One in five Germans between the age of 12 and 25 would not like to have a family of refugees as their neighbours, the 2019 edition of the Shell Youth Study has found.
What’s more, 18 percent of study participants said they would have issues with a family of ethnic Turks, 12 percent if it was a family with many children, 9 percent with a gay, lesbian, or transgendered family, and 8 percent with a family of Jews.
The study also found differences based on region, with youths in eastern Germany holding more favourable views toward Jewish neighbours, but also less favourable attitudes toward refugees.
Nationwide, German citizens tracing their origins in Muslim countries, were said to have been more apprehensive of Jews and persons from the LGBT community, with 14 percent and 18 percent admitting they wouldn’t like to have persons from these groups as neighbours.
The Shell Youth Study uses the question about neighbour preference as a means to measure tolerance.
Along with social issues, the study asked questions pertaining to politics, ecology, social justice, media preferences, the European Union, liberal and conservative values, nationalism vs cosmopolitanism, family, religion, education, professional aspirations, social standing and leisure.
The survey found that some 71 percent of young people consider pollution as their main fear, with terrorist attacks and climate change ranking second and third with 66 percent and 65 percent, respectively. 71 percent of respondents also supported the statement “I don’t think politicians care about what people like me think,” with the study classifying that as a “populist statement.”
Differences were also found in the attitudes of youths in western and eastern Germany, with eastern German young people still more likely to desire children than their western counterparts (71 percent compared to 67 percent), and eastern German male and females more less likely to support the concept of the man being the main breadwinner in the household (38 percent and 31 percent compared with 58 percent and 56 percent among western Germans).
The 2019 study, the 18th since 1953, surveyed 2,572 young people aged between 12 and 25 in face to face interviews between January and March.
