YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

Key findings of The Youth 2020 study  343 MILAN LAVRIČ AND TOMAŽ DEŽELAN KEY FINDINGS OF THE YOUTH 2020 STUDY The Youth 2020 study was largely designed as a follow-up to a similar study a decade ago, but it also partially built on the methodological ap- proaches and data of the 2000 study. This allowed researchers to gain a detailed insight into long-term trends, which proved essential as the most important results of the study relate precisely to trends over the last ten or twenty years. On the demographic front, one of the key findings is that the extremely rapid decline in the number of young people is very likely to have stopped by 2020. Since 2000, the number of young people has fallen by almost a third (31.1%). This decline undoubtedly has wrought tectonic conse- quences upon young people’s social situation. On the one hand, every young person is even more important to society as a whole today, com- pared to decades ago. The current numeric drop of young people is re- flected, among other things, very clearly in the marked decline in youth unemployment. In 2005 young people accounted for 37% of the total un- employed, while in 2020 they will account for only 20%. While this is of course also a consequence of economic trends and measures, it is also impossible to deny the important influence of the demographic factor. The decline in the number of young people is certainly also reflected in the education sector. It is understandable that educational institutions, which have in many ways grown considerably in recent decades, are finding it increasingly difficult to attract young people because there are simply not somany of themaround. This provides an important incentive to raise the quality of education, but at the same time pressures educa- tional institutions to achieve results at least comparable to those of the past, despite working with, numerically speaking, less talent.