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Most Young Bulgarians Satisfied with Life and Optimistic, Study Shows

Monday, Nov 16, 2015

The majority of young Bulgarians declare an overall satisfaction with life and optimism, shows a common European survey about the so called Millennium generation's (young people between 18 and 34) attitudes about public and political life, media and globalization. The survey was conducted by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and presented on Tuesday here by former Italian prime minister (1998-2000) and foreign minister (2006-2008) Massimo D'Alema, who currently heads FEPS.

Young Bulgarians are not inspired by politics, but are not angered and are overall satisfied with life and optimistic about the future. They should not be labelled as apathetic and uninvolved, said political campaigns expert Mila Totina, who presented the data about Bulgaria.

According to young people, the decisions politicians make are not the factors that define the future. They put first the economy, education, environment and technologies. Young people want to be happy, to have free time, to do what they want and be successful. Politics is not among their top interests, which are dominated by movies, new technologies and social media.

According to the majority, or 66 per cent of young people, their parents and grandparents were interested more in politics than they are. Only seven per cent of respondents indicate that they have participated in a political gathering.

Eighty-four per cent believe that politicians are not interested in their opinion and according to 54 per cent of respondents, politicians are more interested in the older generation than the younger one.

Young people's idea of the perfect political candidate is an educated, motivated, decisive, humble, dedicated, sincere and responsible, between the ages of 30 and 45, i.e. young but with enough experience.

According to young people, the public areas to which resources must be directed are health care, education, job creation and combatting poverty.

The majority believe that online voting must be introduced and practiced.

Gallup's Executive Director Purvan Simeonov commented the data by saying that this generation has a very clear structure of values, is much more individualistic, hardly belongs to any collective identities, is more artistic and largely distant from politics.
He noted two good news - the feeling of normalization and the fact that young Bulgarians are starting to look more like their peers from the other countries.

Politics is seen as ineffective and unjust. In such a situation, when there is a lack of interest in the political process and there is a feeling that the bond between the public and its representatives is broken, a feeling that the different political formations' images are merging, it is much easier for the political pathology to manifest itself, Simeonov warned.

Simeonov stressed that ever clearer youth-oriented politics are needed on both national and European level.

Source: www.bta.bg