New Generation and the Direction of politics – What Do Young People Think About Economic and Social Policy?

Summary

We use a conjoint survey experiment to understand the preferences of young Finns regarding economic and social policies. In this survey, respondents have to prioritize various socio-economic policy measures against each other. Due to the randomization, we can give causal interpretations to the results. Among the youth, there is a strong opposition to tightening the income taxation and support for reducing taxation. On the other hand, there is opposition to weakening unemployment benefits, and support for reducing class sizes in schools and for shortening the workday to six hours. These views jointly do not align well with correcting the sustainability gap in Finnish public finances. However, we observe some support for promoting work-based immigration. Banning fur farming receives strong support. The views of the young do not seem to differ much from the older generation, except that the young support reducing working hours. Although the socio-economic views of different generations are similar, their party-political views differ significantly from each other: young people especially support the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset). The support for the Finns Party is associated with, among other things, the use of Tiktok and the fact that young people have less trust in societal institutions than the older generation. The socio-economic policy views among the young vary strongly depending on whether the individual identifies as left-wing or right-wing, or liberal or conservative. There are also some significant differences between genders. The views of the Finns Party supporters are quite similar to those of other parties’ supporters, except that the Finns Party strongly opposes increasing work-based immigration and does not oppose fur farming. Our results suggest that even if party structures are under pressure to change in the coming years due to new voters, there are no anticipated changes in socio-political views that would facilitate measures to strengthen the economic foundations of the welfare state. There is also polarization of views among the young, suggesting that matching political measures into a coherent policy program will also be challenging in the future.

• ISSN: 2242-6914
• ISBN: 978-952-209-202-1
• Publication in PDF-format