Young People in East and West (April 2024)

The study on young people in East and West was conducted by Verian on behalf of the Federal Press Office. In the survey period from 02.04.2024 to 17.04.2024, the German-speaking population between the ages of 14 and 24 was surveyed in online interviews (CAWI) on the following topics: life goals and values, political attitudes, future prospects and expectations. The respondents were selected using a quota sample from an online access panel (oversampling of East Germans - 517 respondents in the East and 811 in the West, equalization weighting for the overall sample).

Content:
1. Life satisfaction, social environment: general life satisfaction; life satisfaction with regard to various aspects (financial situation, housing situation, family situation, career prospects and old-age provision); ranking of the most important reference persons or reference groups (partner, friends, parents and siblings, other relatives, (school or university) teachers, trainers, coaches, celebrities, influencers on social media, athletes, others (open, coded answers: Club members/ community members, colleagues/ classmates/ fellow students, acquaintances, neighbors, social workers, therapists).

2. Future prospects and expectations: self-assessment of personal future prospects; future prospects with regard to selected areas (financial situation, housing situation, family situation, career prospects and retirement provision); future prospects in the aforementioned areas compared to parents; assessment of the future prospects of their own generation in Germany; most important and second most important political issue in Germany; rather confident/worried about developments in Germany in various areas (economic development, social security, social cohesion, cost of living, digitalization, transport infrastructure, healthcare, climate protection, immigration to Germany, external security and peace).

3. Values: life goals (self-realization, being free and independent, enjoying life, career, being there for others, taking responsibility, being assertive, being tolerant, living health-consciously, living environmentally consciously and sustainably, being financially secure, being able to afford nice things, being respected by others, not having to conform, consuming responsibly, none of the above); importance of various aspects for pursuing a (future) profession (secure job, adequate income, (interesting) work that is fun, compatibility of private life and career (work-life balance), career opportunities, being given responsibility/being allowed to make decisions, further training and development opportunities); career aspirations (open, coded); relocation from home; reasons for relocation; relocation plans; reasons for planned relocation; destination (back to home town, to a (different) town in West Germany, to a (different) town in East Germany, to a (different) rural region in East Germany, to a (different) rural region in West Germany, abroad, don´t know yet); attachment (identification) with the municipality/town, the federal state, West Germany/East Germany, the place of childhood, Germany and Europe; agreement with various statements about East and West Germany (it makes sense that there is a commissioner for East Germany in the federal government, West Germans often look down on East Germans, East Germans often feel like second-class citizens, young people have many future opportunities in East Germany, young people have many future opportunities in West Germany, there are no greater differences between West and East Germans than between North and South Germans, for example).

4. Information and communication: interest in politics; points of contact with politics in everyday life (frequency): at work, at school or university, in personal conversations with friends/family, when using social media, in leisure time/hobbies, in public spaces, in everyday media consumption; agreement vs. disagreement in political conversations with family and friends on selected topics (immigration and migration, climate protection, the war in Ukraine, gender-sensitive language, taking on new national debt and Middle East conflict); frequency of information about politics and political topics; media use: most frequently used sources of information about politics (e.g. news programs on television such as heute-journal or RTLaktuell, talk shows on television such as Anne Will or Hart aber Fair, websites of public institutions and authorities, satirical television programs such as ZDF Magazin Royale or Late Night Berlin, etc.); credibility of information from various actors (news and information from journalists, information on the internet from celebrities or influencers, information on the internet from “normal people” who are not personally known, speeches and contributions from politicians, opinions from family members, friends and acquaintances, information from the federal government).

5. Political attitudes: willingness to participate in the following elections: Local elections in the city/municipality, state elections in the federal state and federal elections; likelihood of participating in the European elections in June; satisfaction with democracy; opinion on democracy as an idea (good form of government vs. not so good form of government); opinion on the need for political reform in Germany; satisfaction with the work of the federal government; trust in institutions (judiciary, federal government, Bundestag, police, churches, schools/universities and trade unions); agreement with various statements on politics in Germany (Politics takes the concerns of young people seriously, Politicians use a language that is foreign and incomprehensible to me, Politics does not use the communication channels that young people use, Young people often have their say on political talk shows, Decision-making processes in politics are usually incomprehensible to me, Politics takes care of the really important problems, Young people have enough opportunities to influence politics, There is no party whose offer convinces me, The parties are only interested in power); agreement with opposing statements (7 levels): Debt is not a problem as long as the money is invested in education and infrastructure, which will benefit future generations vs. Debt is always at the expense of future generations, who will have to pay it back at some point, It is very important to me to realize myself and do my own thing vs. My environment and my friends are very important to me, for them I sometimes put my own needs on hold, I try to live as sustainably as possible, which means that I consciously do without certain things vs. I do what I feel like doing and buy what I like, even if it´s not sustainable, The state must gear its policies more towards the interests of future generations vs. The state must above all support the interests of those who have already made a contribution to our society, The state should actively intervene to tackle important future tasks such as climate protection and educational equality vs. The state should stay out of it as much as possible and leave the shaping of the future to society and the economy, My generation has very different values to the generations before it vs. My generation basically has very similar values to the generations before it, I am worried that too many foreigners are coming to Germany vs. I see immigration as an asset for Germany, In view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, we must massively strengthen our national and alliance defense vs. Armament only leads to more conflicts and escalation - we should disarm to signal that Germany is not a threat to anyone).