What makes young Hungarians tick?

Family comes first, politics comes last for most young people in Hungary these days. This is one of the findings of a new survey by GFK Hungaria - a market research company. They looked into the lifestyle, habits and opinions of 14 to 24 year-olds in Hungary.

Illustrative photo: archive of ČRo 7 - Radio Prague

The survey on the lifestyle, habits and views of young people in Hungary was carried out at the request of the Ministry for Children, Youth and Sports Affairs. Their initial assumption was that youngsters in Hungary represent increasingly conservative values: more often than not, the young ones asked were fairly right-wing in their approach towards, for example, family or work, even more so than their parents. Researcher at GFK Hungária, Ernő Bajai says at this point most of them would also vote right.

"They see two strong parties the Fides on the right and the actual governing party - on the left. And if they voted now, 29% would vote for the actual opposition and 13´% for the socialist party."

A different part of the survey on young Hungarians was aimed at finding out about their level of tolerance in connection to minority groups of all sorts. When evaluating the answers in this section, analysts also had to come to the conclusion that those who had filled out the questionnaire in the absence of their parents were less prejudiced towards minorities than others. Bajai also says Hungarian youngsters have rather surprising preferences among those who are "different" in one way or another.

"It was an interesting question - would you tolerate if you're neighbors were drug dependent, gypsies, alcoholics, criminals, homosexuals, Muslims and Jews. Most of them, 61%, said they wouldn't live in a neighborhood of drug addicts. But a high percentage also said they wouldn't like to live near gypsies and alcoholics. The religious minorities, the Jews and Muslims, got the lowest rejections."

In order to find out more about the values and habits of young people in Hungary, the survey also contained a question on what they spend their money on. Here, the figures generally portray them as the children of a perfect consumer society, the lovers of trends and fashion.

"They spend only 15% of their pocket money for partying - this is the 2nd reason for spending for them. They spent most of their pocket money on clothing."

The fears of young Hungarians concerning the future are moving on a rather large scale concludes the survey, however, the most frequent ones tend to be unemployment, diseases and war. So many youngsters afraid of unemployment was a surprise to analysts, as the latest changes in the country's economy do not provide a basis for worries of such proportions.