Youth Study Macedonia 2013

Attitudes of Macedonian Youth towards: leisure and lifestyle. Belief and affiliation issues. Family and friends. Concerns and aspirations. Education and profession. Democracy and politics. Governance and development. Nation and the world: Macedonia and the EU integration.

Topics: 1. Leisure and lifestyle: frequency of selected leisure time activities; hours watched TV on a usual day; hours per day for internet usage overall; main reasons for internet activities; personal values (e.g. loyalty, independence, career, engagement in politics, own appearance, etc.); smoker status; frequency of alcohol consumption; rating of alcohol consumption as acceptable, as necessary for maintaining a certain social network or as unacceptable; satisfaction with own appearance; sexual relations; usage of protective means in sexual life; opinion on virginity.

2. Belief and affiliation issues: level of trust in family members, relatives, friends, neighbors, classmates or colleagues, people with a different religion, with different political beliefs or with different ethnicity, religious leaders and political leaders; attitude towards different hypothetical neighborliness (student’s couple, pensioner’s couple, homosexual couple, Macedonian family, Albanian family, Serbian family, Turkish / Bosnian family, Vlach family, family from Kosovo, from other Balkan countries, from Western Europe, and from the US); experience of discrimination due to selected reasons; three most important values; personal engagement in voluntary activities and kind of these voluntary activities; main reason for personal engagement in voluntary activities; denomination; regularity of religious activities.

3. Family and friends: respondent lives alone or with close family members, with partner or with friends / relatives; reason why the respondent lives with parents; relationship to parents and siblings; family member with the most influence on decision the respondent takes on important issues; decision on important issues together with parents or alone or parents decide for everything; expected personal family situation (e.g. married and with a family, etc.); main advantage of marriage compared to cohabitation; main advantage of cohabitation compared to marriage; adequate age for marriage for women and men; desired number of children and desired number of girls and boys.

4. Concerns and aspirations: wish to move to another town in Macedonia; main reason to move; consideration to immigrate abroad; most desired country to immigrate; main reason to immigrate abroad; duration of the intended stay abroad; self-assessment of the current financial situation and of the living conditions; expected personal living conditions in the future; purpose of life (e.g. necessity of moral values, focus on career, believe in fate).

5. Education and profession: current enrollment in educational institutions (high school, university, Master/PhD); self-rated motivation towards school; assessment of a typical day at school; average grade during the last academic year; existence of a phenomenon of ´purchasing/buying´ school grades and exams; number of hours per day for studies; continuing at university; choice of higher education according to inclination or due to secure earnings and more chances; reasons for the decision not to continue a higher education / university; perception on the quality of education in Macedonia (primary, secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate); preference for foreign education, domestic education, or partial studies abroad; preferred country for studies abroad (United States, country in the EU, country in the region); participation in a professional practice / internship; find a job immediately after finishing the current education; need for reform of the educational system in Macedonia; part or full time employment; working hours per week; working in profession obtained; preferred sector of employment; ranking of important factors to find a job in Macedonia (connections / friends, professional abilities, education level, political connections, luck or other factor); ranking of important factors to accept a certain job (income, employment certainty, possibility to work with people you like, pleasure derived from work); readiness to start own business; most important motive for pursuing own business; main reason to open own business.

6. Democracy and politics: personal interest in political affairs (world politics, politics on the Balkans, in Macedonia and EU politics); political interest of the parents; similarity of own political beliefs with those of the parents; frequency of participation in elections; influence of the own vote on the way institutions on central and local level are managed; main sources of political information; pro-opposition / pro-government self-placement; left-right self-placement; feeling of being represented in politics; trust in selected institutions; satisfaction with democracy in Macedonia; opinion on the extent of the rights of women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, disabled people and poor people.

7. Governance and development: degree of anxiety provoked by selected problems (e.g. increasing poverty, unemployment, environment pollution, etc.); biggest problem in Macedonia at the moment; present economic situation in Macedonia; expected economic situation in the next several years; mainly responsible for providing economic development; political development of the country in the right direction; willingness to political engagement.

8. Nation and the world: Macedonia should access the European Union; expected effect of the EU-integration; influence of the EU integration process on selected issues (economic development, foreign direct investment, domestic politics, stability, human rights, technological development, national values and national identity); benefits associated with Macedonia’s EU integration; expected time period for the EU-accession; personal vote in the case of a referendum for Macedonia’s accession for the EU and NATO; assessment of the government’s engagement concerning the EU-accession.

Demography: gender; age; household size; highest educational level of respondent and his parents; close family has owned a small business; employment status; house is a family property, a rented property, or property of relatives; number of rooms; ethnicity; marital status; number of children; possession of durable goods (economic status): second apartment, bank account, credit or debit card, mobile phone, personal computer / laptop, internet connection at home, bicycle, motorcycle, paid TV platform (cable or satellite, color TV, LCD/Plasma (flat screen) TV, video recorder / DVD, digital photo camera / video camera, air conditioner, dishwasher, refrigerator, washing machine and car.

Additionally coded was: ID; region; age group; degree of urbanity.