JUVENTUDE
E rISCO RISCO
PERDAS E GANHOS SOCIAIS NA CRISTA DA POPULAÇÃO JOVEM
YOUTH THAT COUNTS Marcelo Neri
International Development Research Centre Centre de recherches pour le développement international
This study was presented and discussed with international experts on July 12, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro during the seminar: “Youth and Risk” organized and supported by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs (SAE), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) from Canadá and the Centre for Distributive, Labour and Social Studies (CEDLAS).
// Youth that counts
YOUTH THAT COUNTS Marcelo Neri1
According to the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs, Office of the President (Portuguese acronym: SAE/PR), no available predictor of the future of the country is better than the universe of today’s children and young people. This predictor includes their respective demographic trends, which are addressed in detail in this survey. The SAE has just taken over the presidency of the National Commission on Population and Development (Portuguese acronym: CNPD) and appointed Ricardo Paes de Barros to lead the work. The survey presented in this paper is the first conducted by the SAE after the creation of the CNPD, and it is no coincidence that it deals with demographics, focusing on what is perhaps the most fascinating population theme of our time: the so-called youth wave. Youth Pororoca -The survey has found that the size of the population of young people in Brazil has never been, and never will be, as large as it is today. The number of young Brazilians aged between 15 and 29 years old is estimated at 50 million, about 26% of our population – a proportion which is very close to the world average. In fact, these 50 million young Brazilians in action represent a “population plateau” that began in 2003 and, as a result of various demographic changes pulling in opposite directions, will extend the wave into 2022, in the shape of a youth pororoca. After the celebration of the bicentenary of our independence, the process will be reversed and the number of young people in Brazil will fall at a faster rate than that of other countries, except China. Brazil needs to make the most of the long duration of this youth pororoca in order to push its social and economic transformations in the intended directions. But what are the intended directions? 1 Acting Chief Minister of the Secretariat of Strategic Affairs, Office of the President (SAE/PR), president of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Development Council (CDES).
Youth that counts \\
It is not enough to count the young. It is necessary to make the young count. We must make young people tell us what they think and what they want. When it comes to empowering the young in practice, it is necessary to listen, and not only in order to meet the wishes of today’s youth, but also to predict the main challenges to come in the country. Young people are the main gateway of innovations into the values and aspirations of each society, which helps to anticipate the development of the nation’s general thinking. This paper briefly explores the messages of young Brazilians through a survey of the aspirations and values of young people. Priorities – We discovered their top priorities through a household survey by the IPEA (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada or Institute of Applied Economic Research) which was conducted in the field in May 2013 by interviewing over 10,000 people in a representative sample of the country as a whole. Each respondent was presented with 16 topics and asked to choose six - and only six – that they considered to be their top priorities. The model of questions used comes from the My World survey, carried out by the UN in various parts of the world, which enables an international comparison of our results. The aim is to support the definition of the new Millennium Development Goals (Post-2015 Development Goals). The highest priority for young Brazilians is good education: 85.2% of Brazilians aged 15 to 29 years old included this option among the six most important of the 16 topics presented. Healthcare (82.7%) was the second most ticked option. Among the non-young adult population, i.e. those aged 30 or older, the two highest priorities are the same, but in reverse order: health (86.6%), followed by education (80.5%). The order of priorities in the worldwide online survey conducted by the United Nations is consistent with that of the young in Brazil. The list of priorities for young people features affordable and nutritious food (70.1%) as the third most frequently mentioned, which completes the podium of priorities for young Brazilians. Incidentally, these three elements represent, in the field of public policy, the three components of the UN Human Development Index (HDI). Honest and responsive government features as the fourth priority for young people in Brazil, with 63.5%. For the global population responding to the online survey, this is the third priority, followed by job opportunities, which, in a way, plays the role of income in the HDI – in terms of income generation – while nutritious food is the spending priority in relation to this income.
// Youth that counts
Priorities of the Young vis-Ă -vis the Non-Young
YOUNG
NON-YOUNG
Good education
85,2%.
80,5%
Better healthcare
82,7%
86,6%
Affordable and nutritious food
70,1%
76,1%
Honest and responsive government
63,5%
65,7%
Protection from crime and violence
49,0%
52,3%
Better job opportunities
46,9%
43,9%
Better transport and roads
40,9%
37,9%
Support for people who cannot work
35,1%
38,0%
Access to clean water and sanitation
27,4%
28,6%
Protecting forests, rivers and oceans
20,1%
19,2%
Reliable energy at home
19,9%
19,1%
Freedom form discrimination and persecution
19,5%
15,9%
Equality between men and women
11,7%
12,5%
Political freedoms
10,5%
8,2%
Telephone and Internet access
10,0%
8,3%
Action taken on climate change
7,3%
7,1%
Source: SAE /PR based on field research by IPEA (May 2013).
Youth Agenda: Amount (in percentage points) by which young people are more concerned than other adults about specific topics 6 4,75
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Youth that counts \\
Youth Agenda - Basically, the youth and non-youth agendas in the country are not so disconnected as regards the choice of priorities. We have used the survey to contrast the priorities of young Brazilians with those of non-young adults in society. The so-called youth agenda consists of elements that are relatively more important for the young than for those aged 30 or more. It should be pointed out that we are not talking about what is a priority for young people, which will be discussed later, but about the disagreement between the agenda of the young in relation to that of non-young adults. This contrast allows us to identify possible conflicts between generations and, therefore, possible reasons for youth protests. Analysis of the figures: the greatest difference is in the importance attached to good education (4.7% more among those aged between 15 and 29 vis-à-vis those aged 30 or more), fighting discrimination and persecution (3,6 percentage points more), better transport and roads (3 pp more), better job opportunities (pp. 3 more), political freedoms (2.4 pp more), telephone and internet access (1.8 pp more) and protecting forests, rivers and oceans (0.9 pp more). The greater importance attached by young people to education and job opportunities is only natural at this stage of the life cycle. Study, unemployment and the search for political freedom are characteristic concerns of young people from many generations. The concerns of the new generation – that is, today’s young people, but not necessarily young people in previous decades – are fighting discrimination, protecting the environment, and internet access. The emphasis on this last element, digital connectivity, and urban mobility coincides with the means and the end that led to the June protests in Brazil in the first place. Non-Youth Agenda – Similarly, we can list the main points on the non-youth agenda, that is, elements that carry relatively more weight among the priorities of those aged 30 or more. In this case, the agenda consists of affordable and nutritious food (6 percentage points less for the young), better healthcare (4 pp less), protection from crime and violence (3.4 pp less), support for people who cannot work (2.8 pp less), honest and responsive government (2.2 pp less), access to clean water and sanitation (1.2 pp less) and equality between men and women (0.8 pp less). As the Titãs song goes, the young do not just want food, while health and retirement are issues that older people are more concerned about. Gender equality features more prominently in the older age groups, in which women, who live longer, particularly outnumber the male population. Other elements of the non-youth agenda, perhaps due to the failure of successive governments to address them, are violence, corruption and basic sanitation.
JUVENTUDE
E rISCO RISCO
International Development Research Centre Centre de recherches pour le développement international
PERDAS E GANHOS SOCIAIS NA CRISTA DA POPULAÇÃO JOVEM