Young people on education

Of those young people who have parents who are workers, just over 50 per cent plan a longer education, while those who have parents who are higher non-manual employees, over 80 per cent do so. That is shown in the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs' study Young People with Attitude from 2007.

The Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs undertakes regular attitude and value surveys. Both young and older people reply to questions on attitudes to becoming an adult, leisure, work, politics, diversity issues, gender equality, health etc. The 2007 study Young People with Attitude focused on 6 000 persons in the age-range of 16–29 years and 1 500 in the age-range of 35–74 years.

In Sweden today the great majority of young people undergo, besides 9-year compulsory school, a secondary education, and roughly 50 per cent then study at the university level before they are 30 years.

About 5 per cent leave 9-year compulsory school and 15 per cent are unable to cope with secondary education. Between 20 per cent (25–29 years) and 80 per cent (16–19 years) study in the respective group of young persons.
Seventy per cent plan to study at university
Of those who are studying, 70 per cent state that they plan at least a three-year education at university level. In the question concerning planned education no differences are visible between young women and young men or between young persons who are born abroad and young people born in Sweden.

A tangible difference exists between those who have parents who are workers, of these just over 50 per cent plan a longer education, and those who have parents who are higher non-manual employees, of them over 80 per cent do so.

The principal reasons stated for higher education studies is the possibility of obtaining a good job (70 per cent), then comes the possibility of working with something one is really interested in (57 per cent) and one’s own personal development (42 per cent). One out of five, 22 per cent, reply that they can envisage studying to avoid being unemployed.

Sixty per cent of the young people and fifty per cent of the older respondents agree with the assertion that they have had great influence over their level of education.

A lower proportion of those young people who are unemployed and young Swedes born abroad agree with the assertion that they have had the opportunity of influencing their education choice (less than 50 per cent think this).