Study title

The survey studied the attitudes of Finnish young people towards the European Union, and their participation in the European Parliamentary elections in June 1999. The Advisory Council for Youth Affairs (NUORA) followed the election behaviour of Finnish young people under 30 years of age in the 1999 parliamentary elections, the 1999 European Parliamentary elections and the presidential elections of the year 2000. By monitoring the voting behaviour of the youth, NUORA wanted to pay attention to young people's low turnout in elections, and to find out which factors contributed to this lack of interest. The survey covered topics such as the respondents' opinions on the functioning of democracy in Finland, in the European Union, and on the local level. The respondents' knowledge about the EU and the European Parliament, and their views on Finland's EU membership were surveyed. Further questions focused on their causes of concern, political and social activities, voting behaviour in the European Parliamentary elections, and reasons for abstaining from voting. Participation in voluntary organisations was studied. The respondents were asked how effective they considered certain political participation methods to be: voting in elections, contacting politicians or public officials, expressing opinions in the media, participating in demostrations, boycotting, participating in political parties' activities, etc. One question pertained to how certain the respondents were that they were going to vote in the forthcoming presidential elections in 2000. Finally, the respondents were asked whether they would give their consent to be contacted after the forthcoming presidential elections. Background variables included the respondent's gender, age, basic and vocational education, economic activity, occupational group, housing tenure, household compostition, type of neighbourhood, income level, vocational education of the parents, and own, spouse's and parents' unemployment periods....