It is clear that the pandemic affects how young people see the future and their own opportunities.
In the annual survey The Youth Barometer, which is conducted among young people aged 15-24, healthcare and care emerged as the most important societal issue, pushing the environment and climate to second place.
Concerns about the future
At the same time, the survey shows that more people worried about the future in 2020, 34 percent against 29 percent in 2019. Fewer young people state that they feel that they can influence their own lives and their future.
39 percent answer in 2020 that they "have great opportunities to influence my life here and now", in 2018 that figure was 53 percent.
When it comes to the opportunity to influence their lives in the future, more people are hopeful, 59 percent agree that they have great opportunities to do so, but it is still ten percentage points less than in 2018.
The survey is conducted annually, but the questions asked vary.
Many needed support
Many of the participants answer, among other things, that they are now planning to train because they have seen that the low-educated did worse during the pandemic.
Spending time with family and friends also ranks high in response to the question of what is most important right now.
The need to talk about anxiety and loneliness is clearly seen in the statistics for the support chat "On-call friend", which is run by the Red Cross Youth Association.
In the chat, you can anonymously connect and chat with other young people for support and help.
Last year, 5,300 chat calls were started, which is 1,500 more than the year before.
"Worried about the economy"
The common questions about relationships, feelings and loneliness continue to come, but there are topics that have a clearer connection to the pandemic, says Vera Carlbaum Wrennmar at the Red Cross Youth Association.
- In general, young people are not in the risk group, which means that they have not been given a clear place in the pandemic and few people listen to them.
But they are affected.
They chat about concerns about parents' finances.
Or you are afraid that they will get sick.
Many needed homework help
The youth association also runs homework help online.
There, the number of chats increased avalanche when high schools closed.
- In 2019, we had 127 homework help chats and there were eleven volunteers.
In 2020, 2,794 homework help chats were started and 200 people helped with the questions.
It was mainly in April and May that we saw the increase.
We extended the opening hours but have continued to do so because the need is so great.