Mass migration and climate change are the most important issues for young people in Sweden, according to a poll, with girls and boys being radically split on the two issues.
The survey, entitled ‘Young Opinion’, was released by polling firm Kantar Sifo and shows that half of all girls aged 13 to 26 believe that climate change is the most important issue facing the country while for men, the issues of mass migration and healthcare were the most pressing, Expressen reports.
Katrina Neimanem 18, told the newspaper, “I think on immigration, they have to agree a little better. There is a lot going on in both directions and they are not so good at compromising.”
Calle Glimbert, another 18-year-old, said that integration of new migrants needed to be improved.
“If you come here and have fled from any country, then at least I feel that it is quite common for them to stick everyone in the same place. Which in some cases does not work out well — and I feel they need to work on it,” Glimbert said, adding: “Everyone should get a ‘fair chance’ when they come here.”
The poll also revealed that the older the participants were, the less they believed the government actually listened to them and their ideas, with over half of those aged 13 to 15 believing that politicians listened to them.
The issues reflect a growing trend across several European countries in which populist parties have a substantial vote from young people under 35, including a poll in Austria that predicted the Freedom Party (FPÖ) could receive as much as 30 percent of the youth vote in May’s European Parliament elections.
In Italy, the figures are even more startling following their national elections last year, with around 75 percent of young, first-time voters claiming to have voted for populist parties such as the Five Star Movement and Matteo Salvini’s League (Lega).