Valér Veres: Future Plans in the Circle of the Hungarian Minority Youth and the Majority Youth in the Context of Social and Origin Background
Future planning of the Hungarian minority youth and the majority living in the Carpathian Basin is on the one hand determined by the region’s general social and economic state, and on the other hand by the situation of the social layer within the region. In the circle of those young people who live in better conditions in the regions – either the Hungarian minority or the majority – signs of the lengthening of youth life period, lengthening of life period at schools and the expansion of education is visible. These changes promote the expansion of post-material values that form the background of the second demographic transition of a Van de Kaa-type. These results confirm that statement that the East-Middle-European changes in having a baby and postponing the time for family planning and getting married are present not mainly in the regions that are in disadvantageous situation after the system changes, but on the contrary, in more advantageous regions (our examples are mainly the young people from the majority in East Slovakia, from which many live in the prosperous Bratislava).
The social and origin background within the regions also very significantly articulates future strategies. Mainly in the urbanised regions – like Belső-Erdély, Felvidék and Vajdaság – significant differentiation by social background can be seen. To the future plans we assigned youth groups having special social profile that to a certain extent harmonize with the class specific habits of Zinnecker-type and youth ideology. Young people with better economic and cultural background, the „elite“ chose enterprising characteristic of economic class fraction, and the cultural class fraction chose further study or more abstract, independent way of life that is one of the signs of becoming independent in young life, and as such is the expression of the process of youth period changes. These changes are present in Székelyföld and Kárpátalja even less slightly, but in the circle of young people in towns its signs are visible.
Intention to work abroad in Erdély are significantly strong, of which main reason is that the most part of young people is beside the change of attitudes in connection with the expansion of education and family planning is forced to realise its future plans that are compared with the opportunities „demanding“ abroad. This forcing power is seen in every region, but in different extent and forces the young people of majority and the local Hungarian young people to emigrate in the same extent. Although the opportunities to work abroad in the neighbouring Hungary are more realisable for the Hungarian young people, therefore following the recent trends, there are more Hungarians who emigrate.