%).
Related to this, concern for the environment and climate change often appears to be inversely proportional to other preoccupations of a more economic nature.
In Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Ireland, over half of the young population considers climate change to be one of the two main issues facing the EU, whereas less than a quarter considers the economic situation as a priority (see figure 3).
This might partly explain why a young person in Sweden is more than four times as likely to consider climate change to be a main issue, compared to a young person in Italy, where 40% in the 16-30 age group list the economic situation among the EU’s top two issues.
Figure 3: Different perceptions of most important issues facing the EU, by country
Source: Standard Eurobarometer 95, Jun – Jul 2021
When it comes to economic concerns, age differences also play a significant role in influencing young people’s priorities.
Young Europeans fully into their working age are more likely to consider the economic situation and the condition of Member States’ public finances as the most pressing issues for the EU, compared to younger individuals.
These distinctions remind us of the importance of individual life context (e.g., occupation, presence of children, etc.) impacting on people’s main concerns and political priorities.
A digital generation with heterogeneous digital attitudes
Variations in nationality, age, and educational level within the younger cohort can also be determinants of media use. This offers important insight for European policymakers wishing to leverage social media platforms to reach out to younger audiences.
Today’s young Europeans are a fully digital generation, with 93% reporting using the internet every day or almost every day, and 82% using social networks on a daily basis.
The internet has partly replaced TV among the younger Europeans: daily cable TV consumption is significantly less frequent among this group (54%) than the older groups (84%).
When it comes to political matters, the internet is by far the first source of information for most young Europeans: over half (54%) of the 16-30s get their news about European politics online, significantly more than those aged 31+ (22%).
Even so, 26% of young respondents say that they watch TV via the internet daily, indicating that TV may still be set to remain a popular channel. And in some countries, TV remains the most popular source of information when it comes to European news. This is the case for Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Portugal, and Romania.
Nevertheless, in most cases, digital and social media overtakes TV as the most popular news source for European matters.
In two Member States (Malta and Slovakia), social media has already replaced TV and websites as the most popular source of news on European politics.
Indeed, particular attention must be paid to social media use among the younger generation.
If YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp are the three most-used platforms across all age groups (with YouTube being more popular than Facebook among those younger than 30), image-based social networks such as Instagram, Tik Tok and Snapchat, are significantly more popular among the youngest Europeans.
Consumption of image-based social media decreases with age, with Tik Tok and Snapchat being especially popular among the 16-20 age group, and much less so among the 26-30s (see figure 4).
Figure 4: Use of social media platforms among different young age groups
Source: Standard Eurobarometer 94( Winter 2020/2021)
Educational level also influences media use. Young people with lower-level educational qualifications are more likely to watch TV: 85% of those who completed their studies by the age of 15, watch it every day (either on a TV set or via the internet), while only 62% of those who studied after the age of 20, do so.
Looking at the use of different social media platforms, young people with lower-level qualifications favour TikTok and Snapchat, while those with a higher level of education prefer other platforms – in particular Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram (62% vs. 41% among those who left school early).
A cross-country comparison of social media use also reveals interesting findings. While some platforms (particularly YouTube) are more homogeneously used across EU countries, other platforms display important national variations. Facebook (and its integrated Messenger app) is more popular among the youth in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, whereas Instagram is used more in Western and South-Western Europe.
When it comes to messaging apps, geographical differences are even greater: despite Messenger’s widespread diffusion, WhatsApp remains the most popular platform across the EU; whereas the use of Snapchat varies hugely – from 71% of young users in Sweden to only 5% in Spain.
Conclusions
Two years of the Covid-19 pandemic have particularly affected young Europeans, and the European Union is now faced with the challenge of rebuilding itself to safeguard its future.
For this reconstruction to be successful, it must take into account the expectations and aspirations of the younger generations and involve them in shaping the future of Europe.
But, although young Europeans overall have a positive image of the EU, they still perceive it as a distant institution. So, how best to capture the attention of the European younger generations, and enable them to project themselves into the European Union of tomorrow, and start embracing it today?
Firstly, policymakers must take into account those issues that particularly inspire and mobilise European youth today. Enabling them to get involved in causes that are dear to them, via European citizen engagement programmes, would make it possible to align young people’s aspirations with those of the European Union.
However, policymakers also need to consider the specific characteristics of the different cohorts of young Europeans, in order to increase their sense of belonging to the EU.
This implies moving beyond the idea of reaching out to young Europeans as a homogeneous group, simply by leveraging the cross-cutting concerns of youth, such as climate change, gender diversity and human rights. Policymakers need to consider each specific cohort and turn their attention towards their specific concerns.
Secondly, Europeans digital natives spend a lot of time online, and are more receptive to online communications than their elders. But as the European youth’s concerns and priorities vary according to their lived reality (country, specific age, education), so does their social media use.
Investigating young people’s online usage, behaviour, and preference towards different types of social media content, is key to designing effective media campaigns.
Enabling young Europeans to get involved in causes that are dear to them, via European citizen engagement programmes, would make it possible to align their aspirations with those of the EU.
References and notes
1. Standard Eurobarometer 95 - Spring 2021. Launched in 1974, the Eurobarometer is the polling instrument used by European institutions to monitor on a regular basis the state of public opinion across all EU Member States. Kantar Public has been in charge of conducting the Standard Eurobarometer (face-to-face interviews among the general population) since 2004.
2. The Youth in Europe 2021 desk research analyses data collected throughout different opinion surveys conducted by Kantar Public for the European institutions between November 2019 and June 2021. This analysis covers a wide range of topics, spanning young people’s concerns over the use of media, their views on the European Union institutions, and their perceptions of the place of Europe on the world stage, to their experiences of the COVID-19 crisis and their opinion on climate change policies. Find it on the European Parliament website.
