New survey results from ReachOut: young people and politics
Just a few days out from the election, a new survey conducted by frontline youth service, ReachOut, found that the top three issues of national political interest to young people were employment (65.5 per cent), housing affordability (57.9 per cent) and the cost of education (55.5 per cent).
The survey also showed the over 50 per cent of young people had been politically active in the last 12 months. One third of young people surveyed had signed an online petition, 14.6 per cent had posted on social media about a political issue and 7.8 per cent had attended a protest.
The findings are based on a nationally representative survey of 1,000 Australian young people aged between 16 and 25, conducted early this month (May 2019).
ReachOut CEO Ashley de Silva said that ReachOut’s research continues to find that ‘the future’ is an issue causing increasing worry for young people.
“Research we released last month showed that 45 per cent of young people were not confident or unsure of finding work in their chosen career after completing their studies. Now, we are anticipating this will be reflected in young people’s votes with 65.5 per cent concerned about their employment options – with 44.8 per cent saying they were moderately or extremely concerned,” Mr de Silva said.
“When it comes to immediate impacts on young people we know that stress about the future and finding a job is driving negative trends like increasing levels of exam stress. What’s positive to see is that young people are engaging in politics and particularly in areas they are passionate about,” he said.
Further, 33.1 per cent of young people surveyed were unsatisfied or very unsatisfied about the state of politics in Australia, with the majority of young people saying this was due to instability in political leadership, that political leaders appear insincere or dishonest and lack of accountability for politicians.
