YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

256 Figure 7.6 shows that young people most often turn to informal net- works, i.e. parents, partners, and friends, for all types of social support. Parents are by far the most important sources in providing social sup- port to young people, providing themwith the most material and finan- cial support, as well as support in the event of serious illness and when looking for a job. Unlike parents, partners and friends are the greatest emotional support for young people. Formal networks (institutional or organized type of assistance) are only the fourth-most important form of social support. They offer young peo- ple the most help in finding a job right after their parents. Non-profit institutions and organizations are among the least likely sources of any form of support. On the other hand, we should not ignore the share of those young people (especially men) who would not seek help in given situations or do not have anyone to turn to. However, it is encouraging that at least 89.4% of young people do have someone they can turn to for help. A similar situation was shown for the entire population by the Slo- venian Public Opinion Survey (Hafner Fink, et al., 2018). The age and gender of young people also play an important role in some types of supports. As young people get older, reliance on parents for all forms of support decreases and reliance on siblings, partners, and friends, as well as on formal sources of support, slightly increases. A comparison by gender shows some differences in frequency of use of sources of support for each type of support. For example, more men (63.9%) than women (36.1%) would choose parents for emotional sup- port, while more women (55.3%) than men (44.7%) would choose a friend. Men mostly turn to their parents and formal institutions for fi- nancial help. It is similar with women, but they also see partners as an- other important source. For material support, almost twice as many women (64.3%) compared to men (35.7%) would turn to a partner, while almost twice as many men (62.2%) than women (37.8%) would turn to a friend. In the event of illness, men would be more likely than women to seek support from siblings, friends, and formal sources of support. Only support in finding a job does not show statistically significant differenc- es according to gender.