Expensiveness, life perspective, world events, and then pressure and exhaustion.
Such is the mood of young people in Germany, according to a recent survey. On top of that, a significant turn towards the political right can be observed.
Regular research into the mood of young people began during the pandemic, but continued even after that. Some may have believed that after the restrictions due to the corona, vibrancy and optimism would return among young people, but a survey of a representative sample of 2.042 people between the ages of 14 and 29 conducted this January showed the exact opposite: young people in Germany are sinking deeper into pessimism and depression .
Admittedly, the reason for dissatisfaction has changed: now the fear for one's own future is spreading more and more. At the same time, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East in 2022 worried 68 percent of those asked, and now it is 60 percent. There are also expensive apartments and divisions in society, and young people seem to be thinking about poverty in their old age as well... At the same time, there is a big change in thinking about migration: in 2022, 22 percent of those asked were worried about it, a year later 25 percent , and now it has jumped to 41 percent.
This is also reflected in the political attitude: if the young people who were asked in the survey went to the polls, three years ago 27 percent of them would be for the Greens, and now 18 percent.
The populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) then had nine percent of support, and now it has 22 percent.
The heads of the research, Simon Schnetzer, Klaus Hurelman and political scientist Kilian Hampel, point out that the right-wing AfD meanwhile has positioned itself well on social networks such as TikTok, and that for the majority of young people (57%) social networks are the main, and often the only, source information.
But it is not only a question of the source of information, but also of the overall mood. Perhaps because of so many stories about the disaster due to climate change, the topic is of less interest to young people in the latest survey (2022: 55%; 2024: 49%). At the same time, they believe less and less that in twenty years they will live in a world worth living in.
"Our study shows that there is a deep mental insecurity and a loss of confidence in the fact that one can influence one's own and the living conditions of the entire society," assesses Simon Shnetzer. "Prospects for some kind of good life are disappearing. The biggest question for all those who make decisions in society will therefore be how to inspire young people for any positive vision and how to include them in the process of change."
However, 22 percent of those asked still say that they "don't feel any of the mentioned psychological difficulties", and approximately half believe that they will "already somehow" succeed. However, it is far from some kind of youthful optimism that could be expected at their age.
And other regular surveys of the mood of young people, such as that of the "Shell" concern, confirm that young people do not have the impression that anyone in society cares about their problems, but, they believe, the only imperative is to "succeed" in life. And what does that mean - this is where opinions differ more and more between generations.
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