Young people in Romania want a country like the outside. But, because they don’t have it here, they look for it abroad. That is why the desire to emigrate for a better life has already become a goal for many of them. According to a study launched by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Romania, young people are disappointed on all levels. Corruption, the poor quality of the education system, financial and economic insecurity, the medical system full of hiccups and legislative gaps, the border war, but also the feeling that they are abandoned by the authorities and the political class are their main grievances and fears.
Young Romanians, disillusioned and thinking of a better life abroad. Photo source: archive
A generation of sacrifice
Everything starts from the lack of money, from a precarious financial situation that more and more young people are feeling to the full, believes economic analyst Adrian Negrescu. “Money buys you education, health and safety. Basically, money ensures you a better quality of life and which many, willingly or out of necessity, seek in other European countries. And not only. I could say that we are talking about a lost generation from the perspective of the chances to create a path in life. It is a generation of sacrifice, a generation strongly affected by the financial efforts that parents have to make to have a better life”, the specialist commented for “Adevărul”.
Young people leaving school face their first challenge in life: finding a well-paid job. “It’s a generation of compromises, so finding a well-paying job at a young age is practically a near-impossible mission. The majority of young people accept jobs for the minimum wage in the economy, they are looking for solutions to have the minimum financial means to have a more or less normal life”, continues the analyst.
“But, on the other hand, he says, it is difficult to tell employers to hire young people just because they are young. They must have the opportunity to demonstrate that their work is important and requires a higher salary,” says Adrian Negrescu.
Romanian education puts uneducated young people on the conveyor belt
Cătălin Nan, the president of the Federation of Parents, believes that many of the young people who leave school receive low wages when they are employed because they are very poorly prepared.
“And here it is not necessarily their fault, but the fault of the education system that formed them. Or, better said, it didn’t form. We no longer have any university among the first 1,000 in the world. So, from this point of view, we don’t even exist. We are therefore talking about a system that is not concerned with preparing these young people for life. Everything starts from education and until we understand this we will not be able to help these children, until we allocate financial and human resources to education, nothing will change”. consider the parent. “Generation Z is very poorly prepared. That is why employers prefer to bring labor from India or Pakistan. It’s terrible. Our young people, many of them, are terribly thin. And the Romanian employer needs qualified people, specialists”.
Cătălin Nan makes a comparison with the German system, where young people are supported, encouraged, where, once they have left school, they have real chances to get a good job and a decent salary. “They are light years away from us. German companies have revenues, budgets that allow them to do things adjacent to their field of activity. They take, for example, young people who do not perform well in education and educate them, pay for certain training courses, put them through some very well-designed programs, some companies even hire teachers to teach these children”.
Solutions
According to the study launched by the Friedrich Ebert Romania foundation, young Romanians hardly break away from their parents and family, they fly “from the nest” after the age of 30. How late they start their own families. And this tendency comes, to a large extent, also from financial considerations. And so we find ourselves in a vicious circle. They don’t have an education, they don’t have money, they don’t have the resources to become independent, they don’t move into their own homes, they don’t start a family, they don’t become parents late. “It is a generation that needs career plans, that needs solutions, support from the state, from the business environment. However, other measures are also needed to give them the impetus to start a family and stay here in the country”believes economic analyst Adrian Negrescu. The expert believes that we are facing a generation of people who have to manage on their own, who do not benefit from any help except from their families. “It’s a generation of survivors, given the current economic conditions.”
What should the Romanian state do to keep young people in the country? First of all, says Adrian Negrescu, the authorities could think of certain policies to support and encourage them. “It would be about lower taxes on salaries, about loans with subsidized interest for the purchase of the things they need, and I mean here from the house, to the car, to the furniture, to the appliances, to everything related to daily life day. Then, young people would also need fiscal and financial facilities to induce them to give birth to children, create a family and stay in the country”.
As far as employers are concerned, the state could also intervene here. “To offer some financial aid companies, especially small companies, to support them, to get them to support these people for at least 2-3 years in their activity and not to leave them at the first problem that that company registers”.
