YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

42 Figure 1.3: Mean agreement values with measures of individualist and collectivist dispositions, 2000–2020. 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.5 3.0 4.0 4.5 5.0 2020 If I am presented with the opportunity to exploit others, I take it 1.78 1.99 I respect the principle of fairness, but only insofar it is to my advantage 2.19 2.35 My happiness is very dependent on the people around me 3.54 3.31 3.44 One should strive to share as much as possible with friends and acquaintances 3.85 3.60 I feel good when cooperating with others 4.14 4.06 3.88 2010 2000 1.0 Sources: Mladina 2000, Mladina 2010, Mladina 2020. Note: The agreement with the claims was measured on a 5-degree scale (1 – highly disagree; 5 – highly agree). However, importantly, youth collectivism today has diminished some- what in comparison to the year 2000 and 2010 (see the mean score for “I feel good when cooperating with others”). Relatedly, both individualist claims have scored higher since 2010. This relative shift towards individ- ualism is consistent with certain conclusions later on in the chapter, e.g. the increased feeling of loneliness among young people. Also interesting and important is that generalized trust among young people in Slovenia has declined in the last 10 years (see Figure 1.4). Addi- tional analyses reveal that generalized trust is only mildly and inconsist- ently correlated to indicators of individualism. This means we cannot tie diminishing trust to the increasing individualisation of Slovenian youth, which is also consistent with Inglehart’s modernization theory that pre- dicts the shift to post-materialist values to be connected to increased, not decreased, trust.