The worried, the competitive and the indifferent—Approaches to the future in youth, their structural roots and outcomes in adult life
Introduction
There are several reasons to take an interest in individuals’ attitudes and approaches to the future. Apart from being important components of future studies [1], they can constitute central elements in both psychological and sociological research agendas [2], [3], [4], [5]. Furthermore, a longitudinal approach to the study of the way people view the future allows for the exploration of several interesting questions. How do different groups of individuals perceive the future and is there a relationship between individuals’ outlooks on the future and actual outcomes later in life?
This study investigates three different approaches to the future among youth. To what extent do young people worry about the future? Are there signs of indifference? Or do young people see their future from a competitive perspective? In addition to describing the prevalence of these alternatives, the study has two main objectives, the first of which is sociological whereas the second is primarily based on theoretical elements drawn from psychology and social medicine.
The study's first objective is to investigate the relationship between gender and social class on the one hand, and approaches to the future on the other. Are there structural roots underlying the way we approach the future? The second objective is to study the relationship between attitudes to the future in youth, and a number of actual outcomes in adult life. Is there a link between worry, indifference and competitiveness during youth, and outcomes measured in terms of educational attainment, economic hardship and even the mortality risk in adult life? This type of research is rare and it is made possible in this context by access to unique longitudinal survey- and register data in which individuals can be followed from childhood until their late 40s. The data also enable us to control for economic and social aspects of childhood living conditions – factors which may influence both approaches to the future and outcomes in adult life.
The next section presents a brief overview of existing research of relevance to the study. The presentation begins with a discussion of research on attitudes to the future in general, and then briefly reviews studies of the long-term effects of childhood living conditions and studies dealing with worry, indifference and competitiveness. The database employed in the empirical analyses is then described along with the operationalisations used in the study. Following presentation of results, the paper concludes with a discussion of the findings.
Section snippets
Previous studies on future outlooks and attitudes
The study draws upon previous research from four main areas: the multidisciplinary field of future studies, psychology, sociology and social medicine. To start with the first, studies of attitudes towards the future and future outlooks are considered a central component of future studies [6], [7], [8]. Young people's outlooks on the future are of particular interest, since they are believed to say something about tomorrow's attempts at shaping reality, and by extension, perhaps even about the
Long term effects of childhood living conditions
The consequences of childhood living conditions for individuals’ life chances are a fundamental issue within the social sciences [5], [15], [16], [17], [18]. We know from numerous studies that poverty and economic hardship have various types of negative consequences for children [16], [19], [20], [21]. Fewer studies have investigated the consequences of poor childhood living conditions for adult life chances, but those that have tend to find that the negative consequences of child poverty
Previous research about worry, indifference and competitiveness
Research of relevance for the approaches to the future examined here has been conducted both within the field of future studies and on the basis of theoretical perspectives drawn from psychology and social medicine. Worry has been the subject of a considerable amount of research. Whereas the interest in future studies has mainly been directed at the prevalence of worry about the future and at differences between groups of individuals in this respect, the fields of psychology and social medicine
Data – The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study
The Stockholm Birth Cohort Study, SBC, is a longitudinal database created by means of a fusion of two anonymised data sets [58], [59]. The first of these is the Metropolitan Study, which comprises all individuals born in 1953 and resident in Greater Stockholm ten years later [60]. The Metropolitan Study includes a massive amount of register and survey data relating to both the individuals in the sample themselves and to their parents.
The second data set, to which the information on the
Outcomes
The approaches to the future reported during early adolescence are tested in relation to three different outcomes in adult life, of which the first is economic hardship. In line with, e.g. Bäckman and Nilsson [17], we use receipt of means-tested social assistance as an indicator of economic hardship. To be eligible for this type of benefit, the household must have exhausted virtually all of its financial resources [17]. Respondents who received social assistance at least once between 1990 and
Structural roots of approaches to the future – the role of gender and social class
Nine (9) per cent of the respondents suffer from worry, whereas eleven (11) per cent were classified as indifferent and seven (7) per cent as competitive. The correlations between the different approaches overall were small or nonexistent, but a positive and significant correlation was found between worry and competitiveness (r = .09). The majority of respondents – 76 per cent – have not been classified as either worried, indifferent or competitive.
Table 1a, Table 1b show approaches to the future
Approaches to the future in adolescence and outcomes in adult life
Logistic regression analysis has been employed to assess the relationship between background factors, approaches to the future and adult outcomes. Approaches to the future in youth, background factors and childhood living conditions are added to the model stepwise. If the approaches to the future under study are found to be related to adult outcomes even when background factors and social and economic problems during childhood are controlled for, this would indicate an independent effect of the
Discussion
The study has had two main objectives. The first was to study the “structural roots” of three different types of approaches to the future in youth: worry, indifference and competitiveness, while the second was to investigate the relationship between approaches to the future in youth and three types of outcome in adult life – economic hardship, educational attainment and mortality risk.
As regards structural explanations for approaches to the future, gender did not turn out to be an important
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