Saturday, May 25, 2019

Distrust in Institutions Far Greater Among Young Russians than Among Their Coevals Abroad


Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 24 – A new international survey conducted by the Deloitte Company finds that members of General Y, those aged 24 to 35, distrust institutions far more than their parents and that this pattern is far greater among Russian young people than it is among their counterparts in other countries. 

            The company found, Moscow commentator Dmitry Milin says, that members of this age group around the world are disappointed in traditional institutions. On average, 73 percent say current political leaders aren’t capable of making the world better, and 66 percent say that religious leaders aren’t either (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5CE80B3652510).

            In Russia, the share of those holding these views is significantly higher: 82 percent of Russian young people say that political leaders can’t improve things, and 86 percent say the same thing about religious leaders, an obvious indictment not only of the Putin regime but especially of the Moscow Patriarchate.

            According to Deloitte, 29 percent of young people on average around the world are satisfied with their lives, but in Russia, only 18 percent are. And Russian young people do not expect to see the improvements others do. Only 11 percent of the Russians predict improvement in the future while 26 percent of the international sample do.

            A major explanation for this, Milin says, is the unhappiness many young people feel about the country’s political regime and its pressure on them especially via propaganda. Far more of them want to go abroad, 70 percent, than is the case of the international sample, in which only 57 percent expressed a similar desire.

            Deloitte polled 301 Russians for this survey. Almost all of them were drawn from major cities in European Russia. That may very well mean that the real Russian figures of despair among this age group are even higher for the country as a whole – or it may mean that anger and unhappiness are especially common in large urban areas.

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